My Journal

Recap:

Sunday School:

On the side note, while pondering on Ute's discussion regarding infant vs. believer's baptisms at Ocean Grove beach house, I realized something important. It's been there all along, but I just never would have put it this way as a persuasive argument, particularly to those who have great desire to have union and fellowship with others while still being caught in the false theology that believer's baptism brings. I could have tried:

Believers' baptism (BB) can never honestly accept paedobaptism (PB), but PB always readily accepts BB.

When I brought up John Piper's indirect rebuking of R.C. Sproul "Sproul, you are not baptized my brother", the group at the beach were appalled by Piper.

While we were doing our Week 7 topic on Prayer in Sunday School, going through WLC's questions on Prayer, I thought of building up a list of questions to ask Pastor Chris when the time comes to discuss with him about Evangelism (for myself) in the Bridgewater area. I shall put these questions in the comments here.

In Sunday School, the topic of what's heaven like was brought up. New Heaven and New Earth mentioned but the pastor support total destruction of the old and the complete creation of the new, instead of the historical Christian reformed approach of "renewal" and "restoration". I added an excerpt from a very good article on this from TGC in the comment section. The pastor's argument is of the fundamentalists' camp, focusing more dispensationally rather than covenantally. It is renewal or restoration because of Romans 8 and the fact that Jesus' resurrection was the first fruit of the new. Renewal is complete, but a completely new creation is basically ex-nihilo which is absurd as far as our resurrection goes. This fundamentalist view, which John MacArthur also holds is a bit gnostic in my opinion: Hate all things material in this world, but love the spiritual. The pastor's argument was based on 2 Peter 3, where everything gets burned up therefore renewal is not possible. John Calvin is clear against that argument in his commentary, that basically nobody knows about how the fire will dissolve, but focus should be placed on what God exhorts here:

What afterwards follows, respecting the burning of heaven and earth, requires no long explanation, if indeed we duly consider what is intended. For it was not his purpose to speak refinedly of fire and storm, and other things, but only that he might introduce an exhortation, which he immediately adds, even that we ought to strive after newness of life. For he thus reasons, that as heaven and earth are to be purged by fire, that they may correspond with the kingdom of Christ, hence the renovation of men is much more necessary. Mischievous, then, are those interpreters who consume much labor on refined speculations, since the Apostle applies his doctrine to godly exhortations. Calvin on 2 Peter 3:10

I believe the pastor's definition of renewal/restoring is the problem. It seemed narrower than ought. The renewal appears to be the terminology used organically in Scripture on this, but the definition should not be narrowed just because we don't have clear understanding of it.

The pastor emphasized: You could be more comfortable with God than with any other human being. Who on Earth is closer than God to us? The intent was to drive at the dependency solely on God. But I wondered if the pastor would dare go as far as stating "your parents, your spouses, your children, etc" which would be biblical and more crucial to his point.

The pastor also said "All theophany are christophany", which I think is problematic. As the burning bush is theophany but can hardly be considered strictly christophany, or Abraham and the Fire (by Tim Keller Jul 3, 2011 @20:00 time), etc. Though we are not denying the anticipation of Jesus in all theophany but this may even run the risk of being christomonic. Therefore because christophany refers only to the second person of the triune God, all theophany are triune, all theophany are not christophany, but all christophany are theophany.

Sermon on 1John 5:12-18

1John 5:13 The repetition of "that believe on the name of the Son of God...that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God" has the connotation of "from faith to faith".

1John 5:16 If one ever needs to learn about John Calvin's take on Venial vs. Mortal sins, his commentary here takes the cake.

Mostly based on Stephen Tong's series.

I started taking this note taking seriously on this after the exposition on Deism:

On Hebrews 4:13, it's interesting to note that this verse refutes Deism most obviously in Chinese CUV: ...那与我们有关系的主...
KJV and NASB got it quite well as well: ...Him with whom we have to do.
But not as clearly in NKJV nor ESV: ...Him to whom we must give account.

Update 8/5/2025 Tues:

I've inserted some of STEMI TV Taiwan's Youtube clips on Hebrews in my Weekly Journal entries before, but realize that it's better to start referencing these video clips in their proper category, such as here. So starting somewhere in Hebrews 6, I'm posting these selected clips here. Some of these clips may be a rare find as they are only audio (apparently the video part is either censored, damaged, or somehow missing). The only hassle is WordPress doesn't allow Youtube link auto-embedding in its comments section. So I need to find the embedding script from youtube. A little extra work is fine. Although, pasting the youtube links will suffice and even better (less resource needed for loading embedded videos).

Our pastor's out for 2 weeks so the guest speaker today is Rev. Joseph Fischer, of Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). Preached on Acts 18:1-11.

claimed NIV has better translation for Acts 18:5. I assumed it's on συνειχετο (devoted himself exclusively - NIV). Though this may be a matter of various Greek Manuscripts (NIV is based on Nestle-Aland's Critical text while KJV basing off of Textus Receptus added the word πνευματι and thus translated to "pressed in/compelled by the spirit"), it made me want to look in to building a list of where each English version (i.e. NIV, ESV, etc.) trumps the others in translation. On this verse I cannot say as I cannot tell which manuscript is original. I cannot just dismissed NIV or ESV in this case just because they are missing the word "spirit" because devoting oneself exclusively/completely does carry similar tone if not better sometimes, to keep the focus on one's work in the Lord and not being complacent about relying on God too passively. In that sense, I would agree with the preacher.

v. 6 reminded me of Christ's command "Shake the dust off your feet" Mat 10:14.

The preacher claimed that he couldn't do his ministry alone at Rutgers. That is true to some extend, but it is not a standard, something the majority Western have replaced fear for teamwork in Christendom. God could raise up and has risen men alone individually for His purpose.

Sunday School was on Prayer (week 6). We did Imprecatory Prayer (invoke a curse or evil): Psa 7, 35, 55, 58, 59, 69, 79, 83, 109 & 137.

Someone mentioned that some wickedness (i.e. Nazi, child rape, etc.) are just so bad that they cannot be saved. Catholicism influence I bet. Degree of wickedness is irrelevant when it comes to Gospel and salvation. So good thing Pastor Chris attempted to correct it, though quite so subtly that I bet many wouldn't notice that it was a sort of correction.

The term imprecatory is a first for me, though the concept isn't. I have once pondered upon 1Cor 5:5 where Paul "delivers unto Satan those involving in sexual immorality for the destruction of the flesh so that their spirit may be saved. I think it is relevant. David his Psalms in the OT does seem more imprecatory than Paul in NT. Paul's imprecatory prayers aim still for salvation of the wicked soul. After doing a search in LOGOS, Van Til has more to say in some of his works.

on Wordless Prayer (psa 46:10 & Matthew 6:5-6) - the terminology is sort of new to me. Though if it's about being still as in Psa 46:10, then it's also same as Psa 4 and so on. I think the phrase wordless prayer is begging for too much. When we are silent, we could direct ourselves to God, such is already a wordless prayer.

It's interesting during the Sunday School, the pastor eventually concluded some discussions to motives. I have always wanted to state that Christianity is the only religion of motives. Because of this, when the charismatics turned true substance to superficial things, this is because it is ultimately affected by motives.