8/8/2024 Thursday GCC Bible study: Proverbs 3:31-35
I'll place criticism of the study here, but the essence of the passage I shall place in my Proverbs entry.
@10:40 R mentioned that the Holy Spirit hadn't been given yet (I guess it was an allusion to John 7:39..."had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified", thus the answer would be both yes and no, contrasting John 3 as Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about the Holy Spirit). The pastor acknowledged that it wasn't poured out the same way in OT vs. NT but he didn't elaborate further. A good topic on this was answered by Ligonier a while back:
Horton: The pouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 brings the whole world into a new era.
Derek Thomas aligned with Pak Tong when he quoted Psalm 51:11 "...take not your Holy Spirit from me" even though the old covenant saints were saved the same way as the new covenant saints: by the works of the Holy Spirit in the promised Christ (for OT).
TGC has an article, by James M. Hamilton Jr., about this as well and made it clear that the Holy Spirit did not indwell the OT believers. That kind of indwelling was in the temple and among the people. There was a need for the temple as the shadow type of Christ.
@14:23 on verse 34, the pastor asked for the definition for humility.
Pak Tong on the definition, which I think is better:
唐崇荣：第一个记号，从来不满意自己的成就﹔第二个记号，从来不停止追求真理的丰富﹔第三个记号，从来不认为自己是高贵的，不会不俯就那些卑微的人和卑微的事﹔第四个记号，总是永远把荣耀归给上帝而不归给自己
- Never satisfied with accomplishment
- always seeking abundance of truth
- never place self on pedestal
- always glorify God and not self
@14:58 Rd gave the answer to the definition for humility that the pastor was anticipating: "not deserving, not worthy". And the pastor then aligns with John Gill on grace comes before one exercises humility.
I would add here, more accurately, "not deserving before God", that in contrast to the Buddhists' way of humility, Christian humility is the only true one. Any other types are naturally corrupted.
@21:51 The pastor said of being humble is "not about results". I would disagree here. The disagreement would probably have to be more of the language, semantics. But important. True, we're not concerning ourselves with results as in successful great numbers of accomplishments even the whole world would recognize in their sinful state. But this result should be focused on the result of God's grace upon us. The very faithful act in us, is the result!
@22:44 Here the pastor seems to equate the disgrace of the fools to people who have no legacy, despite acknowledging the fact that some good Christians also left no legacy. I think this view is just too shallow and there's no need to further expound on it. This is different than David in Psalm 37:36 "...he could not be found" for David sought after them in a sense of the lack of eternal value. Perhaps this affected his flawed view on cathedrals (not commanded by God to built, but looks God-glorifying nonetheless).
@24:50 The pastor rightly called out the ones who would rather sit on the fence. E answered with "we must run the race". The pastor prefers: "someone who says why I would even bother, is someone who hasn't really encountered God". I think it's good because there are folks in all general churches under this judgment. But then I think he tried to give methodological examples of what one should be doing for God, which kind of defeated the purpose of the answer he gave. How can someone do those if he hasn't really encountered God? Not an easy rebuke for any church leaders to give, so at least Pastor Chris dared to bring it out in the first place, against the complacent believers.
@27:20 Phil completely went off topic from this and brought up Eric Liddell on how he gave glory to God. The pastor tried to accommodate it by "there's no a hierarchy of service to God". Then I think he was alluding also to but without mentioning the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). The pastor then segued into the topic of anything can be idolized or used to glorify God. Mary's spikenard was mentioned vs. Judas' criticism, as a means to view sports as God glorifying. I don't think Mary's spikenard case is coherent with sports that's God glorifying. Though there's nothing wrong with sports. "it's possible to serve needy people with the wrong heart", hearing this I was reminded of Tim Keller's Counterfeit Gods.
@30:30 F, as I may have guessed, now rebutted saying that "I would like to see what else these guys [athletes] will do, it's easy to cross the finish line...but then they go buy gold chains and Maserati..." The pastor tried to calm the atmosphere by calmly calling "it has to do with the heart, the character". I told Nadia later that, using Tim Keller, I would have responded "everything, even volunteering for food banks, helping the poor [Judas' case], can be turned into idolatry". N then tried to add that those who are wasteful will be broke in the end anyway, so they need to be money savvy. That's a soft general feedback to Frank's comment. He also added that the camera moves away the moment the athletes praise God, which I could only think it was an inaccurate fundamentalist type comment. The pastor the rightly quoted Matthew 5:16.
