My Journal

7/2/2025 Stephen Tong on Hebrews 5:13 凡只能吃奶的都不熟练仁义的道理，因为他是婴孩

Tong: Those who only preach the love of God, he has never truly loved his own church. Those who preach the righteousness of God, always come before God in holiness.

Tong: Why the pagans come before God in fear in the face of disasters while [childish] Christians, instead of "opportunity to suffer for God", blaming God, why? 不熟练仁义的道理. What did Paul say in Acts 24:25 before high officials, "...of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come!":

7/1/2025 So Tesla celebrated their first driverless Y-model car "delivery" service. This link includes the 3 minute video of the whole process. My only problem with this demo of theirs is how is the end transaction of so called "delivery" done? The end of the video only shows the arrival of destination where the crew claps and opened the driver's door. This is just a demo of robot/driverless auto driving from point A to point B. There were other videos of driverless taxi on Youtube already, chiefly pertaining to Waymo's self-driving taxies.

6/30/2025 I had another entry about this piece Czardas by Vittorio Monti, now again I'm reminded by the same Timothy Chooi, the famous part is around @2:00:

6/30/2025 Art of the day: "The Broad and the Narrow Way", English version of the German pietist image "Der schmale und der breite Weg", Print made by Anonymous artist, Published by Gawin Kirkham and Printed by the Headly Brothers, Issued in 1883, Lithograph on paper

This piece is referencing Matthew 7:13-14. When I saw this in my inbox I immediately was reminded of the same photo I took at Clyde's Deaconry, now in my 2023 General album: 20231014_160053.jpg. It was on sale for $10. I didn't buy. I didn't expect it to be a popular piece.

By Fr. Patrick van der Vorst, using Matthew 8:18-22 "Follow me" theme:

Our moralising print issued in 1883 offers a vivid allegorical panorama, illustrating the stark choice between worldly pleasure and virtuous living. The composition is divided into two contrasting paths. On the left, a grand, wide gate opens to the enticing road of earthly delights. Its path is smooth and alluring, but drawing crowds toward distant mountains consumed by fire and destruction. The sky above this side grows increasingly ominous, symbolising the ultimate ruin that follows a life of indulgence. In contrast, the right side presents a narrow, humble gate, barely noticeable, leading to a steep and arduous road. This path winds past a cross, traversing bridges, valleys, and rocky terrain, symbolising the trials of a virtuous life. Yet above it, the heavens glow with peace and light, revealing that this difficult road leads to eternal joy and union with God. The contrast between darkness and light in the sky above each path powerfully underscores the eternal consequences of our choice: to follow Christ or not.

6/29/2025 We have a missionary, Barry Schutter, who was from GCC long ago, whose work is in London, preaching at our church today. His Sunday School presentation was great, one of the few best from the list we have so far of missionary ministries our church support. Because it looks like he really go out there on the streets to do evangelism, an active role. His sermon also displayed such calling. They have this program called LEAP where they take visiting Christians such as us to experience their London ministry alongside them. His sermon was on the Great Commission of Matthew 28, and on the missionary John Gibson Paton.

I finally got the chance when the pastor has another round of congregant's choice of hymns today. I immediately shouted out #42. Which is the Charismatic favorite modern piece: El Shaddai. My favorite as well, which I discovered, surprisingly in our PCA hymnal the last time the pastor did this hymnals by request thing. I've practiced it on piano ever since. The funny thing is I wasn't aware that the pastor was unfamiliar with this piece (this is popular in the early 90s, mainly among Charismatics) so he was shocked as well @8:00 when most of the congregation (I wonder who) were able to sing this piece well enough. I also loved the way Patty played it on the piano.

Gn. stayed longer in the fellowship meal and helped clean out garbage, out of my expectation.

Nadia seems to think things are against her today: She talked to E. about Joy but failed to convince her that our church lacks caring heart as Joy would likely have put it.

