1-4: Giving to the Needy
- speaking to the Jews -> has 3 basic good deeds: giving, praying, and fasting
- the bible doesn't say "IF" you pray, etc. It says "WHEN" you pray etc. That means it is expected of believers
- compassion is not optional in Christian faith.
- practical idea: put compassion in your budgeting, find out what's going on in the world. what are the needs around you.
“ If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” — 1 John 3:17,18
5-15: Prayer
- prayer is a way to fellowship with God
- pray not to show off
http://www.essortment.com/all/whatisthelord_rkge.htm
16-18: Fasting
- fasting is considered a good deed in the ANE culture, often seen as an act of self-denial,
19-24: Treasures in Heaven
- there's no rule on how much richness a Christian can accumulate
- being rich is not wrong, but when money becomes a priority (read: idolatry) , it becomes a sin.
- money is probably the hardest temptation there is, and also the most discussed topic in the bible.
- it's a matter of what's the top priority of heart. greed can happen to both the rich and the poor.
"give me your checkbook and i will tell you where your heart is"
25-34 Do Not Worry
-
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Matthew 5: 17-48
The fulfillment of the Law
...Jesus to fullfill:
Law is God standard ethic. The spirit of Law leads you to state of righteousness.
The antithesis is not between ‘abolish’ and ‘keep’ but between ‘abolish’ and ‘fulfill’"
- To give new meaning, not just letters but spirit.
- Also fulfill could mean Point to him.
..until is accomplished.
Law is still valid according to the purpose its intended.
Jesus selanjutnya memberi contoh legalism vs its new meaning
1. Murder.
Law: Do not murder!
Jesus: extends the principle
- you're judged when belittling others.
- you're judged when angry.
point: thus we should seek for reconciliation.
2. Adultery.
Law: Do not commit adultery: having sex.
Jesus: Sebetulnya dengan melihat wanita dng nafsu sudah commit adultery.
- Jgn menganggap enteng dengan dosa.
- Remove stumbling blocknya.
3. Divorce
Law: Anyone who divorce must give her a cert. of divorce
Jesus: (jgn divorce) Divorce itu bikin istri dosa, except "marital unfaithfulness" = nyeleweng
4. Oath
Law: Do Not break your Oath (kalo atas nama Tuhan ga boleh...etc)
Jesus: (jgn pake oath2 an deh) just speaking the truth.
5. An Eye for an Eye
Law: rasa keadilan di court
Jesus: seek for reconciliation. most likely dengan mengalah.
6. Love for Enemies
Law: Love your neighbor and (implied) hate your enemy
Jesus: Love teman dan lawan (ga suka). treat everyone like your neigh.
- treat with respect.
...Jesus to fullfill:
Law is God standard ethic. The spirit of Law leads you to state of righteousness.
The antithesis is not between ‘abolish’ and ‘keep’ but between ‘abolish’ and ‘fulfill’"
- To give new meaning, not just letters but spirit.
- Also fulfill could mean Point to him.
..until is accomplished.
Law is still valid according to the purpose its intended.
Jesus selanjutnya memberi contoh legalism vs its new meaning
1. Murder.
Law: Do not murder!
Jesus: extends the principle
- you're judged when belittling others.
- you're judged when angry.
point: thus we should seek for reconciliation.
2. Adultery.
Law: Do not commit adultery: having sex.
Jesus: Sebetulnya dengan melihat wanita dng nafsu sudah commit adultery.
- Jgn menganggap enteng dengan dosa.
- Remove stumbling blocknya.
3. Divorce
Law: Anyone who divorce must give her a cert. of divorce
Jesus: (jgn divorce) Divorce itu bikin istri dosa, except "marital unfaithfulness" = nyeleweng
4. Oath
Law: Do Not break your Oath (kalo atas nama Tuhan ga boleh...etc)
Jesus: (jgn pake oath2 an deh) just speaking the truth.
5. An Eye for an Eye
Law: rasa keadilan di court
Jesus: seek for reconciliation. most likely dengan mengalah.
6. Love for Enemies
Law: Love your neighbor and (implied) hate your enemy
Jesus: Love teman dan lawan (ga suka). treat everyone like your neigh.
- treat with respect.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Matthew 1 - 2
Introduction
Who wrote this book?
Matthew, a tax collector who became one of Christ's twelve disciples
When and to whom was it written?
Possibly written around A.D. 70s (though some believe he may have written it in the 50s or 60s), primarily for Jewish readers.
Matthew 1
This chapter begins with the genealogy of Jesus Christs. What interesting about this is that it actually skips some of the generation and seems to be purposely skipped in order to achieve a multiple of seven (Jesus was written as the 14th generation since Abraham).
Then it continues with the chronology of the birth of Jesus where a virgin Mary was destined to deliver a baby Christ. Joseph was reluctant at first when he found out that Mary is already pregnant and thinking of divorcing her until an angel came to him in a dream to assure him to take her as his wife as what is conceived in her comes from Holy Spirit.
Why Joseph consider to divorce Mary?
His wife-to-be is pregnant from a child that is not his and this is a disgrace in any era.
Why Joseph consider to divorce Mary even though they have not gotten married yet?
It is a customary at the time for those who are engage to behave like husband and wife (except that they do not live together or have sex) and a divorce is the only way to break off such engagement.
Why a Virgin Birth?
Jesus, to be free of sin, needed to circumvent the natural method and be conceived in a supernatural way. A miraculous birth to a sexually pure young woman would underscore his supernatural beginning - a sign of His divinity.
Matthew 2
Who wrote this book?
Matthew, a tax collector who became one of Christ's twelve disciples
When and to whom was it written?
Possibly written around A.D. 70s (though some believe he may have written it in the 50s or 60s), primarily for Jewish readers.
Matthew 1
This chapter begins with the genealogy of Jesus Christs. What interesting about this is that it actually skips some of the generation and seems to be purposely skipped in order to achieve a multiple of seven (Jesus was written as the 14th generation since Abraham).
Then it continues with the chronology of the birth of Jesus where a virgin Mary was destined to deliver a baby Christ. Joseph was reluctant at first when he found out that Mary is already pregnant and thinking of divorcing her until an angel came to him in a dream to assure him to take her as his wife as what is conceived in her comes from Holy Spirit.
Why Joseph consider to divorce Mary?
His wife-to-be is pregnant from a child that is not his and this is a disgrace in any era.
Why Joseph consider to divorce Mary even though they have not gotten married yet?
It is a customary at the time for those who are engage to behave like husband and wife (except that they do not live together or have sex) and a divorce is the only way to break off such engagement.
Why a Virgin Birth?
Jesus, to be free of sin, needed to circumvent the natural method and be conceived in a supernatural way. A miraculous birth to a sexually pure young woman would underscore his supernatural beginning - a sign of His divinity.
Matthew 2
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Chapter 6: Is Jesus of History = Jesus of Faith?
Jesus seminar and such
Example of their conclusion:
Of all sayings attributed to Jesus in NT -->
- 82% of it wasn't said by Jesus
- 18% of it is in doubt
- rest of it was said by Jesus
The Lord's Prayer?
Only one word of it can be attributed to Jesus: "Our Father".
Writings from the radical fringe
Jesus Seminar's folks *does not* represent the mainstream NT scholarship.
It is an ".. extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of NT thinking.."
Discovering the 'real' Jesus
According to Jesus Seminar, Jesus is first of all, should be a naturalistic Jesus. They ruled out supernatural Jesus from the very start.
Giving evidence a fair hearing
Major assumptions of Jesus seminar:
- Gospel is not reliable
- Supernatural Jesus does not exiist
What will you get based on those above?
Critiquing the criteria
- Double dissimilarity
"We can believe Jesus said something if it doesn't look like something a rabbi or the later church would say"
... But Jesus is a jew and founder of the church!
- Multiple attestations
"We can only be sure Jesus said something if it's found in more than one source"
... But a lot of historical fact that deemed to be true is sourced from a single source.
... But they treat matthew, mark and luke as a single source.
But Jesus is not unique, there's a lot of wonder workers like him in history
... But the scale of the wonders is not matched.
... But the attributed authority is different
But the story of Jesus looks very much like the amazing apollonius
... But the story of apollonius has only a single source, written 150 years after his death, written by order (financial motive), the writing style is really different (it was said... etc).
But the gospel sounds alike to many other religion, death.. resurrection
But christianity has roots from jewish faith, which is zealously guarded by the jews the,selves.
There is no similarity between resurrection a la other religion with Christianity.
History vs Faith
Theological truth is based on historical truth, that's the way the new testament talks.
Example of their conclusion:
Of all sayings attributed to Jesus in NT -->
- 82% of it wasn't said by Jesus
- 18% of it is in doubt
- rest of it was said by Jesus
The Lord's Prayer?
Only one word of it can be attributed to Jesus: "Our Father".
Writings from the radical fringe
Jesus Seminar's folks *does not* represent the mainstream NT scholarship.
It is an ".. extremely small number of radical-fringe scholars who are on the far, far left wing of NT thinking.."
Discovering the 'real' Jesus
According to Jesus Seminar, Jesus is first of all, should be a naturalistic Jesus. They ruled out supernatural Jesus from the very start.
