My Journal

Indonesian Version:

Kejujuran di dalam kebenaran.

Bagaimana itu digigit babi?

Anjing dihina juga disayang, paradox. Domba tidak dihina.
Rev 22:15 dogs outside of the kingdom.

Anjing setia terhadap tuannya, tapi tak ada tulang. Tuan itu sebagai allah anjing. Kucing mau dilayan seperti allah. Because you give the dog, it will be loyal to you, why people like dogs? because a good partner that obeys you, even if your love is fake. Evaluation power of a dog is the worst. Man is best at classification of values.

If you find a talented person, quickly learn from him. It's stupid to throw away this opportunity. 孔子曰：“益者三友，损者三友：友直，友谅，友多闻，益矣；友便辟，友善柔，友便佞，损矣。”（《季氏》第十六）

Paling pintar zaman ini, Soren Kierkegaard. Most original thinking. But looked down by his peers. But his pen-name was well celebrated by them. Influenced many: Buber, Barth, etc.

Jangan beri anjing, maksudnya: yang tidak mengetahui, tidak berhak diberi.

Mentioned at around 1:46:00 online version: Order of the Will of God: Rencana (计划 decree), Mengatur semua (安排 arrangement), pimpim langkah (引导 guidance of the Holy Spirit), perbolehkan/diizinkan (许可 permission), biarkan (任凭 given away = Judas).

Chinese Version:

Dog is most despised as well as most loved. Closest to man, loyal.
Luke 16:21 dog licking...loved.

Psa 49:20 Men who are like dogs (beasts) because they don't care to understand divine matters.

It is very wrong to treat dogs same level as man: viz. Those who are provoked by abuse of dogs more than abuse of man.

The justice viewed by many Arabian Muslims is mixed with vengeance.

Stephen Hawking's denial of God mentioned. (because science can explain, therefore no need God, bad use of the prophetic function of man.)

Tong questioned everyone: Did Jesus hope for Judas to change? (hint: go do what you want to do). Two reasons of Judas' apostlehood: So that others like Judas will have no excuse. Secondly, so that teachers will be comforted when they have Judas as student.

Note this is about fellow Christians judgment amongst themselves in the Church. Why? Because Christians already know right from wrong.

Plank (梁) is horizontal, unlike the vertical one （柱）. Thus plank is long and heavy.

One's like & dislike of another already reflect how one deals with them. If like, hard to see problem, if dislike, hard to see the good in the other.

We love to find faults in others. Shhh he stole money, etc. But those who love doing this, are hypocrites. verse 5.

Often times we don't see our own faults and God forgives; so likewise, we must be forgiving to others.

Andrew Sang a pastor in HK, died 30+ years ago, said, before you go judge someone, first pray for him, love and care for him first. e.g. "I have prayed 20+ months for you...now I tell you..." So they would be touched. "please pluck out the thorn in my eye"

So judge with not just truth but with love. Many lack love. I would add: Fake love.

Tong's dentist waited for 8 months with slow injection, until his senior doctor returns to pull out his back tooth, about 3 days ago. Otherwise, it's dangerous due to the big tooth size, also Tong's diabetes (slow healing in bleeding). Thus, the lesson is be patient in love for others.

On Job, to comfort people is not to be talkative. Why all doubled but not children of Job in the end? Because animals were lost. But his first 10 children weren't lost but in heaven.

Interesting he didn't mention David Tong vs. his old Indonesian driver. Probably the wisdom of not doing this in Indonesian.

Chinese Sermon:

吹毛求疵。

How is it a reference to our eyes? They are the most sensitive parts. When we first meet a person, we also look first at the eyes. No normal people look at shoes first, etc.

If so sensitive, how is one not realizing the dust/thorn in his eyes? Either he really has no sense (which is rather unlikely) or you judge it wrong.

Job was the one sad, but he prayed for his friends instead. The friends who were good at first for traveling great distance to comfort Job in silence, until the started to make judgment. Many women love to advise and think others listen.

We judge others so easily but we have sins that even ourselves are hard to get rid off.

Visual aid presented. A dot on a paper. All audience observed the dot, but not the white area of the paper. Selective Perception in Telecommunication (传播学). We see the small bad, but not the much goodness in others.

