The reflecting theologian

Something for us to think, did the Samaritan woman in John 4 really believe what Jesus said? Our usual answer is a "yes," drawing our conclusion based on two facts: that the woman went back to her town and told her fellow villagers about it and that the other Samaritans believed in Jesus because of her testimony.  However, if one studies the Greek text a bit closer, one may find that the answer needs not necessarily be the case. This is due to the way that Koine Greek phrased their rhetorical question. Without getting into the technical details, there are two ways of framing rhetorical questions in Greek. Method A frames the questions in such a way that the answer required will always be "yes". For example, in 1 Corinthians 9:1, when Paul asked if "am I not an apostle?", the way the Greek was phrased almost always demand a "yes" answer. And we see that in the English translation as well.  Method B, on the other hand, frames the question in...

I am considering moving this blog to wordpress. My new wordpress address is reflectionsofatheologian.wordpress.com. But I am seeking feedback. Please let me know if you prefer blogger or wordpress.

(This reflection was posted on my class learning portal regarding my previous mission trip) Well, I was asked to share about my trip just now in class and I thought that I should have done a better job in sharing what happened. Consider this as part of my reflection on the Greek class as well. So, as most of you know, I went  to teach in an underground training center which was run by a Singaporean pastor. It's the same place we went to for our mission trip in 2013. And this time, I was there to teach a class of 18 students from churches from other parts of the country on the book of Ephesians. I must say that knowing Greek first and foremost really helped me in my preparation, primarily because I was using some rather very technical commentary that sprouts Greek all over the place. So being able to read Greek helped me to understand most of the contents that the author was writing about. Also, during the class, as I was teaching the book, some students asked me about other simi...

I have once again failed to post on a regular basis as I have wished to. Part of the reason is because I have been busy with preparation on several studies. I just did a teaching in classroom setting on James 3:1-4:12 and am currently working on a book study on Ephesians that I will be teaching in another classroom setting in another country. All these works, trying to figure out the word of God, have already taken up a lot of my mental energy, though I would love to share some of these findings in near future. Alas, I have so much outstanding posts which I want to write. But I've thought that I want to throw in a few thoughts on GE2015. As most of us know, it has been an unexpected result for the incumbent party to win at such a high margin. Someone in my office was saying that "confirmed they will lose another 2 more GRCs". I don't know where that confidence came from but that support partly stemmed from his personal friendship with Paul Tambyah and the outward ap...

As a result of what my lecturer mentioned last week about him going to an overseas church which has been previously split apart by a scandal to preach to them about faith, I began reading up on a church split that I have heard about some years back. The incident was not that high profile internationally and therefore it was not being widely reported in international Christian news site. Moreover, despite the apparent success of the church internationally, the church remained isolated for most part of its history from other churches. Nevertheless, the church was considered one of the most successful churches in its own home country and had been pretty controversial in terms of its practices.  The summary of the whole incident stemmed from accountability. This is one concept that most people do not like to hear but unfortunately, it remains so important in our Christian life, especially when we are dealing with money in church and human lives in our koinonia. In the church, financ...

It has been a long time since I posted anything here. The frequency is getting lower but things have been getting busier over at my side. Work wise, there had been a lot of happenings there and that contributed a bit. Study wise, I have to work on my assignments every week and that leaves very little time already. On top of that, I need to work on a few bible studies that I will be teaching over the course of August to October. Nevertheless, I am just sharing a snippet of my view on a recent hot topic that has been spreading like wild fire - the issue of the NIV translation. In some sense, the issue is not new, and in fact, I had discussed this with an ex-colleague before over some very heated discussion. The key problem with this partly lies with the "King James Only" movement, which states that the KJV is the only English translation worth trusting, for many various reasons. For some who are unaware, the Bible-Presbysterian church is one tradition that apparently embraces...

I personally like this song by Matt Redman, "10000 Reasons" and I think it helps to remind us of the reasons why we should bless the Lord. Here's my 10,000 reasons to bless the Lord for your reference: My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ My salvation in Christ I think you get the idea. The po...