@34:20 G & E then acknowledged that some thinks the only way to serve God was to become pastors, preachers, etc. The same think from Keller's Counterfeit Gods can easily answer this, so I am not saying more here.
@36:10 In somewhat incoherency, the pastor responded G on "and the whole world just going to have people serving in soup kitchens, etc." with his famous "cathedrals" case. P: "No Christian would sincerely say that God wants these Cathedrals...a thousand years of labor and money...however who among us find it awestruck...in other words, the Lord uses people who were wrong to still glorify and serve Him". So shallowly wrong, I could easily rebut with this basis: All things can be done for glory of God, in fact, what P does now is against the argument he was trying to make before - it's about the heart. Perhaps do that to the athletes again, pastor Chris. Try "No Christians would sincerely say that God wants these medals".
The pastor's point to G was that if there were only just one thing [all serving in soup kitchens], because of such a small amount of true believers, and the fact that non-believers [indirectly from his Cathedral builders example] are around to sort of accomplish God's glory, it will still be okay. And Ez continued with (I could vague make it out, so I'm guessing this was what she said) "...and no one will ever have money to send missionaries" and all laughed. This is so bad I don't even feel like I should respond to it. The "soup kitchens can be idolized" is enough blow against any of these comments.
@38:40 F tried to fight back subtly against the pastor's Cathedral case by citing how a documentary showed the stone masons dedicated their work to God. But then F side tracked to that being an opportunity for the masons to share the gospel when a kid came and ask why you did this. The pastor tried to work around that by still trying to make it as if a "sin" to still build the cathedral because the only reason do so, according to the pastor, is that one thinks "God needs/commands such architectures". He connected this to the hubris and pride of the empire.
@39:48 D actually surprised me this time by giving a great biblical response to this cathedral case by alluding to the old testament beautiful temple. The pastor tried to go around this as well, but I don't think it's a win.
@41:15 R also brought up the fact that some may come to Christ through the beauty of these cathedrals. A minor answer, but I do agree and like it. The pastor only looked at the danger in this view (i.e. virgin Mary's statue, etc.). I told Nadia later that many of these cathedrals have the gospel story etched into the beautiful stained glass windows. Interesting here that the pastor compared this to building the Golden Calf, which would be something some of us reformed folks used for Contemporary Christian Music. He failed when he said "God can used the Golden Calf to lead someone..." because principally, this is heretical, if he meant that the golden calf can sometimes be a good thing. The golden calf is a pure result of a completely erroneous way to serve God, it's like saying God can use porn as a positive, God glorifying factor to lead someone to Christ. I personally don't think the pastor was going this way, but he's trapped himself in a language that could only lead to this conception. P: "St. Peter's Basilica is an absolute abomination". I would just go as far as the means of building the Roman basilica is an abomination.
TGC actually as an article on this, contrasting Puritan architecture view (church buildings = meetinghouses) vs. the Catholics' "the sacred space" cathedral view. "But this does not mean that it must be unattractive or drearily utilitarian...John Calvin...chief principle...decorum" How we behave is more important. Bottom line, just don't worship the building itself. This is something only those who care to understand God's aesthetic.
@42:32 Phil mentioned Mother Theresa in response, in a confused way to suggest "God is the one who judges in the end". Rob quoted Colossians 3:23 as conclusion, "no matter what work we do, as long as it's legal and not sinful..." I think it's American if not Western hubris to think that their legal laws are sinless, because to pick a tiny bone, Rob's point here would fail with not doing the kind of work that's "...illegal but not sinful...". again, play of words here, not saying that they are believing what they are saying.
@44:00 The pastor went back to the Spikenard case by saying Martha's the busy one, her heart wasn't right.
@45:10 R asked "doesn't the Bible say that the heart is wicked?" I think this was a Catholic thing and the pastor answered rightly with "the New heart".
@45:50 Not sure why N was trying to justify accountants' place in the world using Bernie Madoff. If I think what N was saying is right, then it's a very shallow argument. Of course we don't overgeneralize things.
@46:55 Nadia asked about the mentioning of Martha by P. P: "Martha was trying to impress people, show off...instead of pleasing God". Rick then gave the best answer among all, but wasn't quite heard by many I think, by saying "Martha was about work". Nadia wanted to make a case that "then what happens if everyone just sat by Jesus like Mary", the pastor couldn't respond well: "that's not the message, the message is..." Even M also asked @48:10 "Martha was showing off?" and F corrected "at least not let Martha criticize Mary".
My conclusion on this is the pastor, maybe not alone on this, perhaps due to the fundamentalist upbringing, has a very bad use of English conversation/conveying proper meaning which is from shallow thinking of matters, of logic and reasoning, as eloquent and better at vocabulary than me as he could be.