Met some folks from the founding of this church, Ken & Linda (now at South Ridge Community Church in Clinton, probably non-denominational), and there could be others, who came to visit due to Barry Schutter. There's a family of new comers whom I've forgotten their names, I believe their baby's name was Calvin.

Update 11/13/2025 This is a long awaited one, a criticism on Barry Schutter. Upon mentioning to Steve, I think, about our church's need for ministering to the kids, such as Children's Sunday School during sermon session, Barry Schutter interrupted with the term "Parenting in the pews", as if that's the more ideal approach, but he was facing Steve instead of me when he said it, he also stressed that he's not going to be dogmatic about it, as if he's trying to avoid conflict. I didn't respond at the time as I knew about Parenting in the Pews, first heard from some ultra conservative group on Facebook(run by Scott Brown) that promoted homeschooling, didn't quite agree with the way they presented parenting in the pews, but also wasn't interested enough to look into it at the time. Now, I could easily point now Barry Schutter's error: "Of course it shouldn't be dogmatic, because parenting in the pews is nothing but an IDOLATRY! If the children aren't learning anything substantial from the Bible after a Sunday Service. Something I call a Baptist oversight/error." I like Schutter's approach in evangelism and he probably taught his children about the Bible at home, but he failed horribly on this one. This is also why I think a lot of children of elders and pastors (especially of the very conservative churches) are hell-bound.

A quick AI look up on Parenting in the Pews (ClaudeAI) shows that the origin of such is not Reformed, but Baptist. If that is true, it's not surprising of the obtuse origin. The idea is to discipline children to worship corporately from an early age. This is emphasized in the late 20th century and especially from the homeschooling movement of the 80s & 90s and the family-integrated church movement in Baptist/non-denominational churches. Reformed took a more diverse approach: Catechism classes with age-appropriation alongside services. The Dutch and the Calvinists (Geneva) instructed children separately from adult services; while the Scottish Presbyterian developed Sunday School program in the 19th century. It seems that the conservative Reformed churches that practice family-integrated service are under Baptist influence. Continental Reformed generally separates worship education according to age. Here's Claude AI summary:

____________________

Baptist emphasis:

• Family as primary ecclesiastical unit
• Parents as primary disciplers
• Skepticism of "delegating" spiritual formation

Reformed emphasis:

• Church as covenant community (broader than nuclear family)
• Parents AND church officers share teaching responsibility
• Corporate worship AND catechetical instruction

Conclusion

While both traditions value children in worship, the specific "parenting in the pews" movement and rhetoric is more Baptist/Evangelical in flavor. Reformed churches traditionally kept children in worship as baptized covenant members, but were more flexible about age-appropriate instruction methods.

The modern "family-integrated church" push is largely a Baptist corrective to the perceived excesses of age-segregated programming, which then influenced some Reformed churches secondarily.

__________________

My conclusion: Parenting in the Pews is only good if some child is wise enough to evaluate the quality between the children catechism class and the preacher's adult sermon, and given the choice to choose the more edifying one. So it's not all bad, but in general, especially the way it's defined in modern conservatism, it's bad.

The Baptist way in this parenting in the pews, if successful (that their children stayed in the faith growing up), would generally lead to an anti-intellectual route, because it can only become more tribal if the foundation is just family integration. Fools would still run this program. If failure, perhaps it's a good thing, because though some children would grow up being anti-Christian (which is the origin of most American atheists), so now we know this Baptist way doesn't work.

The Reformed way, if failed, than it's because of the program, which the Baptists fear and are rightly skeptical of. If successful, then it is certainly way better than the "parenting in the Pews" approach.

6/28/2025 We have Caesar's family over for dinner today. We talked about predestination because of Joy's absence from our church. I found myself lacking in explaining certain more basic principles well enough: Why does motive matter, why minor differences matter, etc. I've also looked up Timothy Christian School (not bad if based solely on the reviews) which is in Piscataway, the closest Christian (not Catholic) school I could find for Caesar's kid, whom he thought had no other good conservative schools in the area other than a Catholic school he has his eye on. I didn't get a chance to tell him because he apparently had a fever the day after and did not show up in church.

