God is not mocked

In response to all the cheating that is happening in my country:

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
~ Galatians 6:7-8

pearlie

An incubation and a meal

I am onto the last portion of the book of Genesis as I read R. Kent Hughes book on it. It felt like I was moving into the excitement that you get when you come to the closing of a historical saga. I did say that I can only take a chapter of Hughes' book a day, since every chapter is like a sermon with insights into the given passage and life application points. But today, I read six chapters at one go! It was like, "What next? What next?" And Hughes certainly has many great insights in this most favourite historical account of mine.

There is no doubt that I have learnt so many lessons today, but two of them have left a stronger imprint in my mind.

First is a statement that he quoted from John Walton's Genesis, NIV Application Commentary. It refers to the time when Jacob and his entire household was to move into Egypt in order to survive the great famine, and I quote, "the time in Egypt is not an interruption of the covenant but an incubation of the covenant people."

I love the word "incubation". It reminds of certain periods of my life when all is quiet and peaceful only to have problems and troubles piling in one after another. God gives us times and periods of incubation. I am reminded that I must use these times to enjoy the presence and the holiness of God, and then I can stand strong beneath his wings when trials come, which will definitely come in this broken world. I can even say that life here on earth is like an incubator for us to grow in God and be fed by his goodness and his Word before we are reunited with him in his full presence in the day to come.

Moreover, Hughes highlighted that "astonishingly, Israel would not become a great nation in the land of promise but on the pagan Nile!" Even so for the Christians in this broken world of ours, where hatred, revenge, murders, lies and slanders thrive.

The second truth that I am now holding close to my heart refers to when Joseph invites his brothers into his home for a meal, when his brothers have not yet realised who Joseph really was. Hughes was quoting Westermann, "the meal was not just an expression of communion (Gemeinschaft), but engenders and preserves this commonality. The acceptance of a guest into the fellowship of the meal is therefore simultaneously the granting of participation in one's own existence" (Claus Westermann, Joseph: Eleven Bible Studies on Genesis, 1996).

I shall remember this the next time I attend the Lord's Supper and with that I look forward with hope to be eating with my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ in the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. (Rev 19:9)

pearlie

I am an Esau too?

I am getting along pretty well with Kent Hughes' Genesis, Beginning and Blessing and finally met Esau for all that he was. Just like Lot, I never identified with Esau until now.

Here is what Hughes said: Esau despised his birthright. He was no villain, but he was young, attractive with an unbridled nature. He was spontaneous, extroverted, impulsive outdoorsman - a good guy, as we say. A prince of men, prime favourite both with men, and women, and children, with a good word and a good gift from the field for them all. But the tragedy was, that was just about the sum total of who the man was. He was a man of the present and cared not at all about the covenant's future promises of Canaan and a multitude of descendants. What good were they in the present? Even the firstborn entitlement to a double portion of the inheritance meant nothing now. But he did become a good man after a 20-year hiatus and received Jacob with much grace.

So how are we like Esau? Do Christian things mean little or much to us? Is heaven faraway and disconnected to real life? Do we despised our heritage, both the biblical heritage and our own Christian heritage?

I just found our that King Herod was an Edomite, a descendant of Esau and Hughes said this well, that the "ultimate sons of Esau and Jacob (Herod the King and Christ the King) testified to the significance of the path we take up...For every generation, the challenge is the same - to see that there is more to life than a meal, or a video game, or baseball, or a party, or a movie, or an indulgence of some kind - to see, as Paul puts it, that the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

Are we selling what God has given us through his Word, our churches, and our families for a cheap pleasure?

pearlie

DA Carson's ebooks at 75% off!

Logos.com just had a March Madness tournament of your favourite author and this was how it fared, with DA Carson emerging the "winner". As such, a selection of his books are with a 75% discount, which is really a very good deal.

Check it out here as well as the discounts available for the other authors.
http://www.logosmarchmadness.com/

pearlie

A rhythmic chant on God's omnipresence

I read this poem in Kent Hughes's book on Genesis. An absolutely beautiful and astonishing poem, by Hildebert, the twelfth-century Archbishop of Tours.

First and Last of faith’s receiving, 
Source and sea of man’s believing, 
God, whose might is all potential, 
God, whose truth is truth’s essential, 
Good supreme in thy subsisting, 
Good in all thy seen existing;
Over all things, all things under,
Touching all, from all asunder;
Centre thou, but not intruded, 
Compassing, and yet included;
Over all, and not ascending, 
Under all, but not depending;
Over all the world ordaining, 
Under all, the world sustaining;
All without, in all surrounding, 
All within, in grace abounding;
Inmost, yet not comprehended, 
Outer still, and not extended;
Over, yet on nothing founded, 
Under, but by space unbounded;
Omnipresent, yet indwelling.
~ Hildebert

pearlie

So many books, so little time

Just when I thought I have gone passed my book fever over the past few years, it looks like I am back at it again, albeit in an electronic form. A good friend of mine forwarded me an email from Logos.com offering a really good price on the Norman L. Geisler Apologetics Library. With an average of RM10 per book, it is definitely a steal. How could I say no. (Let me know if you like the promotion code, provided it still works for you.)

