8/17/2024 Hebrews 2:10-13 We are Jesus' brothers, not his children. Stephen Tong: unlike the Charismatics, if you hear some spirit says "I'm coming, I'm coming to my children" This is absolutely the evil spirit. Tong: "God has children, Jesus has brothers, the Holy Spirit has neither brothers nor children" I'm not sure about the Holy Spirit not having children, but somewhere else Stephen Tong was known to compare the Holy Spirit to a charitable mother "...當聖靈講這句話的時候，是以慈愛的母親對孩子那樣的心情講的..." (資料取自唐崇榮牧師的《聖靈、良心或撒但的聲音》第一章 - 良心是什么？聖靈的聲音)
Stephen Tong on Isaiah 53:
8/16/2024 The Rasmussen Reports: allegedly by Youtuber Mr.You to be a rather non-bias polling on this year's presidential election. We can see that Trump only beats Harris by a small margin. I do agree that it really depends on Trump, to win or lose as he's often a loose cannon with his mouth, saying yesterday that he has the right to go ad hominem on Harris.
Sound Illusion, Veritasium on Youtube did an episode on what I always thought I had trouble with learning languages by audio: Was it pronounced with V or B, etc.
Alex posted a long comment he gave from grading a student's Apologetics 101 paper on Western Culture based on Carl Trueman's "A Strange New World". I'm just going to note some terminologies here:
Thirty Years War = 1618 - 1648 Battles in Europe between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
Early Orthodox Period = 3rd to 8th Century in Christendom (Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria & Constantinople)
High Orthodoxy Period = 1620 - 1700 (Post Synod of Dort pursuit of comprehensive systematic theologies.
8/15/2024 “没受苦就做领袖，一定教会失败” ~ 唐崇荣
8/14/2024 How to get Wok Hay/Wok Hei in American home. Because homes in America are gas-lined, we don't use gas tank/propane tank for cooking:
Write your own programming language: This is a general idea on how to do so. A free online book to start is the Introduction to Compilers and Language Design by Douglas Thain.
We are children of God, not children of Jesus ~ Stephen Tong on Hebrews:
As I am taking Hillsdale College's free online Music History course by Hyperion Knight, they played one of my favorite classical but I had never gotten the name of it until now - Arcangelo Corelli's Christmas Concerto - Concerto Grosso Op. 6 n. 8:
8/13/2024 Finishing Jordan Peterson's Interview with Brett Cooper. It's a good insight into conservative Gen-Z's view on growing up without a father figure. When Jordan Peterson's name was mentioned, I am sometimes reminded of a fundamentalist's view, from Messiah's Reformed Fellowship (MeRF), Kelvin Morales' comment on the guy during one Bible Study: "I don't watch the guy, why? Is he Christian? No." - Kelvin reminded me of a missionary allegedly criticized Pak Tong when he bought an encyclopedia at a very young age - "Do not buy such useless things, buy books related to Christian spirituality", May God forgive Morales, I suppose - Though claiming reformed, these fundamentalists do not truly distinguish General from Special Revelations, they actually hold to Solo Scriptura instead of Sola Scriptura:
Study on Color Contrast. For computer graphic/web design.
The Programming Language Go. Why someone favors it.
Brief summary on HTTPS history.
Since TomTom had a knee injury recently caused by basketball playing and will need operation, this article on scientists growing knee cartilage is interestingly coincidental.
An analysis of why Solomon Page didn't do well last year - hence less bonus/raise: Is it because Americans are afraid to quit jobs due to fear of recessions since COVID?
8/12/2024 Knot Theory from my dad.
8/11/2024 GCC Sunday Church Service: Sunday School: Discerning Movements of God, week 6, Practical Application - Pastor Chris' own summary of previous weeks:
@06:31 - "God exists, we know because Nature tells us...because happy accident is really unreasonable" [I guess by happy accident, the pastor meant randomness, otherwise, not sure what he's trying to say as any other alternatives just make no sense, the "...impossible by mathematical principles" reference also makes no sense. So he's trying to argue God by design here, I am guessing.]
@07:48 - "If the Bible is not true, everything is relativism" Kind of a weak one, since it's not grounded in Presuppositional Apologetics.
@09:35 - E raised a good one: What about a Hindu's view point? The pastor answered well by identified divine revelation as the key, that Hinduism lacks such. But he went on to mistakenly attack Islam's Quran as not claiming to be of divine revelation.
@12:00 - Phil questioned on how come the Bible sometimes is off on science. Actually this is a good question, and the best answer is simply the Bible never concerns itself with science. In the pastor's notes, I don't know why he kept using "specific" revelation. Special Revelation should have been used instead. It's proper and traditional reformed terminology, there's no need to side track it, nor trying to avoid mention of "reformed' doctrine. If it is an intentional avoidance, it is only pride, not humility. Unless the pastor, though knew, but could not relate "Special revelation" in this context properly.
@15:23 - The pastor got the Quran all wrong here, calling it human authority. Failing to acknowledge that Muslims see the Quran as divine revelation. "First copy of the Quran was even lost" - That's not historically accurate, and also, our Bible does not come from the original copy as well. This is a very weak apologetics against Islam.
@19:10: T asked what is Judaism. I wouldn't agree with the pastor who would just blatantly say "what they believe is a different god". This goes against the fact that everyone knows God exists. The real answer would have been: "Yes and No" to does Judaism believe the true God. T actually got it by bringing up the fact that no other religion has a suffering Christ, which is exactly what Judaism threw out!!!
@24:30 T shared the outreach our church did the day before reached some people on "I prefer cleaning up myself first before coming to Christianity".
@26:10 E shared that she used to believed that kind of legalism. The pastor admitted it as well until he read the Psalms.
Now I'm curious how Joy was behaving at the outreach in that context. But perhaps she came at a different time.
@28:10 K asked if any other religion says "God is of yesterday, today and future"? The pastor at least got Islam correct here. I think here is a good place to introduce the creator-creation distinction, and how so many other thinking is simply pantheistic. K: "The Bible proves that God is of yesterday, ...", I would say no, not "proves", but "affirms" or "reveals".
@30:20 The pastor: Creation is a trap. I think by this he meant he cannot talk about the gospel when it comes to creation. As there's no way to deal with science on creation. It seems that his concept of "general revelation" wasn't strong enough.
@34:40 The pastor's bringing up of the irrelevance of dispensationalism debates set the question for Joy to ask: The Bible doesn't say our past, present and future sins are forgiven. P answered well: He died for our sins once and for all (Hebrews 10:12, Peter 3:18, etc.). J referred to Romans 3:25 "...his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." to show that God only forgives past sins, not present nor future. I looked it up, this "former sins" were generally seen as the sins of OT saints (Gill) or legal expiations (Calvin). The pastor was also right in identifying the reference being "before Christ" and that verse is not talking about our individual salvation today. Ez referred back from verse 21, to understand it as sins of OT laws. The pastor then re-read from verse 20 to pronounce that this is Christ's righteousness, not ours. That's good, but I think he later tried to make a distinction inaccurately about "propitiation" and "expiation", as "total substitution" and "do this and you're forgiven, but later you sin again", respectively. I would just define these as "satisfied God's anger" and "cleansed of sins".
@41:22 J understood in Hebrews 10:12 "once and for all" as Jesus only needed to die once. A bad interpretation. Key word is "...forever..." KJV, "...for all time..." ESV, and so this is not just about dying for only one time. But even so, even with that bad interpretation, one sacrifice should also be rightly understood as for all sins.
@42:10 R interrupted with the mention of the veil torn in two as a symbolic answer to this as well. But I think that's not where Joy was going for.
@43:00 Joy is now dealing with Arminianism view. I don't think I need to do further analysis on this. As this view generally rejects Christ's Active Obedience. Though not used by the pastor, but he rightly called it "by Christ's righteousness, not ours."
I think the key is in verse 21, "...apart from the law..." meaning obedience to the law does not grant such righteousness. Such righteousness has never been possible to obtain until Christ. A good supplement for this is also the introduction of active/passive obedience of Christ. WCF 11.1. It's interesting that though the exact phrase is not found in WCF 11.1, it is found in 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith 11.1. Nevertheless, the language is understood as such in WCF unquestionably. Joy perhaps only understood passive obedience and may reject active obedience of Christ. I have already another entry on this, but I shall just paste a quote from there here:
...However, that [passive obedience of Christ] is not enough, because that only makes us sinless. To truly be saved, we must not just be completely sinless, such as rocks and stones, we must also be righteous!
To answer Joy, I would do it this way: God's love/our salvation/election causes us to repent; Not our repentance causes God's love/our salvation/election. As an elect, I obey God out of my love for God; I don't obey God out of my fear for hell. If I have to tell someone to repent out of fear for hell, then I am already doing the Gospel wrong.
BillZ rightly mentioned sins unknown to us, "hidden faults" being forgiven, as stated in Psalm 19.
My summary: Obedience is an inevitable affirmation of the elect; not a required condition to be elected. Here, Joy's use of "repentance" is interchangeable with "obedience", and "saved" is interchangeable with elect/elected/chosen.
As supplements, I am jotting down Stephen Tong's exposition on Romans 3:19-31, in his new expository without translator in Taiwan (after the HK debacle), to #15-#18 (Though #18 may not have been part of the passage focus).
第015讲 律法引人到耶稣基督的面前