My Journal

I haven't read the book, but summaries and reviews I've read show that this perhaps Keller's best work.

I'll use Daniel Im's summary for now, highlighting his famous quotes from the book:

• An idol is something we cannot live without. We must have it.
• Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.
• Definition: An idol is anything more important to you than God. Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God. Anything you seek to give you what only God can give. Anything that is so central and essential to your life, that should lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.
• If I have that [idol], then I will feel like my life has meaning. Then I’ll know I have value. And I’ll feel significant and secure.
• The Bible uses three basic metaphors to talk about how people relate to the idols of their hearts: they love idols, trust idols, and obey idols. Spiritual adultery.
• Idols give us a sense of being in control and we can locate them by looking at our nightmares: What do we fear the most? What if we lost it would make life not worth living?
• Idols control us since we feel like we must have them or life is meaningless.
• Whatever controls us is our Lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people he or she wants to please. We do not control ourselves, we are controlled by the lord of our lives.
• We will always be disappointed by idols, there are four things you can do: You can blame the things that are disappointing you and try to move on to better ones (that’s the way of continued idolatry and spiritual addiction), you can blame yourself and beat yourself (that’s the way of self loathing and shame), you can blame the world (that’s how you get hard, cynical, and empty), or you can reorient the entire focus of your life on God.
• Jesus warns people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no one thinks they’re guilty of it.
• Tithing is a minimum standard for Christian believers.
• There’s only one way to change at the heart level…and that’s through the gospel.
• One sign that you’ve made success an idol is the false sense of security it brings. The poor and the marginalized expect suffering. They know that life on this earth is nasty, brutish, and short. Successful people are much more shocked and overwhelmed by troubles: Life isn’t supposed to be this way.
• It’s a lust…a longing to be inside...Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain ~ C.S. Lewis.
• It is impossible to understand a culture without discerning its idols.
• When you pray and hope for something and you don’t get it and you respond with explosive anger or deep despair, then you may have found your real god [idol].
• What are you looking to in order to justify yourself? It is a counterfeit god.
• You may know about the love of Christ with your head, but not your heart. How can that be remedied? This takes spiritual disciplines.
• Spiritual disciplines are forms of worship. And it is worship that is the final way to replace the idols of your heart. You can’t just get relief by figuring out your idols intellectually. You have to actually get the peace that Jesus gives…and that only comes when you worship. analysis can help you discover truths, but then you have to pray them into your heart. That takes time.

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.