8/7/2024 The Paris 2024 Olympics boxing event had people concerned about gender identity when Imane Khelif of Algeria, being identified as female since birth, won a match against Italian Angela Carini within 46 seconds. As a result, Khelif's gender as a female was called into question due to her mainly figure. This also sparked debate on social media as IOC delays in settling the controversy. Another alleged female boxer, Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, her gender was also called into question. The International Boxing Association (IBA)'s earlier disqualification of the two boxers in 2023 was brought up, consequently. IBA's president, Umar Kremlev, claimed that these two showed XY chromosomes in testing. It would appear that IBA is the only source of such gender information on these two boxers, but unfortunately, IBA had been barred by IOC in 2019 and in 2023 due to alleged governance of the sport, and, Kremlev's claim was never officially published. So all we have is just hearsays from some questionable officials.
I believe I first came across this from social media. People like David Tong and Alex posted opposing views. Tong was using the "XY" chromosomes as fact while Alex was focusing on accusation of Khelif being transgender as determinant of the invalidation of the fact. They both have multiple posts on Facebook. The moment I learned that Khelif's from Algeria, I already thought to myself, intentional transgenderism would be likely unlikely in Khelif's case, as Algeria's a Muslim country, it was a no brainer for me.
My conclusion is that the gender in a gender sports is ultimately determined in the most fundamental basis that we know of...the chromosomes, regardless of certain abnormality of mutations. Visible physical properties can only go so far from birth certificates to passports and so on. In this case, chromosome testing is important. However, I can also understand why the results are kept confidential in many case, because an intersex generally do not wish to be publicly known, as it results in unwanted consequences such as not able to get married due to prejudice, etc. Therefore, a lot of trust is placed on the qualifying entities. And if the entities are politically motivated (i.e. Supporting LGBTQ+), then it raises a lot of question in such trust, because now we're not talking just about genetic science, but social influence as well, as highly questionable determinant skills. If I'm not wrong, that seems to be where Alex was heading (likely due to his love of claiming to have LGBT friends), even though he is likely not supporting of LGBTQ+ since he once gave that "Because God said so!" fundamentalist answer when I suggested years ago in the Bronx Bible study, arguments from the ends in such political debate among the secular, non-Christians.
This also reminded me about Neil DeGrasse Tyson on sports at least a year ago: split people by categories, not gender, because we're not dealing with gender differences but hormone levels:
8/6/2024 Stephen Tong on how John the Baptist was greater than all prophets: All other prophets prophesied John's coming, unlike them John was able to baptize Jesus, they had to be filled by the Holy Spirit later in life, John was filled since birth, they hoped to see Christ but John became the friend of the Bridegroom, no fundraising only lived by God in the desert, not a single miracle done by him, greatest reductionist - all his words were the central essence of faith.
8/5/2024 Famous Greek composer: Manos Hadjidakis, noted from the Greek series: maestro in Blue
8/4/2024 Since what I have is mostly critiques on GCC's Bible Study, Sunday School & Sermons, I shall place my entries in the Journal of the Week entries instead of independent entries, unless under special circumstances: i.e. important topic that can be expanded.
Sunday School: Week 5, continuation of Jonathan Edwards' "The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, Applied to that uncommon operation that has lately appeared on the minds of the people of New England: With a particular consideration of the extraordinary circumstances with which this work is attended"
We did I. Negative signs first weeks ago [What I would call, paradoxes]:
1. Newness
2. Physical effects
3. Strong affections for God
4. Impressions on the imagination
5. Examples
6. Imprudence
7. Errors
8. False Believers
9. Terrifying Preaching
Then II. Scriptural Evidence of a Sincere Work:
1. Leads One to Jesus Christ
2. Action Taken Against Satan's Kingdom and Worldly Desires
3. Greater love and regard for the Scriptures
4. Embracing of the truth even when it is uncomfortable, ugly, or unpopular
5. Love for the brethren and neighbor
And today we do III. Practical Inferences:
1. Using rules (Word of God) and Facts (self observation + others observations)
@8:50 I guess Nadia wasn't the only one having problem with Pastor Chris' language, as B asked: I'm not familiar with that term...pit of hell (P said it so quickly it sounded like Pitahal).
Rules of Faith and Practice mentioned. I was not familiar with that, worth a look into.
Christians became more spiritually mature and joyful over 6 years in Edwards' perspective.