All is good except that my "next-read" list is getting longer and longer, and I am still stuck on the same three books with the endings still so far away.

pearlie

I became weary...

Someone disappointed me today,
I became weary
Pondering on people I didn't like,
I became weary
With no one whom I can talk to,
I became weary
Feeling that I am oh so lonely,
I became weary

All was but my expectations
My flawed judgement
My selfishness
My conceit

O God, O God, have mercy on me
Jesus, You are indeed all that I need

You are humble
You are generous
You are good and righteous
Jesus, you are perfect in all your ways

You pray
And abide with the Father
You seek
And save those who are lost
You love
And pray for your persecutors
You forgive
With your life, your blood on the cross

© 2013 Pearlie Ng
All rights reserved

I am a Lot

I have just finished the section on Lot in my devotion material on Genesis, and I am not so comfortable with it. All along my understanding of Lot has not been more than -- here's Lot, he separated himself from Abram, he settled in Sodom, Sodom is to be destroyed, he got out, and his wife turned into a pillar of salt for looking back.

But now I am beginning to see that we are, or at least I am, so much like him, and that is scary.

From the Genesis description of Sodom, we know that it is a town that was bad to the core. Ezekiel in 16:49 contends to that: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. Hughes writes, "Sodom and Gomorrah were terrible little towns in which the inhabitants cared only for themselves while they brutalized and oppressed each other". Historian David Wells wrote, "There is violence on the earth. The liberated search only for power. Industry despoils the earth. The powerful ride roughshod over the weak. The poor are left to die on street grates. the unborn are killed before they can see the rich and beautiful word that God has made. The elderly are encouraged to get on with the business of dying so that we might take their places. The many forms that violence takes in our world provide stunning reminders of how false have the illusions about freedom will which we have, for two centuries, been enticed in the West".

So Sodom and Gomorrah were bad and so is the world we live in now.

Then Hughes wrote, "Lot was a conflicted soul, at the same time both offended and allured by Sodom. He liked the prosperity, the comforts, the 'culture', and the prestige. But he was worn down by the filthy lives of lawless men and perpetually tortured in his righteous soul by the deeds he saw and heard. As such, he is the prototype and paradigm of so many believers today. He is not a caricature, a joke written on the pages of antiquity. Lot is for real!"

Bear in mind that Peter called Lot "righteous" three times (2 Pet 2:6-9). So there is no question about his righteousness -- he is not yet perfect, but still righteous on account of his faith. But Lot got comfortable, albeit worn down, in Sodom. I am getting comfortable in this world I live in. Lot saw many shameless things happening in Sodom but probably did nothing about it. Probably he couldn't do much. I am seeing many shameless things around me, in TV, in the movies, in books, in the news, and I am doing nothing about it. I couldn't do much. He compromised by offering his daughters when people demanded for him to present to them the two guests in his house.

Have I compromised by selling my soul to the world for comfort, for entertainment, or just to fit in?

pearlie

Simple faith and belief?

I have reached the section on Abram's faith being counted as righteousness and here is where I got stuck.

According to Hughes, Abram was a moon worshipper but he believed in Yahweh when Yahweh called him.

I reckon I am looking from my perspective where the Word has been revealed to us and we believed, have faith and continue to seek understanding.

How was it for Abram? Is it as simple as God spoke and he believed?

Maybe I don't understand it as much because I grew up in a Christian family, I knew God from young and gradually grew in faith. And yes, I do not have one conversion date, which used to bother me a whole lot, but not anymore.

Maybe I can even liken my faith experience to the Israelites as being already the chosen people of God, but whose hearts still needed circumcision.

In that line of thinking, maybe Abram's faith is the model for the conversion of non-believers nowadays. With no background in the knowledge of God, God spoke to them, whether through friends or sermons or Scriptures or even dreams, they believe and have faith.

Simple faith and pureness of belief, and that faith is counted as righteousness through Jesus.

pearlie

Politics in the Bible

I caught this on CNN.com today. A very interesting look at the Cyrus Cylinder, an ancient clay cylinder, on which is written a declaration in Akkadian cuneiform script in the name of the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great.

In this TED talk, Neil MacGregor, the director of The British Museum, talks about how the cylinder symbolizes tolerance as it plays its role over history from the time of Cyrus up to when the cylinder was found in the 19th century as evidence to the Cyprus event in the Hebrew Scripture, to when Israel becomes a state, to now in the political history of the Middle East.

What does all this mean to us?

I had Genesis 14:1-24 for  devotion today and I have to admit that I skimmed through the reading of the passage. I don't even understand contemporary politics very well let alone who Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Goiim, Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim and Zoar king of Bela were. I have read through the entire Bible before and I don't even remember there are these kings mentioned in the book of Genesis!

And as I read -- or skimmed through rather -- the passage, I began to wonder why Moses was so detailed here when he was so brief in the other accounts? I have come to learn that as much as I am not so drawn to politics, it is one of the most important things that shaped our lives. It is politics and history of the nations as we have it that shaped the lives of our biblical forefathers. It is how Jesus has stepped into our confused and troubled world as he came as a helpless babe, as a saviour of all mankind.

Our story that is our history, is laden with politics. And I need to pay more attention to it, past and present.

pearlie