In
NT class, I have learned many good ideas and concepts that caused me to want to
reflect further.
1.
In one of the lesson, I learnt that after Davidic covenant, there is no more
prophecy about God’s covenant. And, the Jews were captured and under
oppression. Hence, the Jews were looking forward to the return of Messiah. They
were hoping to have political messiah, to bring them out from the oppressive
situation. This is the only hope for the Jews. However, after hearing from Jesus,
they were quite disappointed as it is conflicting with their beliefs. Something
caught me thinking is where is God when the people are in this kind of
situation?
How
did the people during that time still keep their hope and faith in God? I guess
God wants the people to wait patiently, keep believe in those prophecy that yet
to take place. And, the Jews couldn’t believe in Jesus, due to conflicting
ideas. Taking it to my own life, at time, I got to examine also if I am also
behaving like the Jews: fixing and insisting on certain understanding and leave
no room for correction. Secondly, in the situation that I do not see the
promises of God come to pass yet, do I give up easily? I think there are times that
I think I feel like giving it up, as I was impatient and tired of keep doing
the same thing and waiting. Thank God for His grace, I was able to have friends
around me to support me, prayed for me and encouraged me to preserve on.
2.
Book of Mark is emphasizing on Jesus is servant messiah. Jesus came to serve,
not to be served. However, most people in current churches don’t practice the
biblical leadership. Some churches tried to practice biblical leadership;
however, it is still work in progress. I think this is part of discipleship. People
would only continue to display God’s image in action when they continue to be renewed
and changed in their understanding. I was reflecting on my current practice of
leadership. I think as much as I would like to practice, I would like to say
that outwardly it may seems that I am practicing biblical leadership. However,
if I examine deeper, inwardly, I am still having the worldly leadership
attitude. It is good reminder for me again that I shall keep my heart attitude
examined constantly.
3.
There is a question that posted by Bro Casey- what is the key to understanding
and experiencing Christ? He shared Mark 4: 11-12 to the class. The key to it is
the mentality. Most people have this philosophy of thinking that 1 plus 1 is
equal to 2, to them it is logical, so it is the truth. However, this 1+1=2 is a
philosophy. I guess at time there are things that cannot use this logic to
explain, cannot be logical, yet there is still truth in it. For example,
someone experience miracle healing, this is something that medical doctor could
not explain. It is just like salvation, it is simply by believing in the heart
and confessing in the mouth that Jesus is Lord and Savior. However, this simple
truth to people is a hard truth, illogical truth. It is because of the
mentality of people. Having this understanding, I think it helps me in my
discipleship and evangelism work. Nowadays, I would try to observe and
understand the mentality of people, to understand stop them from understanding
and experiencing Christ.
4.
Jesus came to reveal God’s will and preaches the kingdom of heaven. Bro Casey commented
that when someone said please pray for me to hear God’s will, he may not know
what he is asking, as we already know God’s will, however, most of us are not
willing to do the will of God. I agreed with this statement. I believe that as
we continue to do God’s general will, God will naturally reveal to us the specific
will or calling to the person.
5. I was reflecting on what are the common
obstacles to discipleship. These obstacles are lack of understanding, lack of
faith, self-concern, presumption, doubt, fear of losing control. To me, my
biggest obstacle is lack of faith. When I heard from God, my first respond to
it always doubting and do not believe that it could be true in my life. Two
year ago, I have already heard from God, however, I was afraid to act on it.
So, I asked friend to pray for me to hear from God correctly. During that time,
down in the heart I was having mix feelings, excited and fearful. Because of
lack of faith, I do not respond immediately. So, I prayed that next time, I will
have faith and respond to God immediately and obey His call.
Actually, I don't believe miraculous healing is an illogical event. It is illogical insofar your presupposition allows. If our worldview allows divine healing to take place, then by right, divine healing should be a perfectly logical thing to happen, when it happens. Likewise for salvation, Jesus' dying on the cross was foolishness because of the societal presupposition which did not allow the people to see the act as logical. But in the Christian worldview, we need to see it as a logical act of God. Just because we cannot understand does not mean that it is illogical, because logic by itself does not discriminate between worldviews. It is us, who get too influenced by secular worldview and philosophy, that we begin to see the act of God as illogical, when the conclusion can actually be constructed logically. Take for example a logical argument for the existence of God:
ReplyDeleteThe fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design
It is not due to physical necessity or chance
Therefore it is due to design
The above logical argument will thus lead to the ultimate conclusion that God is the Designer. As we can see, if logically we can construct the argument for the act of God in the cosmological fine-tuning, then we can by right construct a logical argument for miracles such as healing.
Yes, Matthias, I agreed with your argument and reasoning. It goes down to a person's philosophy and belief. I guess as a Christian, we need to continue to have God having His lordship over our life, in philosophy and belief, i.e. in Romans 12: 2 do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
ReplyDeleteThe spiritual path is beautiful, ugly, profound and ordinary all at once. It comes full of elusive aspirations, emotional dramas, transcendent bliss and everything else in between - and frankly, it can sometimes feel like living in a terrifying hell, or in a pristine heaven, or at other times just simply boring and pointless.
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ReplyDeleteI just did testing. Hi, Siew Khim, thank you for the sharing on Book of Mark. I love Book of Mark. Your sharing levels up my interest this book of miracles. Many time, the divine healing process is not logic to doctors and scientist. Jesus said, "Your faith saved you..." Yes, faith is our logic, for ever and ever.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sophia. :)
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