Stephen Tong on (Video clip below) Francis Schaefer: Only 4 of his books worth reading, the rest are of no importance LOL.
1. The God Who Is There
2. He Is There and He Is Not Silent
3. Escape from Reason
4. How Should we then Live

6/27/2025

I got another ticket promotion for the STEMI concert in July. This time from Lyna. I think CCCNY is probably the local church responsible for promoting this concert in NYC. I think Rev. Lin is having a hard time selling the tickets, 1. due to location (some aristocratic place instead of the center of NYC like Madison Square Garden) and 2. bad ticketing system (not clarifying if these free tickets are pick up or required or what not). This is the result of her anti-Gospel stand, a disgrace in Christendom.

So David Tong also critiqued the phrase in his FB, following RC Sproul: "God hates the sin but loves the sinner", Sproul's response: Don't take a lot of comfort in that, sinner. Because it's not the sin that he sends to Hell, it's the sinner."

Thought the context is obviously saying that grace is not a license to sin, which can only be agreed by the rare stupidity, this criticism is often used by those who are actually lazy to preach the Gospel actively/directly to non-believers. And my response to him was:

Sejujurnya, saya mempelajari kutipan ini "God hates the sin but loves the sinner." pertama kali dari Stephen Tong. Namun, tentu saja dalam konteks yang berbeda, karena yang diselamatkan adalah pendosa.

Tapi aku tidak mempermasalahkannya, jika kritikan ini datang dari mereka yang bekerja kuat dalam penginjilan. Sayangnya, hal ini tidak terjadi di kalangan orang Kristen yang di sekitarku.

6/26/2025

David Tong on Facebook: Stephen Tong is not anti-miracle...

Pdt. Stephen Tong tidak anti mukjizat. Bahkan satu keluarganya percaya karena ada yang mendoakan kesembuhan. Dia hanya anti orang yang memalsukan mukjizat.

And my comment: Bisa dikatakan bahawa pelayanannya dimulai dengan mukjizat di rumah sakit ketika berusia 17, sebagai pengusir setan

This is a Tim Keller thing in his book Counterfeit Gods, but the illustration below is a convenient summary, those that are listed on the right as "Also Sin" are most ignored or defended for, and my answer to this good post was simply: "in short, pastor-worship, own family before God's family, etc." In case this picture link below is broken, here's the list:
Sin: absolute bad things =
Lying, cheating, stealing, sexual immorality, murdering, pride, envy, wrath, gluttony

Also Sin: relative bad things/good things turned into idols =
Work, talents, family, sports, music, social media, hobbies, friends, self-image, food, spiritual leaders, romantic relationship

I could also add more of course: health, wealth, volunteer/charity deeds, etc.

Thursday Swam at Edison's LA Fitness. Overall, Edison is my favorite branch, because it's less people in the pool most of the time. I don't need fat people floating around me testing the buoyancy of the water with some delusion of placebo effect. This is the clip of my swim, for freestyle and butterfly stroke/dolphin kick:

6/22/2025 Sunday School covered John Chrysostom.

@9:00 When Bob asked about the connection of Chrysostom with Transubstantiation, the pastor erred in saying that view came later. The term Transubstantiation came later, by Thomas Aquinas, but Chrysostom had already preached the concept in his Matthew Homily 82 "...become the body and blood of Christ..." as real presence, and in his other works.

@16:00 I think the pastor is confused as he claims that Chrysostom was preaching justification by faith = by faith alone, against Rome who prays to him. In Homily 11 on 2 Corinthians, he states: “Faith without works is dead… for faith is completed by works.” It would seem that the pastor practices something similar to veneration, or pastor worship, meaning he doesn't wish to see the cons much from those who are deemed better in Christ, and to see the pros much from those who are deemed problematic. I cannot be sure, curious, if he ever touched on Origen, which will be telling, while Nadia and I were in Malaysia.

