Of New Testament Foundation and Reflections

There have been a few interesting points which I have reflected over the course of my study in New Testament Foundation module and I thought it profitable to share over here.

Firstly, studying Mark 8 makes me reflect on what being a disciple of Christ is really all about. Mark 8:34-38 and Matthew 16:24-27 state the reality of being a disciple of Christ - that it is not an easy route and it requires some level of submission to God and sacrifice in our individual lives. This makes me ponder about the health and wealth gospel that we hear so frequently - that God will bless his people with health and wealth. But if we were to admit that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, then we need to realise that it is not going to be a bed of roses as some preachers will assert. We thus need to understand, as I have asserted somewhere in this blog before, that there is a price to pay for being a disciple of Christ.

Secondly, it is about the righteousness of God. It was shared during one of the lessons that righteousness, simply put it, is what pleases God. Understanding righteousness in this manner makes sense of the Sermon on the Mount. For example, when Jesus teaches that unless our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, we will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven, we can see it that we need to please God and establish a relationship with God instead of just legally following the laws, without understanding that the Law was given to establish the relationship with God. Thus the question to ourselves is whether we are living our lives to please God, or living our lives just to fulfill some laws or regulations given to us.

Thirdly, we were looking at Romans 8:29 and I thought the verse gave me a new perspective on the whole Romans 8:18-30. Verse 29 could be better interpreted as 'because God loves us, His destination for the church as a whole is for us to grow towards Christlikeness'. In the context of Romans 8, the preceding verses talk about our present suffering and the future glory. In that light, God's 'working for the good of us' can actually be taken to mean that our suffering at the end of the day has its own purpose in bringing us towards the destination of Christlikeness that God has intended for us. This is a very reassuring thought for me as I do face discouragement in my own ministry on a daily basis and such encouragement, together with the first point, helps me to keep my focus on God's goodness and understand that God is not going to forsake me anytime. Impossible to miss also is the extent of God's grace, that although we are unworthy, He still loves us enough to want us to grow to be like His Son, whom He loves.

Fourthly, in the process of learning new things about God from the first three points and talking to a LG member last night, I began to understand that sometimes, we are too comfortable in our own reading of the Scripture and one reason why we can feel 'dry' in our daily devotion is because we do not allow our perception of who God is to be shaken by deeper study of the Word. My understanding of my own relationship with God grew as a result of allowing what I know about God to be challenged by the materials that I interact with for this module and to me, these moments of mind-blowing challenges make the late night classes worth the money and time. More importantly, these moments challenged me to study the scripture even more to learn more about God.

Lastly, it is the importance of the Holy Spirit in our own individual lives. This arises from my own study of Acts previously and subsequently researching about the Pentecostal view of Holy Spirit baptism. Preparing for the series of study for Acts, it is difficult not to miss the role of the Holy Spirit in His guidance of world mission, as He empowered and guided the apostles. Although I have previously read some books that argue that the tangible guidance of the Holy Spirit does not really apply to the Christians apart from the apostles, one had to be cognizant of the fact that Luke is a theologian when he wrote Luke-Acts and he was trying to convey his theological understanding of God to his readers in Acts. Hence, challenging to us is whether how much is the Holy Spirit being involved in our ministry today and how much are we actually relying on our own strength.

 

Comments

  1. I agree with what you mentioned in your first sharing regarding the health and wealth gospel. There are many instances in the bible where God was shown real to people through times of pain and suffering. It is not that God will not bless with health and wealth, He can. However, people seem to require some struggle and suffering to grow in God and see who God is! If we do not go through bad times, we become very one-dimensional creatures and we also fail to see the multi-faceted God we serve. One such story that comes to my mind is the raising of Lazarus in John 11 where Jesus did not go to heal Lazarus even though He was told Lazarus was sick. Instead, the bible says Jesus loved Martha Mary and Lazarus and so He did not go. Jesus did not spare them the suffering of losing the brother because in the end He wanted them to see God's full glory. Sometimes when we are going through suffering, it is so we will see who God is. It is through suffering we begin to submit authority and control of our lives to God and we acknowledge we cannot live life on our strength no matter how brilliant we can be.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I agree. As i am doing some research in this area, I also began to learn that we cannot view failures and tribulations as curses from God but rather, we need to see the grace of God in our lives in all these circumstances, hence giving thanks in all circumstances.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous11:10 AM

    Hi Huan Yan,

    I had a good read! Just want to share a little part of my conversation with God just during the Easter season. I was talking to God and asking if He could teach me how to help others experience outreach more supernaturally rather than just going through the motions of it. He convicted me in my spirit, though the conversation with Him that outreach is full of wonders if we can 'flow where He is already flowing.' It was a very personal moment for me with God as for a moment, He opened my spiritual eyes to be sensitive to His move that is already ahead of me.It stirred great anticipation and excitement!

    I guess this resonates with the last part of your blog where you shared about how the Holy Spirit guides us.It is an amazing experience experience to be guided by the Spirit. Probably the question is how often are we sensitive to Him? How much do we want to be guided divinely? Will we eventually respond when He guides.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah, this is something which I have been thinking about since I began researching about Holy Spirit Baptism. The book of Acts implies that Spirit Baptism is part of the process that empowers us for God's missions. The question for me is whether I am really relying on the Holy Spirit in my own outreach as well. There are indeed occasions when I heard the promptings from the Holy Spirit but I think as humans, we tend to doubt and fear.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can really imagine you as a theologian. Very well written reflections I must say. Indeed this module motivated me to study the scripture more. It also helps to clear some misunderstanding that some of us may have regarding certain scriptures and I am waiting to share what we have learnt in class to my cell group members. I guess learning feels more complete after we share.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Zoe. But in any case, isn't everyone of us a theologian? We hold a certain view of God, regardless whether it is informed by the proper study of the Bible or not. Even an atheist, in that sense, is a theologian, although he is a theologian whose view on God is that He does not exist.

    I agree that learning feels more complete after we share. In fact, by taking this module, I have been sharing what I learned each week to my friends in church. This helps to consolidate our thoughts and helps us to make sense further on what we learned.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Learning is certainly more complete and "aha . . ." as we share with others!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parable of the 'Good Samaritan'

Of Teaching and Learning

Iakobou Epistode: From Confusion to Clarity