Last night I attended the Men's Monthly for the first time. I thought it was on W83, so I was 30 min late. The size was around 15.<\/p>\n
We meditated independently on Psalms 19. Bijan preached on John 16: regarding sorrow and joy (paradoxical implementation = sorrow yet joyful)<\/p>\n
It seems that at events like these only, one gets to know the pastoral staffs more personally. Never going to happen in the pulpit.<\/p>\n
After Q&A, (which I should have asked Bijan: Would you say that Jesus' rebuking John in Matthew 11:6 as you claimed, was considered what we call today \"constructive criticism\"?) we broke into groups of 3-4. I love to ask questions to probe my questionees.<\/p>\n
One in our group seem to switch topic when I try to ask tough question: how do we tell distinguish suffering as a result of our own faults and suffering out of loving God (1Peter 2:20) - his off-topic response was \"there is no punishment for Christians, we should distinguished the consequences of sins from punishment\". Perhaps I did not make my question clear enough. But on the other hand, I see no difference between the consequences of sins and punishment, because I do not define punishment as eternal damnation all the time. It seems that the word \"punishment\" is politically incorrect these days and ought not to be used especially for Christians.<\/p>\n
But Dave did make a good point, when I further probed about the suffering caused among Christians - in arguments, etc. Someone must be at fault. When I suggested that if it's materialistic, we just let it go, don't quarrel for it, let the others win no matter what, Dave immediately quoted \"Why not rather suffer wrong\" (1 Corinthians 6:7).<\/strong><\/p>\n Excellent!<\/p>\n Michael Rood was mentioned, as an influential evangelist to one former atheist in our group. I had to look him up and there's major\u00a0criticism on Rood. Although, I'm intrigued at Joey's humility and note-taking attention during Bijan's talk. Connor was the most friendly one, easily to talk to.<\/p>\n Overall, I really enjoyed the small group. Not easy to create a fellowship community, especially in the city.<\/p>\n On my way home, I was greeted by Bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night I attended the Men's Monthly for the first time. I thought it was on W83, so I was 30 min late. The size was around 15. We meditated independently on Psalms 19. Bijan preached on John 16: regarding … Continue reading