I asked S. of where he was for missing the Men's Fellowship the day before, he said he was with F3. It's not the first time I heard of F3 (Fitness, Fellowship, Faith) from him, so I just looked it up. It's started by Christian men but open to all faiths in general. I would say the focus is on a disciplined physical lifestyle. Which is good.

Then met a new guy, Jason, probably ABK (American born Korean), who introduced himself as a medical graduate at first, but we later learned that he had also graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary. Despite being a liberal seminary, he was quick to realized the errors of the institution with his evangelical background. He was then attracted to Reformed materials from a fellow student in Princeton who had PCA background apparently. I didn't get a chance to investigate further because some other people love to interrupt and talk about themselves, a usual problem in any group talk more than 2 people. It would seem that he sought to be ordained as a minister. He's already had his eye on Covenant Presbyterian Church in Shorthills (where Jared Smith who preached at ours a couple of times is an elder) as the church for him and his wife and child. So it's likely we won't see much again. But he does gravitate towards reformed, albeit he maybe fundamentalist (i.e. couldn't tell the difference between Reformed vs. biblical), seeing seminary as holding some over-elevated authority (i.e. don't study Karl Barth, Augustine, because they are flawed), as he went into Princeton blindly, theological-wise. Probably like how John Sung went to Union Theological Seminary. The only difference was that Jason wasn't gutsy enough to be treated as a crazy patient like John Sung. He said he's doing online study with Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, which according to AI, is more fundamentalist than Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS). It's good enough, I cannot expect too much anyway. He's still considered a rare gem for me.

There's also an older Chinese couple who attended our church a second time today. The husband claimed that they were missionaries in Osaka, from Taiwan. They were just looking for a church here for their son-in-law or something. I didn't get a chance to chat more as Matt took over the conversation, again speaking mostly about himself. All I got was this old WTS graduate works for some missionary organization called IHOP (not likely to be the Charismatic one), but I couldn't find it online, and Matt interrupted again when I tried to prompt for further detail. I think the wife was chickened out and wanted to leave early (not staying for refreshment) maybe because she was afraid to speak English. So that's all I know about them so far. A little too shy to be missionaries, if you ask me. Probably won't see them again since it's not their motive. Maybe I'll ask Matt about this IHOP business since he seems to be the know it all about this.

In the Bible, the Hebrew has vague distinct vocabulary for the word fear:
יראה (yirah, H3374, also yare H3372 H3373, mostly positively, for reverence)
פּחד (pachad, H6343, also H6342, mostly negatively, for dread, terror)
מורה (mora, H4172, mostly negatively, for dread, terror)
It seems for the Hebrew, though they have at least 3 terms for fear, they do interchange them sometimes.

In Greek, we have about at least 3 but more distinct meaning terminologies:
εὐλάβεια (eulabeia, G2124, good reverence, twice: Heb 12:28, Heb 5:7), εὐλαβέομαι (eulabeomai, G2125, thrice: Heb 11:7, Act 23:10, Heb 11:7), εὐλαβής (eulabes, G2126, thrice: Luk 2:25, Act 2:5, Act 8:2) Also note that in Koine Greek (from Alexander the Great 336-323 BC), εὐ is pronounced as the modern Greek pronunciation "ef", not "eu" which is the pronunciation in classical Greek (from 5th & 4th Century BC) which is older than Koine Greek.
δειλία (deilia, G1167, timidity or cowardice, only once 2Ti 1:7, 胆怯), δειλιάω (deiliao, G1168, afraid, only once John 14:27), δειλός (deilos, G1169, fearful only thrice: Mat 8:26, Mar 4:40, Rev 21:8)
φόβος (phobos, G5401, also φόβητρον phobetron, G5400, φοβέω phobeo G5439, φοβερός phoberos G5398, mostly negative, but sometimes used as reverence: Eph 5:33)

In Chinese, we have the two obvious ones in general:
敬畏 (good) vs. 惧怕(bad). And these two terms are not confused.