Giving evidence a fair hearing
Major assumptions of Jesus seminar:
- Gospel is not reliable
- Supernatural Jesus does not exiist
What will you get based on those above?
Critiquing the criteria
- Double dissimilarity
"We can believe Jesus said something if it doesn't look like something a rabbi or the later church would say"
... But Jesus is a jew and founder of the church!
- Multiple attestations
"We can only be sure Jesus said something if it's found in more than one source"
... But a lot of historical fact that deemed to be true is sourced from a single source.
... But they treat matthew, mark and luke as a single source.
But Jesus is not unique, there's a lot of wonder workers like him in history
... But the scale of the wonders is not matched.
... But the attributed authority is different
But the story of Jesus looks very much like the amazing apollonius
... But the story of apollonius has only a single source, written 150 years after his death, written by order (financial motive), the writing style is really different (it was said... etc).
But the gospel sounds alike to many other religion, death.. resurrection
But christianity has roots from jewish faith, which is zealously guarded by the jews the,selves.
There is no similarity between resurrection a la other religion with Christianity.
History vs Faith
Theological truth is based on historical truth, that's the way the new testament talks.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Chapter 3: Were Jesus' Biographies Reliably Preserved?
2 issues:
were jesus' biographies reliably preserved?
no surviving original copies, but this is not unique to the bible.
what unique to the bible is:
1.unprecedented multiplicity of its copies (5,664 greek manuscripts, and lots of other translations)
- Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome ; only 2 manuscripts survived
- Josephus' Jewish Wars ; only 9 manuscripts survived
- Homer's Iliad ; 650 greek manuscripts
2. copies are agree with each other
errors did crept in, but:
- inconsequential variations (but greek is an inflected language) form
- spelling differences form
- no church doctrines are in jeopardy because of those errors
3. copies are scattered across different geographical areas
4. commenced within 100-150 years after the events (oldest copy of John written in 100-150, ....in egypt, far from ephesus)
- Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome ; written in 116, oldest copy written in 850.
- Josephus' Jewish Wars ; written in 1st century, oldest copy written in 4th century.
- Homer's Iliad ; written in 800 BC, oldest copy written in 2nd/3rd century.
whether equally accurate biographies have been suppressed by the church?
a.k.a. canon, 3 criteria:
1. apostolic authority
written by the apostles or followers of the apostles
2. rule of faith
should be congruent with normative basic christian tradition
3. continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large
greater part of NT is settled using criteria above within the first 2 centuries (4 gospels fall to this category), by congregations scattered over wide area.
canon is a list of authoritative books, instead of an authoritative list of books.
NT didn't derive their authority from being selected, each was already authoritative before canon.
were jesus' biographies reliably preserved?
no surviving original copies, but this is not unique to the bible.
what unique to the bible is:
1.unprecedented multiplicity of its copies (5,664 greek manuscripts, and lots of other translations)
- Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome ; only 2 manuscripts survived
- Josephus' Jewish Wars ; only 9 manuscripts survived
- Homer's Iliad ; 650 greek manuscripts
2. copies are agree with each other
errors did crept in, but:
- inconsequential variations (but greek is an inflected language) form
- spelling differences form
- no church doctrines are in jeopardy because of those errors
3. copies are scattered across different geographical areas
4. commenced within 100-150 years after the events (oldest copy of John written in 100-150, ....in egypt, far from ephesus)
- Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome ; written in 116, oldest copy written in 850.
- Josephus' Jewish Wars ; written in 1st century, oldest copy written in 4th century.
- Homer's Iliad ; written in 800 BC, oldest copy written in 2nd/3rd century.
whether equally accurate biographies have been suppressed by the church?
a.k.a. canon, 3 criteria:
1. apostolic authority
written by the apostles or followers of the apostles
2. rule of faith
should be congruent with normative basic christian tradition
3. continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large
greater part of NT is settled using criteria above within the first 2 centuries (4 gospels fall to this category), by congregations scattered over wide area.
canon is a list of authoritative books, instead of an authoritative list of books.
NT didn't derive their authority from being selected, each was already authoritative before canon.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Chapter 2: Do The Biographies of Jesus Stand Up to Scrutiny?
Let's get back to the 'good witness' part for a bit, let's scrutinize our gospels by couple of tests.
Test 1: The Intention Test
"Were the writers of the gospels intended to accurately preserve history?"
Take a look at Luke's preface.
Take a look at the gospels as a whole: no blatant mythologizing, no flourishing outlandishes.
Test 2: The Ability Test
"even if the writers intended #1, were they able to do so?"
the middle-east back then was pretty much an oral culture, heck, there were rabbis who could commit all OT to memory.
this wasn't 100% memorization, however. there's 10-40% variance in given passage in the gospels, but there were fixed points, which is perfectly acceptable by ancient standard.
Moreover, there was a check-and-balance mechanism in early christianity to control this variance.
Test 3: The Character Test
"truthful writers?"
10 out of the 11 remaining apostles put to grisly death for living out their faiths.
Test 4: The Consistency Test
"Any consistency in various gospel accounts?"
Keeping #2 in mind, the gospels are extremely consistent by ancient standard.
Simon Greenleaf: "enough discrepancies to show that there's no previous concert among the writers, while there's substancial agreement to show the independence of writing the same events."
Hans Stier: "agreement over basic data and divergence of details suggest credibility."
Test 5: The Bias Test
Test 6: The Cover-Up Test
While there are precedences for omitting, paraphrasing things, the gospels are not covering-up things.
There were plenty of:
1. hard-sayings of Jesus
2. embarassing materials about Jesus
3. embarassing materials about the disciples
Test 7: The Corroboration Test
Most archaelogy findings confirmed Gospels' accounts, tiny minority created new problems.
Test 8: The Adverse Witness Test
Jesus' miracles are even confirmed in later Jewish writings.
Also, Christianity took roots in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus did his ministry, crucified, died, resurrected. Adverse witnesses abound to counter the belief of Christians, but that didnt happen.
".. evidence can never compel or coerce faith. we cannot supplant the role of the Holy Spirit .."
Test 1: The Intention Test
"Were the writers of the gospels intended to accurately preserve history?"
Take a look at Luke's preface.
Take a look at the gospels as a whole: no blatant mythologizing, no flourishing outlandishes.
Test 2: The Ability Test
"even if the writers intended #1, were they able to do so?"
the middle-east back then was pretty much an oral culture, heck, there were rabbis who could commit all OT to memory.
this wasn't 100% memorization, however. there's 10-40% variance in given passage in the gospels, but there were fixed points, which is perfectly acceptable by ancient standard.
Moreover, there was a check-and-balance mechanism in early christianity to control this variance.
Test 3: The Character Test
"truthful writers?"
10 out of the 11 remaining apostles put to grisly death for living out their faiths.
Test 4: The Consistency Test
"Any consistency in various gospel accounts?"
Keeping #2 in mind, the gospels are extremely consistent by ancient standard.
Simon Greenleaf: "enough discrepancies to show that there's no previous concert among the writers, while there's substancial agreement to show the independence of writing the same events."
Hans Stier: "agreement over basic data and divergence of details suggest credibility."
Test 5: The Bias Test
Test 6: The Cover-Up Test
While there are precedences for omitting, paraphrasing things, the gospels are not covering-up things.
There were plenty of:
1. hard-sayings of Jesus
2. embarassing materials about Jesus
3. embarassing materials about the disciples
Test 7: The Corroboration Test
Most archaelogy findings confirmed Gospels' accounts, tiny minority created new problems.
Test 8: The Adverse Witness Test
Jesus' miracles are even confirmed in later Jewish writings.
Also, Christianity took roots in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus did his ministry, crucified, died, resurrected. Adverse witnesses abound to counter the belief of Christians, but that didnt happen.
".. evidence can never compel or coerce faith. we cannot supplant the role of the Holy Spirit .."
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Case for Christ - Part 1 : Examining the Record
Chapter 1
Can The Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?
Good witness:
1. "eyewitness", should be there to see the events
2. Have no bias / ulterior motives
3. The witness her/his self is truthful and fair
Throughout "The Case for Christ - Part 1 : Examining the Record" We will see whether our gospels can be categorized as good witness documents.
4 gospels:
1. Mark
Written by Mark, Peter's interpreter, in 50AD
2. Matthew
Written by Matthew, one of the twelve, in 80AD
3. Luke
Written by Luke, Apostle Paul's travelling companion, in 80AD
4. John
Written by John, one of the twelve, in 90AD
Nearly every NT scholars accept that the claimed writers and time of writings are exactly as given above.
The above gospels are written documents, if we go even deeper in search of other supporting records, there's also early church creed as recorded in 1 Corinthians that put the core faith of Christianity in 35AD... merely 5 years after Jesus' death and resurrection.
Gospels are full of theological agenda!
True, so are nearly every non biblical historical records that are accepted as trustworthy.
Are the gospels well preserved, free from outside (pagan, legend) influence?
The gospels were written merely 5 years after the events took place, outstanding from historical perspective. Compare that with Alexander the Great written history... that is accepted as being trustworthy... that is written nearly 500 years after his death.
When the gospels are written, there are many hostile eyewitnesses that could easily debunk the gospels... but that didn't happen.
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