David Tong's accident is mentioned again. Kids broken here and there. Stephen Tong's driver who has not much degree, drove them so many years, no accident. David Tong with high education, careless. So, we must be humble.

Though this is not part of my daily OT/NT reading plan. It is the book that the Redeemer's Men's group is on now. And I do find much great new interests and motivation to study in this, empowered with Stephen Tong's material.

General Outlines:
Chapter 1: Jonah's disagreement with God at the greatest.
Chapter 2: Darkness in the fish caused Jonah to long for God's presence.
Chapter 3: With the same boldness as usual without the fear of death by Nineveh punks, he completed God's mission, though not with care.
Chapter 4: God educates Jonah the justification of His love.

Summary Notes:
Per Tong: Jonah's anger with God is liken to (but not sure) that of those who are close to the object of their anger. Thus, would Jonah be that close to God as to have such anger?

1:5 I note that unlike the notes presented in the Redeemer's Men's fellowship, I think that Jonah was never not afraid to die. Not in the storm, not in the fish, and definitely not in his ministry in Nineveh. Thus it explains how he could deeply be asleep. Thus, I don't see any punishment from God, not in the storm, not in the fish, against Jonah, but mere calling, based on his unique relationship with God.

This is my own notes on the study of Acts. This will eventually have heavy maps pertaining to all the missionary journeys taken in this book.

Resources for maps:
https://bethanygu.edu/news/missionary-journey/

General Outlines:

Summary Notes:

I believe the best debate in the world is the Book of Job. Therefore, those who dislike debates in general, are ignorant fools. They think they are the peacemaker, they are worse than the post-modernists.

I already have an entry devoted to John Calvin's commentary on this. So this entry shall be my own OT study, my own notes on the book of Job.

Quoting Tim Keller in one of his FB posts:

Never describe the view of an opponent in a way he or she will not own. Rather describe their view so they say, "I couldn't have put it better myself." Only then should you proceed to refute the view. If instead, you caricature your opponent-- you persuade no one.

This shows very clearly in Job, who retains all words of his friends.

I believe to study this comprehensively, I must master God's answer (if not also Elihu's), starting from chapter 38 first, then only, look back from the beginning of Job to understand their reasoning and folly, human wisdom vs. God's wisdom.

A good place to read quick summary: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/book-of-job/summary

General Outline:
Chapter 1: The fear of God in Job and his indirect victory against Satan's first test.
Chapter 2: Satan disregarded his defeat and forced God to change the rule of their game.
Chapter 3: Job cursed his birth
First round debate
Chapter 4-5: First friend's response. Eliphaz the Temanite
Chapter 6-7: Job challenges his friend on judging Job for lack of righteousness
Chapter 8: Second friend's response. Bildad the Shuhite: If you did well, there's no suffering
Chapter 9-10: Job contests that suffering is beyond logic. Seeks perfection earnestly
Chapter 11: Third friend's response. Zophar the Naamathite
Chapter 12-14: Job rebukes Zophar's content in just not sinning, blind faith and flattery to God
Second round debate
Chapter 15: Eliphaz's second response.

Stephen Tong gave some rarity on Job's commentary that is probably not seen anywhere else:

The dilemma of Job is where is man?

God's challenge to Job in the last chapters was not to overwhelm Job of the details of the unanswerable, but to question Job why Job did not question those challenges of God as he should before.

Update 9/29/2025 Monday Stephen Tong once mentioned that the Job problem is not knowing how great God was. In his Creationism lecture series that I took, Tong directed God's questions to Job to a more fundamental problem, that God was judging Job according to the original state of Adam, which is to be perfect in all knowledge in limit set by God in the created world. So that Job knows, that he has lost all that perfection due to original sin. I looked for years and finally found it (googling "animation video God and Job and time machine atheist" and recognized the video "God's God" animation looks awfully familiar) this video after a prayer, which is an atheist's answers to God's question challenges to Job. An interesting twist, contrary to the poster's intent, this video was meant to illustrate that these questions are answerable (though not all correctly answered in the video) by Job, which proves the point of Tong, I'm saving this video: