the one true King

Recently I participated at a wedding as a groomsman, and it was truly an honor. On the Thursday before the wedding, I went to pick up another groomsman on my way to the wedding rehearsal. He is a very good friend who lives outside of the country so we don't get to talk a lot. And as he sat into the car, he asked me about my opinion on the protests in Hong Kong, which caught me a bit off guard as I was not expecting a heavy question as our first conversation haha.

This is a topic I have been thinking about for a while, as I want to understand how a Christian should respond to this situation. I lived 2 years in Hong Kong when I was in kindergarten, and my dad and his family lives there right now, so in a way I am connected with this city. To be truly honest, I am not 100% engaged or invested with the situation in Hong Kong as I don't live there and don't have a good understanding of the people's situation to make a stand.

But I do want to learn on how we as Christians should respond because this type of situation could happen in the places where we live in. The question that comes to mind is, whether we Christians should participate in this type of protests. Here are a few points for discussion:

• Submission to authorities, are Christians to always obey authorities?
• Romans 13 is very clear on that we should be subject to authorities, and that God has put these people in power for a reason. We could ask ourselves whether this "command" was only for the people that the letter of Romans was addressed to, or whether it is for everyone. 
• We also know that not everyone in authority in the world will adhere to Christian principles, so we are bound to be in conflict with those in power. I like how Paul speaks about praying for those who are in power, so that the can grow in godliness and holiness (1 Timothy 2:1-2). 
• I think Daniel is a good example on how a Christian should behave when the authorities are imposing something that is not compliance to our faith. He did not revolt or make a big deal out of it. He did disobey the decree (of not praying to any gods other than king Darius), but he readily  accepted this punishment to be thrown to the lion's den, and God saved him!
• How to respond when there is injustice?
• I don't have a good grasp of all the injustices that people in Hong Kong go through, I do know of some like the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the crazily expensive housing prices (that most common people cannot afford), and since the "governor" of Hong Kong is selected from a list of people chosen by the government in China, then there is little probability that this governor will strongly adhere to the interest of the people in Hong Kong. 
• Is it rightful to protest (and in the process disobeying the authorities) until demands are met? I cannot recall any bible passages where it deemed to be rightful to protest against the authorities. Instead I can think of passages where people in influential positions were able to convince kings to do something good for the Israelites (Nehemiah convinced king Artaxerxes to allow him to go rebuild the walls, similar examples with Ezra and Esther). 
• What is the "right" government system?
• I am not an expert of government systems, but many people in the western world do believe that democracy is the way to go. I know that democracy allows people's interests to be represented instead of giving full power to a central political body (or in some situations to a single person). From a biblical perspective, I think the ideal government is a theocratic one, where a king is selected by God to govern by God's statutes. But then, even the closest godly king, David, did very bad things. This is part of the human sinful nature, when given so much power, we can easily be corrupted.

I don't think I am providing any answers as I write, but I am finding more questions without answers.

My current stand is that I would participate in the protest with the aim to express my opinion that I disagree with the injustices people are going through, but I would not incite in violence or have a defiant attitude when engaging with authorities (e.g. police force). I don't think there will be a perfect government system here on earth, and I think there will continue be injustices regarding of the government system, but I think that this is part of God's sovereignty and that there is hope that God will impart justice on His proper timing. As well, I also think that this is a great opportunity to tell others about the gospel, because we have a true King that is just, and He is the savior of our lives. 

During this Thanksgiving, I am really thankful to Christ because:

• Christ is a servant king (Matthew 20:25-28) who came to earth to serve
• Christ is our role model (1 John 2:6) who exemplified how we should live
• Christ is a king who died to saved His people (Matthew 27:42, Jews were mocking Him, but really Christ chose not to save Himself from the cross, to save the world)
• Christ is a victorious king (1 Cor. 15:20-28) who has dominion over enemies and authorities and even death.
• Christ is also a compassionate king and his legacy carries on even now

gospel: resurrection

Recently, we did a bible study on 1 Corinthians 15:1-21 in small group, just before Easter. This passage includes a condensed version of what the gospel is:

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." - 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

A major part of the discussion revolved around the verses 12-17, where Paul speaks about the importance of the resurrection in our faith (if the resurrection did not happen, then our faith is futile). So we were trying to determine why was the resurrection of Jesus so essential to our faith, and we came up with several points:

• we have faith in a living Christ
• Christ is our mediator (it does not make sense if He is dead)
• Christ overcame death (wages of sin is death) to makes us free
• Christ is supreme, even over death, so that proves He is God
• Christ resurrected with a living body, to give a foresight that we will also have resurrected bodies in the restoration

Then an interesting verse came to play:

" It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,  who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." - Romans 4:24-25

So the main question we struggled about was, how does the resurrection of Christ leads to our justification (to declare us righteous in front of God's eyes)? Many of us, understand that the death of Christ was necessarily as propitiation (taking away the wrath of God) for our sins. Christ is sinless, hence His sacrifice is perfect and sufficient to pay for our sins. The great exchange happens so that the Christ suffers the punishment of our sins, and His righteousness is imputed into us, making us righteous (justification).

But then, how does resurrection leads to our justification? Shouldn't the death of Christ be enough to accomplish this?

So we have to do some readings from theologians to understand more:

• Wayne Gurdem in Systematic Theology, points out that "When Christ was raised from the dead, it was God's declaration of approval of Christ's work of redemption. Because Christ 'humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross' (Phil. 2:8), 'God exalted him..' (Phil. 2:9). By raising Christ, from the dead, God the father was in effect saying that he approved of Christ's work of suffering and dying for our sins."
• R.C. Sproul writes an article "Resurrection and Justification": stating that the resurrection serves as a demonstration (so to assures us that He is God) but also as a vindication that God the Father validates the authenticity of Christ. And also that God the Father approves of the work of Christ.
• John Piper states on his book "50 reasons why Jesus came to die" on page 100-101: "The resurrection of Jesus is God's gift and proof that his death was completely successful in blotting out the sins of his people and removing the wrath of God. You can see this in the word "therefore". Christ was "obedient to the point of death, even on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him" (Philippians 2:8-9). From the cross the Son of God cried, "It is finished" (John 19:30). And by means of the resurrection, God the Father cries, "It was finished indeed!". The great work of paying for our sin and providing our righteousness and satisfying God's justice was finished in the death of Jesus."

Pretty awesome stuff, glory to God!

Character

This weekend I had a great time in a bachelor's party, and it is truly a joy to witness a brother (who I know for very long time) to grow in the maturity of the Lord, and now committing to marriage.

We did a wide variety of events including paintball, wings night, watching the worst movie ever, manly breakfast, wall climbing, all you can eat sushi, cheap steak lunch... it was pretty awesome. As well, we had a time of prayer to encourage our brother in this new journey. Also, we had very late night sharing, where we talked about various spiritual topics, and it is really encouraging to see a brother sharing about their God-given burdens, and the desire of their hearts to walk with the Lord. Really treasure these times (not sure why it has to always happened at post 1am).

Of course we talked about the role of the man in a marriage relationship, and the aspect of "spiritual leadership" was brought up. For most of us, we see this accomplished through investing time in prayer time and bible study with the spouse, and serving the Lord together. But this brother shared that these activities are very good, but it is not just about that. It is also about growing in the character of Christ, to grow into a man who can love his wife unconditionally, who can make the right decisions in difficult times, who can make sure the relationships stay centered in Christ. I think this is good.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." - Ephesians 5:25-27

to be or not to be

In the recent times, many of my friends are either getting engaged or getting married. I see couples that get engaged after a considerable long period of dating (e.g. more than 2 years), as well I have seen couple getting engaged after very short period of dating (e.g. within 6 months). So this led me to think about whether there is a recommended period of time a couple has to date before entering engagement, which leads to marriage. I have spoken to different groups of people to get a spectrum of opinions regarding this topic.

About dating longer

As Christians, we get into dating relationship with the purpose of marriage. We believe that marriage was ordained by God  (Genesis), and that marriage is also an illustration of the love that Christ has for the Church (Ephesians 5). Marriage is a beautiful relationship that God designed and we ought to take it very seriously.

Hence, we during dating period, we should take the time to get to know our partner to determine if we can find any "deal breaker" that will end the relationship. It takes time to get to know a person. My analogy is poor, but I work as a Software Tester, and it is impossible to test a product 100%, so we try our best to test it within the time given to us, ideally we want to find all the "show stopper" bugs, so that we can release guaranteeing the product will be ok. Similarly, we want to date well so that we can find and sort out "deal breakers" so that the marriage can be smoother.

Another argument for this is that when a couple starts a dating relationship, there is a "honey moon" phase, where emotions are strong, and the couple sees sunny days, rainbows, butterflies and flowers even when in reality we are in a Canadian winter day. So it takes some time to "cool down" before the couple can maximize their objective thoughts regarding their relationship. As well, there are probably not much heated arguments during that "honey moon" phase. It is part of our sinful nature that we will hurt each other in a relationship or disagree on things, so understanding conflict resolution as a couple is a very helpful exercise to grow as a couple.

I personally come from divorced parents, and experienced the consequences of a broken family. It's not pretty. As a Christian, I have a firm conviction that divorce is not a choice, therefore I think the decision to be engaged has to be made very carefully. In most cases, carefulness involves taking time to think about it and getting more information (to mitigate risks).

But, I also think that having a prolonged time of dating can be dangerous because it can show insecurity or lack of commitment as a couple to move forward.

About dating shorter

I will go back to the illustration of marriage, which is Christ loving the church and dying for the church (Ephesians 5). Christ died for the church, not because the church loved him or the church could add more value to Him. We know that when we were sinners, enemies of God, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8), and that God loved us first (1 John).

So we can see from these that love is not purely emotions, but it is driven by a will. A will to do something (an action) on behalf of its object (from a sermon from Voddie Baucham). Christ loves us even when we were his enemies!

Going back to the relationship aspect, a man chooses to love a woman even though he might not know all the possible "deal breakers", but he will still love her even if a "deal breaker" is known because love is a conscious choice he made.

"Momentary Marriage", a book by John Piper, emphasizes in the aspect of covenant, which involves serious commitment. Even during marriage, there will be difficult times, when we will know more of the shortcomings of our partner, but one learns how to love despite these shortcomings. Loving a person is not just about the "good" things of our partner, it is also about the loving him/her in spite of the "bad" things.

This view focuses on the commitment aspect, and when a couple starts dating, it is expected that their commitment is as close as to be ready for marriage, hence there is really not much point of dating. And a prolonged dating period can be seen as having more "room" for the couple to bail out from this commitment.

Though this view seems to have a lack of emotions, I don't think this is the case at all. Though love is driven by a choice, it is also accompanied by emotions that confirm the choice made.

Any conclusion?

This is really hard to answer because there are many factors that we didn't take into account:

• maturity, age, life stage
• parents' viewpoint
• life vision
• character compatibility
• spiritual depth
• serving roles
• etc

There are more questions that are interesting to answer:

• How well you need to know the other person before going towards engagement?
• What factors (or deal breakers) will lead a couple to break up?

I think that the question of how long one couple should date before getting engaged has to be really treated case by case. Though there are safe guidelines to follow, they might not be a must. There is a need to have a conviction that a marriage relationship can only survive by the grace of God, marriage has to be Christ-centered, otherwise it will fall apart as adding 2 sinners into an intimate relationship does not make it easier.

I personally will ask myself these questions:

• Am I willing to lay down my life for this person? (no matter how long you date, you just cannot know a person entirely)
• Am I willing to share in her burdens and life baggage?
• On a very dark day, can her smile make my day the brightest? 

why Trinity

I was watching a video with Tim Keller, John Piper, and D.A. Carson about the Trinity which is quite insightful and good: http://thegospelcoalition.org/videos/44935725

I remembered on a Sunday school, this question was asked "would you stand up and die defending the truth of the Trinity?". It's interesting because the bible does not explicitly state the term "Trinity", and perhaps not many people think that the Trinity is one of those fundamental truths that we should defend like the death and resurrection of Jesus, salvation by grace through faith, or the authority of Scripture. Also, it is really hard to comprehend the Trinity.

But I think the Trinity is on-par in importance.

First of all, we are to grow in learning more about the God who we worship. So the better we know of who God is, the more accurate our understanding of Him is, the more accurate our worship towards the true God is. For example, we all know God is love, but not many know that God is wrathful. So people who lack understanding in the latter, will worship God because He is loving but will not comprehend why the cross of Christ was necessarily for our salvation, and not comprehend that the consequence of our sins is death. Having knowledge of both aspects of God (love and wrath), we can understand that His grace is actually a couple of magnitude larger than we thought, and we will realize that there is nothing else that we can do but worship Him.

The point I want to emphasize is the relationship among the persons of the Trinity (Father, Son, Spirit). Tim Keller in his "Reasons for God" book has a chapter dedicated to the Trinity, and it conveys the beauty of the truth of the Trinity. Basically, he describes it as a "dance", where each person of the Trinity is submitting and glorifying the other members of the Trinity, non-stop. There are examples in John 16-18, where Jesus submits to the Father, or when talks about the Spirit will glorify Christ. Also the statement of  "God is love" is profound. Because if God was just one person, then when we said "God is love", he can only love Himself, since love requires more than one member. So the fact that our God is three persons, the statement of "God is love" makes sense because the constant selfless act of glorying one another for each person of the Trinity is the essence of God's love.

Since God loves us first, we can also love Him and love our brothers and sisters. And by understanding the love within the Trinity, we can learn how to love one another by being selfless, gracious, submitting towards one another. God is so good.

Numbers numbers numbers

I found something interesting (especially if you like Chemistry) about arranging the books of the bible in a visual way: https://s3.amazonaws.com/Challies_VisualTheology/BooksoftheBible-2560x1600.jpg

Actually there are a series of diagrams about other Christian topics here: http://www.challies.com/resources/visual-theology-the-books-of-the-bible

Something that I learned in Simply Church Sunday School (we are doing a Old Testament survey), and there  are numerical patterns in terms of events or book arrangements, like for example:

Pentateuch - 5 books
Historical - 12 books
Poetry - 5 books
Major Prophets - 5 books
Minor Prophets - 12 books

The numbers 12 and 5 tend to repeat themselves quite often. Perhaps it means something more, but there is always a danger of over-analyzing. But I think this pattern helps me remember better the order of the books =P.

authority

When guys talk for long hours, it is usually about 2 main things (well in reality it's 3), it's either something very serious and academic (like theological arguments about free-will vs predestination, how to live life, etc) or things that we treasure from our childhood. For example, after a CCF night there were 2 guys and me who stayed in the room until 11pm talking about Dragon Ball Z. We were talking about the correct order of the succession of events in the Majin Boo arc (like in what order were the good guys eaten by Boo). It was fun times!

I remember once I also had a debate with a friend regarding Pokemon game. We were debating about what psychic attack was the most powerful, between "Psybeam" and "Psychic". I thought it was "Psybeam", but I was wrong. Just recently, 2 housemates and I were in living room area and started to talk for more than an hour about Pokemon game, and debating which Pokemons and which types of Pokemon were the strongest, and which moves were the coolest. And we realized that we are missing something important. Basically we have another housemate (who was already asleep by then), and he knows about Pokemon. Like he is like a walking encyclopedia about the subject. We know that this housemate is the "authoritative" voice to resolve any disagreement. The next day we talked to him, and the sheer of information he knows about the subject is actually quite scary...

So it is really important to have an authoritative voice in the way we live, and we find it in the Bible. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we are able to understand that the Scripture is a treasure for a believer because God reveals Himself to us through the Word, and we can learn more about Him, about the great mercies of God despite our sinful nature, we can learn about what a holy life looks like, we can learn wisdom in how to handle situations. It is so good!

Many times, when we go to a church and listen to the preacher, it is easy just to absorb everything and take it for granted that what he is speaking is absolutely truth. Also, the ways the church do things we think it is always correct. I think we have to always validate these things with the Bible. (I am not discrediting the preachers or the church, but it is a safeguard for each of us because we humans can easily made mistakes).

I was watching a clip with my housemate about "Francis Schaeffer" titled "How should we then live" and it gave a historical overview of how the church evolved from the early church up to the middle ages. During the early church times, the service was focused on speaking about he truth of the Scripture, mainly Christ. But as times went by, other things gain authority in the church other than the Bible like the things that the priest will say (like the Pope) and traditions. These became sources of truth (regarding how to live and even about salvation) and corrupted the church until the Reformation. And one of the main points of the Reformation is "Sola Scriptura" which states that the Bible is the supreme authority for a believer regarding the aspects of salvation and holiness.

So whenever we discuss about various topics or make decisions about life, let's always refer to the Scripture.

Importance of Defense

Since the soccer world cup is coming soon, I gonna share a bit about my second favorite national soccer team: Italia. It's a team that many people dislike because they don't play pretty (entertaining) soccer, they rely on their borderline physical play, they tend to exaggerate in front of the referee to the point of simulating fouls (which I think many teams do it nowadays). But I like them. Besides that fact that I like the blue color of the Italian jersey, I like their defense. There was a time when they had an all-star line of this line of defenders: Paolo Maldini, Fabio Cannavaro, and Alessandro Nesta. Their defense is so focused and strong, that it is their foundation to achieve victory by not letting the opposing team score.

Recently, two brothers and I were meeting frequently with a some mormon missionaries. It is funny because they saw me at Philip one day, and on the next day another brother found the same mormon missionaries at Lester, and we just decided to meet together (instead of separately). Another brother joined us too, and we met up 6 times during 2 weeks. During the last meeting, they gave up on us, saying that they had shared all their "truth", that it was up to us to decide, and that they need to spend time with other people.

It was a challenging experience for me because it was my first time that I have to defend my faith against false teachings. The mormon missionaries are well trained, they speak very well, they take control of the conversation, and the message they spoke was like 90% similar to what I believe. I am sure that they purposely hid some aspects of their "sketchy" beliefs. That is why it is so important for every Christian to know the truth, to know how to express it, and to know how to defend it. The importance of defense is to not let the opposing team score, and to eventually overwhelm them by our firmness.

During these 2 weeks, I spent time researching about the mormons and preparing to defend the truth that I stand for, and it was a very rewarding learning experience. In terms of biblical, archeological and historical facts, there is an overwhelming number of ways to defend the truth of Christianity against the mormons. Whenever we point out a biblical truth that contradicts the mormon doctrine, the mormon missionaries (they say they believe in the bible) will just tactfully comment on it, change subjects or go in circles, so it was a bit disappointing. Most of the things that they talked to us about don't even come from the book of mormons, but from other sources such as the words of their prophets and another document they have about covenants. In the end, I found it very hard to convince them that Christianity is true by arguing, but that my role is to let the Word speak with the hope that the Spirit will convict them about the truth from Scripture. I told them to read Galatians 1 on their own as my last words =P

Summary of the things I learned in interacting with mormon missionaries:

• Love and compassion: I felt anger because they are preaching a false gospel, blaspheming the Word of God, and they are very active on campus. I was all pumped to enter into arguments and debates with them. But I realized that will not go anywhere, and that preaching the gospel has to be done with love.
• Let the Word of God speak: I could use many biblical facts to bash their teachings, but a better approach to minister to them by showing them what the bible says and let them read it themselves.
• Don't go alone: Go with someone who can help you with prayer while you talk and support you, there is a spiritual warfare.
• Grace vs. works: the mormons believe that they need to do works to earn salvation. I was thinking, why is salvation by works so attractive? And I realized that there can be boasting in such teaching, while we as Christians only boast on the cross because it is not because of what I do, but of what Jesus did.
• Heart is deceitful: the mormon tells you to rely on your feelings while discerning the validity of the book of mormons, but we ought not do that because feelings are deceiving but we use wisdom.
• Pray constantly.

Tips to memorize verse numbers

"But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night."

Psalm 1:2

Meditating and memorizing bible verses is a very rewarding discipline. During the course of the day, we can meditate on verses that speak to us allowing us to gain new insight, being transformed by the Word, and have the commands written in our hearts.

I shall discuss some other time the goodness of memorizing and meditating. I want to focus on memorizing the exact location (verse numbers). I know that it is not essentially important to know the exact location of the verse you are memorizing. I think that if you have a good estimation of where it is located, it is good enough as you can always flip through your bible (always carry your sword) and look for it, especially when you are sharing the gospel or defending our faith.

I have compiled a few tricks I personally use to memorize the verse numbers:

Numerical Method 1: Addition

• Example: "Be still, and know that I am God" - Psalm 46:10
• Explanation: 4 + 6 = 10

Numerical Method 2: Divisibility

• Example: "if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." - 2 Chronicles 7:14
• Other examples: Ephesians 5:25 (important verse for man), Psalm 75:3, Isaiah 30:15, 2 Corinthians 4:16
• Explanation: 25 is divisible by 5, and 14 is divisible by 7, etc

Numerical Method 3: Prime numbers

• Example: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" - Romans 3:23
• Other examples: Matthew 5:13, Matthew 7:7,
• Explanation: Prime numbers are those that are only divisible by 1 and by itself. Both 3 and 23 are prime, and they are not that fun, so it resounds with this verse that states that we are not good enough.

Numerical Method 4: PI

• Example: "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." - 1 Peter 3:15
• Other examples: Ephesians 3:14-21
• Explanation: PI = 3.14, so the verse contains a number approx close to PI.

Chinese pronunciation

• Example: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." - Proverbs 4:23
• Other examples: Romans 8:28
• Explanation: For Chinese speakers, memorizing the sounds of Chinese numbers is way easier. This particular verse contains "4" (sounds like "death"), "2" (sounds like "easy"), and "3" (sounds like "alive"). This is interesting because the heart is deceitful, and if we don't guard it well, it leads to death easily. But when we guard our hearts well, it leads to life.
  
  As for the latter example (Rom. 8:28), it is to note that "8" means "prosperity" so this verse is about how good God is!

There is probably more I can think of, for some future posts perhaps :).