My Journal

Sunday School - on Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 10 & 20. The pastor kept on focusing against Christian Nationalism, which I agree. But what's missing is the distinction between Christian Nationalism and Christian Influenced Nation. First one is bad, second one is good.

Question was asked by pastor's father: What is the common ground in non-Christian cultures in relationship to God/morality?
Hammurabi was brought up as an answer multiple times to refute human goodness. But what's lacking are these:
- Image & Likeness of God (need to worship, unlike animals), ability to judge, recognizing eternity/justice to some extend, totally depraved but not utterly depraved. (The pastor brought up total depravity but he used "different degree of depth" in depravity)

Paradoxical living (something Pak Tong brought up often, but apparently foreign to most American as I have observed):
- Beer Commercial (drink everyday) "Living only for the weekend is not living" mentioned as a point of ridicule but not discussed in-depth: Everyday real living => Yes & No = real enjoyment vs. drinking, playing, etc.
- Christian Influenced Nation vs. Christian Nationalism
- Cross is where the opposites were found: Shame and glory.

Not quite relevant to the day, but I want to be reminded of how this pastor often uses words that are not quite the meaning of the accepted consensus:
- Judge, judgement = condemnation.

For our lives are filthy and unworthy.

There is no way to preach the Gospel with your life. You can affirm the Gospel with your life, but you cannot preach the Gospel with your life. You can only preach the Gospel by opening up your mouth and speaking forth the Word of God. - Paul Washer

Looking back at the fame Michael Liu or Alex Tseng gained, or anyone who once closely related to Stephen Tong in public, I see that it is important to distinguish one's fame from oneself or from connections. Famous or not, I believe God has kept me clean from the latter and I should be always thankful and humbled for that.

Interesting tweet from Tim Keller's Q&A on rural ministry:

I had a rural church for nine years. Very few people who went to college. I pastored them to earn trust, and because of that they would listen to my preaching. In the urban church, I had to preach to them first, to earn trust, then I could pastor them. https://t.co/FSJ5zzo5iQ Of course, I would wonder how Keller pastored before, because I don't see any example in the urban church.

Interesting to learn that the HR director (KB) at SP where I work has her favorite mentor set on C.S. Lewis. I wonder if this is a religious thing or an English literature thing (inklings). Likely the latter.

I had an entry before about the salvation of infant. ThirdMill has a very detail article on this: Psalm 58:3 is strong on justifying the sin of an infant and even the unborn. Though the reformers (Zwingli - all saved vs. Luther, Calvin, Knox, etc.) differ on this, but we are all clear that even the unborn infants are born sinners. Not just "contaminated by Adam's sin", like the FB discussion I recently came across. Responding to John Liem in the comments, I simply asked:
menurut argumen anda, kita tidak boleh membunuh jentik-jentik nyamuk atau lalat
According to your argument (that one is condemned as a sinner only according to what he has actually done), then we should not kill the larva of mosquitos or flies.

On the side note, interestingly, contrary to many atheist biologists' belief, mosquitos are known to be beneficial as pollinators: Even today mosquitoes pollinate goldenrod, grasses, and various types of orchids. If that is true, that mosquitos are now cursed to be bloodsuckers because of Adam's curse, then indeed we long for a perfect world. But I am not fully onboard with these fundamentalists' idea of death and curse, our definitions of these may not be tautological.

Personally, I do take Psalm 58:3 seriously enough to conclude an infant in the womb has already committed sinful acts by simply breathing or living. Adam's fall had made it so that we are all cursed this way and deprived of God's presence.

When a great founder of a church, ministry passed, there usually is no good replacement, not to mention better ones. In fact, most of these churches would start selling recordings of that said founder. To survive? To matter? I don't know. I just hope this is not the case for Stephen Tong. R.C. Sproul's now packages his sermons here and there, searching for new ideas for funding. Tim Keller's (though not passed yet) likewise doing similar thing. This is just sad. I believe Tong knew this, which was why he labored in prayer to find new generation of greats. From David Tong on FB:

Diskusi saya (DT) dan ayah saya (ST) suatu hari di mobil beberapa tahun lalu.

Latar Belakang:

1. DT: salah satu major undergraduate DT adalah Computer Science, PhD di Fisika, PhD (cand.) di Teologi/Apologetika, cukup mengetahui mengenai cloud computing, distributed storage, bacup/disaster recovery, dll.

2. ST: tidak terlalu mengerti teknologi.

DT: "Pa, sebenarnya aset terbesar gerakan/gereja ini bukan tanah/gedung yang kita miliki."

ST: (diam.)

DT: "Aset terbesar kita adalah kelimpahan Firman Tuhan. Dari Firman Tuhan tersebut baru Tuhan memberikan tanah/gedung."

ST: (diam.)

DT: "Kita perlu memikirkan bagaimana memelihara Firman Tuhan yang sudah pernah papa kotbahkan selama ini. Mayoritas masih dalam bentuk analog/magnetic tape."

ST: (diam.)

DT: " Semua ini perlu di-digitalisasi. Dan setelah di-digitalisasi, perlu dipikirkan backup/disaster recovery. Tidak bisa hanya disimpan di satu ruangan, karena kalau terjadi gempa/kebakaran, maka semua yang disimpan di sana bisa hilang/rusak."

ST: (diam.)

DT: "Perlu juga memikirkan backup di ruangan yang berbeda bahkan idealnya di lokasi yang berbeda secara geografis."

ST: (diam.)

DT: "Saya perkirakan data bisa mencapai beberapa peta byte (PB), apalagi belakangan ini sudah merekam dengan 4K video. Dan ini hanya di Jakarta, belum kotbah papa di STEMI luar negeri."

ST: (diam.)

DT: "Ada cara yang murah untuk bisa mendapatkan redundacy data, dengan distributed storage, dlsb. Tapi perlu memikirkan harus investasi memelihara Firman Tuhan ini."

ST: "Mengapa kamu cuma memikirkan bagaiman memelihara kotbah saya. Mengapa tidak doakan saja minta supaya Tuhan lebih banyak membangkitkan pengkotbah muda sehingga Firman Tuhan yang baik terus akan ada di sepanjang zaman."

DT: (diam.)

Ya saya kira-kira mengerti apa yang ada di hati ayah saya. Kiranya Tuhan terus bekerja melalui generasi muda.