6/21/2025 It seems like R. took my advice to do a Q&A during the Men's Fellowship instead of just only a full lecture. Turned out well even though R could only seem to ask the same question "What can you be thankful for" in the beginning and at the end. People were talking. Phil enjoyed it. The topic was on thanksgiving. I got distracted a bit and did my own deep thought contrasting real thanks and the fake thanks in Jesus' parable on the Pharisees and the Tax Collector. Then Rob reminded me of my "debate" with Ben a few days ago. It would seem that Rob was trying to defend both Ben and Bruce, by asking me, why is this important? I wasn't able to respond way at the time, as I just answered "by painting a very broad stroke, this shows that both Ben and Bruce are irresponsible." I should also add, that a narrower stroke would be, had I not mistaken what Ben & Bruce were implying, then, based on their logic: Ben would be saying that the Japanese people are basically uneducated (for not able to have an opinion about Japanese's awareness of Christianity in general), and Bruce is a fraud (for claiming to known French and yet not recognizing the existence of accents in any language). If they were too young or inexperience, then I really cannot see them as missionaries, but just some sort of assistants who couldn't pass the basics. Should I even doubt their confession? Their faith? Perhaps I should. Perhaps my questions for these from now on would be: are there any locals or converts under your "ministry" aspired to be in the ministry, to become a preacher, full/part time minister, missionary, etc.? How zealous are they? Do you have to warn them the hardship that it comes with or does it not matter?

Later that they, we paid a visit to Rob and Maria's home along with Joy and R & E, to comfort her in remembrance of her mother's passing. According to Nadia, this visit was first suggested by Joy, who was applying Romans 12:15 rightly.

Then when Nadia pointed to how I "debated" with Vincent and thus missed the Sunday service, Eleni tried to confirm with me at the table that I love debates. I think she meant well. But I wasn't prepared enough to answer her better, instead, I said "It's not really the debate, but I just wanted to get to the truth of things." What I should have said, is "Depending on the context of the debate, if it's with church members, then the goal was to initiate true and faithful fellowship before the Lord. If it's with those who think debate is immoral and proud (like Gene, I suppose), then I could use the "get to the truth" answer. I find that dealing with Eleni is beneficial with my English improvement, it's just that I often times couldn't give accurate sound bite answers at the time.

6/19/2025 Just came across these AR (Augmented Reality) smart swim goggles via Facebook ads. Holoswim.com vs. Formswim.com. Holoswim has better classic feature (peripherals and prescriptions-but only up to -7.0D) while Formswim is more expensive but has better AR technology (no need to press a button each lap, can show heart rate, etc.) per the youtube review below. I would sacrifice the prescription need and pick formswim's goggles. But since both could only link to apple/Garmin watches, I'd rather wait.

Either way, will need to monitor how I swim like before when the Holmdel LA Fitness was still around to improve myself:

Reflecting back: sermons, pastors, that I've encountered, the clip (Stephen Tong on Suffering - Hebrews 5) below reminds me of something I should have noted in my journal but may not have done so. It was about my disagreement against certain view of the so called "God's blessings" with some pastor getting a blank check by a wealthy church member for church planting, or some testimony about a $90k check given to an evangelist out of no where to kick start his ministry, some church leaders love to play the role of "introducers" connecting those who wish to serve the Lord with rich or famous people (in Christendom), etc. As if as long as it's not robbing a bank, anything with money is always God's blessings. Such is a weak understanding of Biblical suffering. Without Suffering, you cannot truly give thanks to God. Therefore, I not only look down on these ministers (despite giving them the honor they deserve of their title), I find their philanthropists even more despicable. For these are those who have too much money not knowing what to do with it, instead of those who are experiencing God's blessed work through whom they are giving to to show appreciation and as a sign of acknowledging the quality of the work done.

6/15/2025 In principle, I don't work with frauds in missionary fields. I don't generally take gospel-supporting too seriously, because simply put, they are just supporting, not Gospel-centered. Therefore, I could easily say to any church, including our Grace church, that I support your support of "missionaries". I put missionaries in quotes because I find most of them are bordering fraudulence as real missionaries. Some of their version of mission work is simply sitting at a coffee shop waiting for people to talk to. Today, we have Ben Shimomura, the second time I see him and his wife presenting their work during Sunday School hour. As expected, I wasn't impressed.