@11:50 P mentioned mega churches again, as usual, opposing it personally. I think mega churches are good. Unfortunately, when the great preachers of the mega churches have gone, those churches also dwindle, unless there's greater preachers continuing the work, which is incredibly rare.
2. [Basically a build from what insufficiency Gamaliel in Acts 5:34-42 said: If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought, if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it.] Not only do not oppose, but do our utmost to promote (which I think the pastor did not touch much on as he only talked about affirming it, not promoting it) the work of God.
@23:00 Interesting that Patty brought up Oneness Pentecostal. I know of them, but I had to looked it up to confirm that this "Oneness" is really just the heresy of Modalism. The effect of it, I guess, not to mention a confused state Christianity, if you want to call it Christian, is the failure in seeing duality in Christ's natures. Thus, one would either become legalistic (There's no creaturely humanity in Christ) or extremely liberal (a limited god view) from this.
@24:00 Second Great Awakening was brought up as a turn from Calvinism to Arminianism. Unlike the pastor, I would like to give people like Charles Finney (I don't know anything about Billy Sunday, so I'll leave this guy out, but the pastor rounded him with the ilk of the "revival", but Finney apparently has lots of credits as promoter of social reforms such as abolitionism, equal education for women and African Americans) benefit of the doubt. The Britannica added the term "...shifted from Calvinism to a PRACTICAL Arminianism..." which I think is more apt, using the word "practical". As it is complicated. As Stephen Tong would have it, "美國從前有一位芬尼牧師 （Charles Finney, l792-1875）所屬於歸正宗的教會，當他鼓勵人傳福音時，他的精神像亞米念的精神，但是當他跑到亞米念的教會要將上帝的主權告訴人時，他求上帝藉著祂的主權將恩典賜下來，他又變成歸正宗":
But one cannot deny that, the 2nd Great Awakening is more rejected than the first. It's been treated not just as Arminianism but also moralism and legalists. I think something like Charles Finney's case is illtreated more from the methodological aspect rather than his doctrinal stand. P: The cause of the Temperance Movement which lead to the Prohibition, corporate evangelism, show window Christianity, [revival tents and invitation of professional revivalists by local churches ~ Britannica]. P: their error was - take away the evil and you'll be on the right track, backwards; whereas Christ's message was get your heart right first... Not bad, but I would further to say: know the Lord personally. There were sayings about people being scared away from bars for 5 years and then come back again, scare tactic revivalism.
3. On how to promote #2. with humility: When we have great discoveries of God made to our souls, we should not shine bright in our own eyes.
@35:10 Edwards' grandson (maternally) Aaron Burr was mentioned as not a believer and chafed under a strict household, thus his heart's not in the right place. I had to look this up: Burr was known for his illegal duel with Alexander Hamilton (killing Hamilton, but Burr was never tried, I guess due to the common practice of such illegal activity) as well as the Burr Conspiracy - alleged plot to create his own countries, but was acquitted each time. I take it P meant that Burr was not a good guy in this context, not knowing Burr well myself.
@40:08 P: I think if we have a gospel of grace, it's almost impossible for someone to truly measure their level of spirituality on an objective scientific scale...what people like to do is to make everything into a science, i.e. I do not play cards, therefore I'm a better Christian. [I disagree with the use of the term science here, because then it really is not objective science is it? Thus, as I said before in another entry, bad English. A better alternatives are: just theory, personal opinion, private own understanding, self-made rules, there's no fixed formulas, etc. In this case, I think this is due to the pastor's misunderstanding of Matthew 7 on "judge not", as if we can never judge others. Speaking of science, I would say somethings are not quantifiable, however, if one is to really bring science in, then you must get your definitions of the terms correct: what do you mean by measuring this or that, then we will decide if we are truly talking about science or not. Also, I think like Nadia, probably, many such folks are incapable of dealing in probability, as part of science. When they talk about science, they want absolute numbers, not just statistical probability]
On Sunday Sermon: Revelation 2:1-7. Q1: Why is it still commendable to what is Biblically right even if it is for misguided reasons? What can help you engage for the right reasons? This question is based on Rev. 2:4, that Ephesus lost their first love despite all the earlier commendation on labor in patience, cannot bear them which are evil, tried false apostles. P: Ephesus did these for the wrong motive. [This scripture context is not about motives being wrong, for there was their first love. Wrong motives never have any love to begin with. Ephesus failed due to not faithful in their struggle in this world]
I finally got to ask Doryce of the song that she once said sounded similar to Maranatha's Make Me A Servant. She couldn't remember nor could I. But she gave me something close enough, and that's Muppet's The Rainbow Connection: