The reflecting theologian

Last night, I had my last lesson for NTF, and I am having two more lessons for Theological Research. I must admit that it has been an exciting first semester for me and now I relish all the opportunities to meet up with my classmates and learn from one another. Now that my semester is coming to a close, the pre-module assignments for the next one are already given to me. So it seems that I will be having a busy 'vacation' per se: Biblical interpretation: complete reading of textbooks, review assignments etc Sermon discussions: complete the sermon discussions for workplace ministry for the month of June Casual: Read Michael Licona's The Resurrection of Jesus College camp is coming up as well. I guess it will be far more exciting in the months ahead. 

I was out for street healing a few days back and something that the leader said during the debriefing struck me - we were able to see so much healing and part of the reason was because we were under corporate anointing, that some people were congregating somewhere and praying for the street healing ministry. It led me to think of what Paul actually exhorted to the Ephesians (and some people may have heard me saying this even before this): Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you (   ὑμᾶς)   may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, wit...

Yesterday, during the sermon, the preacher asked us to go and think about what Jesus would be saying to us if we were to meet Him today. Would He say 'well done, good and faithful servant'? Or would He say that 'we are going into heaven by the skin of our teeth'? It is indeed a sobering question to ask of ourselves on how we are spending our lives on earth. In fact, the passage where the term 'well done, good and faithful servant' was coined in the context on what we should be doing while waiting for the second coming of Jesus. In Matthew 24-25, the whole chunk of the passage talks about what is going to happen towards the end times, and Jesus devoted three parables to talk about what people were doing, firstly the servants who thought that the master was not coming back, secondly the virgin brides who thought that the groom was going to come early and lastly, the three servants who were given the bags of gold while the master is away. The key thing for us t...

I remember a few years back when I first got my current job and I was asked to give a testimony on stage on how God has blessed my job search. And I remember telling people that God gave me a job with a comfortable salary. When I returned to the exam HQ in NUS, one brother did a calculation and commented that it was disgusting for starting salary. Now moving into my fourth year, I have seen six salary adjustments - two structural adjustment, two merit increments and two promotion increments. When I looked at the latest increment, I can only be reminded on how God has blessed me so much, including this area of finance, to the point that I can only think of giving back. In actual fact, I think this is really what God meant when He exhorted us to seek Him and His righteousness first. We do not need to be worried about our needs as our first priority should be to do what pleases Him and to seek His rule in our life, in the context of the passage. And yes, at this point, I don't nee...

Tonight I was helping out with a Mandarin service at Highpoint Community and was tasked to lead the Praise and Worship. To cut the long story short, it was a task completed only by the grace of God due to the few reasons: It was the first time I was leading praise and worship on stage... In a service setting... In Mandarin... Playing guitar at the same time... With two songs that I was not familiar with (I was assigned the songs) We changed one of the songs just before we started (thank God I know the song) The church band decided to support - it was my first time playing with them... Only one hour to practice with three backup singers... I guess there's a first time for everything. To give more context, this is the first time in so many months I played in a band setting as well, not to mention I have never played with this particular band before (but they were good). It was indeed a difficult task that I think it was only due to the grace of God. Thank God for the many...

We were looking at the book of Philemon last Wednesday and studying the themes that the short book has to teach us as believers. One immediate observation on this book is that this book seems to be very out-of-place amongst Paul's epistles which makes one wonder why this book was included in the canon in the first place. However, without going too much into the technical details of the canon, it suffices to say here that the inclusion of this letter allows us to catch a glimpse of what true koinonia or true fellowship in Christ really entails. In Philemon, as Paul explains the situation pertaining to Onesimus, we see Paul reversing a few statuses with regard to the relationship between Onesimus and Philemon. Firstly, in verse 11, he reversed the status of Onesimus from being useless to Philemon to being useful to both Paul and Philemon. Second, he reversed, in verse 10 and 16, the status of Onesimus from being a property to being a family member. The third reversal happens in ver...