Offering is done with reverence and fear towards God, for what we offered is God's, not ours. Offering is not donation.
I find myself a rule to keep concerning the Bible:
Accept no offerings from those who have no reverence and fear towards God. Despise them, you must despise them. Not hate, but merely despise. Hate only what they do.
Those who favor prosperity theology put faith on success;
Those who do not favor prosperity theology put success on faith. (Hebrews 11:1)
Different faiths, different successes.
According to The Star Online, the new generations speak mainly English and Mandarin. If that's the case, I guess I may actually feel nostalgic.
Excess of anything is a waste of time and space.
As obvious as this may be, we are often victimized by this because we deny its existence in some area, even to the point of absolute denial which causes us blind sighted, consequently pushing us to put blames on others.
This is also where many potentially talented ones fail.
A use of literary works, to emphasize on a term using two different words.
Hence, from the greek term "one through two".
Usually converting adjective to noun.
I believe there are such used in the Bible. However, I would stress that one should not over identify them so that one does not get himself trap in the bondage of words/terminologies/letters (2 Corinthians 3:6). I believe when it is used, it is with no deceit, therefore it is with purpose, but definitely not for the purpose of those shallow minded scholars who couldn't find any other explanation they like except that they find the word "hendiadys" fanciful and thus think of themselves intelligent for being able to pronounce it. I said this, for I have witnessed such person.
On the side note, I realize Rev. David Chen had it wrong, when he use this term "重言法" to point to a very different style of emphasis, which is repeating the same phrase (sometimes in reverse order such as Psalm 90:17).
Hendiadys is combining two words to produce an emphasis of a complex term: Your land and your birthplace (to say your native land).
When one pastors a church, he is not only the pastor of those in the building. But of the surrounding neighborhood and environment. Hence, his greatness is not measured by the number of congregation in the building, but by the amount of given grace he shares with the neighbors.
A Man of Sorrows.
When wrong made right and right made wrong.
When enthusiasm comes without knowledge.
When vain worries made a burden.
When vain chatters waste time.
When perfection is not sought for.
Who do I surround myself with, how close they are to me, yet how far...
I am but a sinful man of sorrows.
Job 11, seems to me, especially the last part of this chapter, that the Naamathite is the master of prosperity theology.
I realize that those who love to converse for the sake of conversation love to ask a bunch of questions that aren't connected, questions so many that they would very likely forget.
If they could fully remember, then one has to wonder where's all these questions leading to? One should be able to tell from comparing their facial expressions with the bunch of questions they ask.
Personally, I believe these are quite shallow. Perhaps even irresponsible.
So, sometimes, one do not need to ask a lot, allowing the other to ask if they are so eager to ask, so one can know the other by just listening to what he asks.
Recalling an argument made by a pastor who was deeply fascinated by Rabbinical literatures, that he did not think David as a prophet. At that time, I was just wondering if he was just restricted by what he "memorized" from textbooks about the number of prophets in old testament, major/minor prophets, and thus do not wish to consider the true purpose and definition of prophet.
After reading Acts 2:30 today, I looked up John Gill's Commentary on this, and realized that it was a Judaism thing to separate Holy writings from Prophetic writings. Considering David being influenced by the Spirit, therefore, they place those like him, Solomon, Daniel to not be "strictly and properly prophets". However, another Rabbi, Kimchi, allowed David to be a prophet, a name for those who are "men of God".
I know what this pastor would respond, even though we never discussed this further. He would reply as a someone trained in Christian seminary but too influenced by the Jewish literatures, that it is just the function of prophet that was meant in Acts, not the actual prophet.
For Christians, a prophet is God's spokesman who points to the coming of Christ and to call others to repentance. And we only make use of the function of prophet today because the proper office of a prophet is no more when the Bible is completed. God speaks to us through the Bible and the Bible alone.
This is just a minor issue. But I believe it is important in the sense for those who care to actually discern the importance of very small things as well as the whole picture.