I later tried to confirm with him after service, something he said in the morning, about how foreign Japanese saw Christianity. I wasn't sure what he meant by that. As his answers seem vague sometimes to someone else's questions. It would seem that he didn't believe in judging a culture, or just being ridiculously ignorant as a missionary: "I don't work in China so I don't know what their view of Christianity is like" - not even some general clue? really? Sounds like he's influenced by the Western post-modern Christian/Charismatic "don't judge" christian culture.

So when I asked if Japanese was aware of the existence of Christianity, it seems that he thought I was asking if Japanese understood Christianity very well, and thus he said no. I tried various attempts to clarify but it seemed to hit a dead end: I asked, don't majority of Japanese do weddings in churches, his reply was, a church is just an European inanimate building, which has nothing to do with Christianity. Seemed that he was implying that I don't understand Christianity from that point on, which has nothing to do with my question.

Ben's not the worst. The worst on the list of "missionaries" here would probably be Bruce (I think that's his name), some guy who supposedly done mission work in South of France and Morocco. Said that he learned French for his work field. But when I asked if he could tell different French accents (i.e. African vs. France, etc.) he told me that French is a unique language that there cannot be accents in French. I was so shocked that I had to check with my French speaking friends on FB to confirm that he was lying, weeks later. It should be a no brainer, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he can't be that stupid or that much of a fraud. Not questioning his own French language (not yet anyway), but his understanding of how the world works.

Perhaps they both (B & B) hold to a perverse post-modern "judge not" interpretation of Matthew 7. "You've got to do a poll before you say anything about those people", "no such thing as an opinion without doing an official poll first", "I cannot tell you about anything places I've never been", "you need experience to say anything about it", etc.

Of course, both Bruce and Ben could simply misunderstood what I said. Which would be my fault. Although, I highly doubt I could say these any more plain. So in short, one says there's no accent in the French language; and the other says the majority of people in Japan are not aware of the existence of a religion called Christianity. Apropos of that, I would for now consider the "callings" of these two questionable if not fraudulence. I would think the London one (Barry Schutter) as such from just the word "London", but he's proven to be most legit among all I've seen. Woe is a church that has money not knowing where to spend. This concludes why when Rob asked, I refused to join the mission's team. I can play ball, but I would highly question their callings. It would seem more like they couldn't find other jobs in life, and this is an easy way out, to be a "missionary".

Now, onto Pastor Chris' sermon. It's on Acts 6. I find myself having to correct a couple of his messages in my notes:

Pastor: Why do I go to church? "Because I want God"

Me: To be with the children of God. "Because I want God" is just shallow and vague. You want God, go read the Bible.

Pastor: Why do people come to church? "For discipleship, through relationships (one introducing another to church)"

Me: That's conflating evangelism with going to church. Also, this answer can fail horribly as it's possible for the blind leading the blind (the greater the number, the greater the shame). The pastor could take his own medicine on this as he love to quote "You attract people to what you attract them with". Why do people come to church? Because they see the presence of God in the church.

I've also started practicing revising his questions for discussion and self reflection in the bulletin, since last week. To improve myself in correcting confusing questions and statements. These I will not post here for now, as they are trivial.

It just hit me from a conversation with my mother. It's not how well you can recite the Bible. It's not how eloquent you can convince people of God's sovereignty and election. It's not how astonish you can react to God's works. It's not how obedient you are of the statutes of God.

It's how much joy you find in the Lord in your affliction and suffering. In fact, inverse-proportionally (the more suffering the more joy). This is not some fake joy because fakeness won't last and is easily perceived to be vain. Paul said it. Peter said it. As the Lord in His own example taught it. Such is someone who has truly been admitted before the bosom of the Lord. A true believer indeed, if not professed to be reformed.