My Journal

9/5/2024 How Satan uses Charismatic style Christian Worship to make the men disrespect God's word in the church: By making you sing praise songs for 1 hour until you're too tired to listen to the sermon.

GCC Bible Study: Proverbs 6:1-19

Don't know how the pastor saw the first few verses as seemingly word salad. Phil called the "security" in first 5 verses a kind of bail - when you post bail for someone out of prison, etc. Which is not wrong. I would just call it "recommendation", "to stake one's name on something/someone". However, pastor's generalization of this being "impulse" is a tad shallow as it doesn't deal with situations when someone's logic is twisted, i.e. in love, in pride, etc. Impulse just means in ignorance.

The pastor placed too much focus on "analysis" of situations as wisdom. Ironic that this was what Eleni accused me of in Music, that I over analyzed things. The answer should be as easy as what will eventually be revealed: The Fear of the Lord. Now who's the one too much into mathematical/scientific analysis.

@11:40 The pastor alluded to David numbering the people. 2 Samuel 24:14: That David chose out of 3 punishments from God, the one that seemed to rely on man least: 3 days of plague, instead of 3 years of famine (need outsiders' help), or 3 months of fleeing from enemies (under the mercy of men). But this proverb has nothing much to do with how not to rely on men. But more about out to get out of the short end of the straw, not about how not to play the game. So these 5 verses weren't really being touched on at all.

verses 6-11 (lazy/no initiatives) should contrast the first 5 verses (over initiatives). Not laziness & rest as the pastor puts it as the focus of v. 6-11 at @18:20. Here I would go with Turek against some folks at this church, that rest is simply, Jesus. So, there's no more Sabbath = Saturday/Sunday, etc.

@21:40 the pastor rightly called out against those who are looking forward to retirement, vacation, etc. as ultimate goal of life.

@29:00 Rob brought up the parable of the talents, rightly so, to deal with slothfulness. I don't understand why the pastor kept twisting the context of that parable, which he did before. He read that as "he's afraid of losing what he has" = "selfish fear motive". But the problem with that is that it was never the servant's to have in the first place. Was the pastor trying to avoid ventures / initiatives / maximizing one's given potential for God? Thereby taking a passive responsibility instead of an active one? After all, why should I get out of the house, if I didn't "hear" it from God? Not sure what the exact problem is, but there is a problem with his view of life in this context.

@31:20 Phil in verse 12, used the term child of Belial, thinking that it was a term used by Rabbis in ancient time for the worthless and wicked. But it is exactly the Hebrew for worthless in this verse.

@33:00 Kathy alluded such worthless person/wicked man as politicians. Shallow. @34:00 The pastor rightly pointed the finger back to ourselves.

v.17: Haughty eyes / proud look: @36:30 Elizabeth defined it as "thinking that you're better than other people". I sensed something wrong with it because there's nothing necessarily wrong with the truth, which is when you are better than some people. But I couldn't figure soundbite response. It was later in the car listening to Tim Keller on Proverbs (Proverbs 11:2,12; 13:10; 15:25,33; 16:18-19; 21:4; 28:26) topic called "Haughty Eyes" that lit up the answer, Keller's better/superior definition: "the NEED to think that you're better than others". What a big difference. Bad English.

on Lying Tongue, Nadia asked "What about white lie" @47:20, Pastor's answer: "don't volunteer a white lie". Shallow answer leads to shallow discussion (i.e. Kathy on not telling people something's wrong with their clothing, etc.), that's what all I can say about it. "Diplomatic honesty" was mentioned by the pastor. Eleni link "diplomatic honesty" to "I like the fact that your hat makes you happy". First, this is either not honest or hypocritical, secondly, this is selfish, for one's own happiness, like the episode in Friends where Joey was right against Phoebe about letting bee sting - no such thing as a selfless good deed. Thirdly, this is not answering the question, which shows a destruction of true fellowship. Fourthly, this is opening the gate to post modernism - your happiness before anything is the utmost importance. I should just respond to Eleni next time: "I think it's great that you think living in America is blessed" when she asked me again "Isn't this country blessed?"

I think when the pastor said @48:20 "now granted that I don't have a lot of friends", they were like "aw", which is showing lack of understanding. I understood him as: They probably not worth to be friends with anyway, if they couldn't stand the truth/my honesty.

9/4/2024 Taiwanese travelling to Uganda. I think the cost is too high ($800/night high class hotel). But it's rare we have this video done by Taiwanese DoDoMen:

9/3/2024 Religion is an escape from God, not seeking God. Tong brought the fact that it's possible the worst kind of such religious enemy is within the churches, among pastors, elders, deacons, etc. for they are satisfied in their works and complacencies. If one is truly of the Gospel, one would fight for the glory of God's kingdom expansively.

9/2/2024 Installed "Everything" because sometimes the search field fails in Windows File Explorer/manager, especially for external drives. Everything appears to index very fast.

God-Fearer 敬虔人 (Those who are godly) Acts 13:16,26,43 This is not your ordinary terminology referring to any godly person, but to the gentile converts into Judaism. Stephen Tong contrasts that with those who are good but have yet to accept the Gospel among us:

9/1/2024 上帝是有位格之真理的主體 - God is the subjectivity of truth (righteousness, love, eternity) in person. ~ Stephen Tong

GCC Sunday Service: Sunday School: Scripture and The Trinity, 2nd week:

On the note, the pastor quoted 1John 5:4-13. It was interesting that Tom raised question about "...the Spirit, the water, and the blood..." whether or not that's the trinity. Which of course is not. However, Calvin and other commentators have it better: Spirit = Gospel, Water = baptism, the blood = martyrs.

During service, Hymn of Praise #467 Wonderful Grace of Jesus has wonderful counterpoint. We sang it before, I just need to practice all parts of it.

Sermon: Revelation 3:1-6 "Church of the Walking Dead"

The pastor called some churches having "no challenges". Finally! I guess he agrees (perhaps unwittingly) with me on praying for challenges.

On the Church of Sardis, the pastor focused on "being distracted by works allegedly not asked by God" and he linked this to the Bible Study we did a couple of weeks ago where Nadia questioned him about what's wrong with Martha (Luke 10:41) to which the pastor responded that Martha was "trying to show off" which offended a few, Nadia and Mary, at least, as a start. And apparently, someone also spoke to the pastor in private about it or something, unless he meant that metaphorically. He basically tried to defend his point. Although "being distracted with extra works" or vain works can be applied to Sardis, I believe the full context of the text has more to do with complacency rather than supererogation.

I think in general, the pastor's sermons always seem one-sided. I was reminded this again later in the afternoon after a chat on the phone with Tom when I was following up on him with the Sight and Sound ticket.