blogpastor – Page 143

Author: blogpastor

Chloe: my cute grand-daughter

27 July 2015 blogpastor Leave a comment

S. Beryll, my sister, is with the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt, Germany. Recently she requested pics of my grand-daughter, who is her grand-niece. I have asked her to get on Facebook for then she would be able to access what’s happening with her brothers, nephews and nieces and grand-niece. However, learning new internet stuff is a big leap for her. She reads my blog though. So I have prepared a video, which I originally sent her but she could not open it. So here is the video, sis.

By the way, S.Rubina visited us at home and spent some time with Juyoung and your grandniece. She was around for her parents’ birthdays and she had to make some arrangements for rapid response as they live on their own. It was pleasant to catch up with her.

Watching Arsenal live in Singapore

20 July 2015 blogpastor Leave a comment

Watching Arsenal defeat Everton live in the National Stadium in the Singapore Sports Hub was a delight.

Where in the world can you pay SGD$49 and get two matches to watch. At 6pm Stoke predictably defeated a Singapore selection, and at 8pm we watched Arsenal brush aside Everton 3-1 in more earnest play. In England, a match between Arsenal and Everton would set you back over 75 English pounds.

I was treated to the match and a dinner by my friend Lewis. We had an early lunch at the famous frog legs porridge restaurant. Heard about it but it is the first time I tasted it. Really tasty, spicy and salty and over-rated. I was very thirsty during the match and that says a lot about the amount of taste enhancers inside the dish.

The stadium is less that a year old. I have gone to the former stadium for many a football match and many evangelistic events. This is definitely a wonderful upgrade. Bright with clear signage and a spacious pedestrian foyer that stretched all around the 23 stadium gates. We preferred the assignment of seats with back rest rather than the former free seating of wooden benches without any backrest. So even though we were already into the first half of the Stoke match we had our seats reserved. No need to go early to chope the best seats.

The National Stadium a sea of red: Arsenal fans

The whole stadium was a sea of red with only a small patch of blue where the Everton fans were. I love the retractable stadium dome roof. I love the coolness of the stadium artificially created with fine mist. I deliberately did not wear my Arsenal jersey as I expected it to be humid and sticky. I regretted not doing so. At least I wore the Arsenal cap. The football pitch did not look as beautiful as those in England but it looked acceptable. The excitement was palpable when the Arsenal players went onto the pitch for their warm up and when the game finally began. The game was more earnest and energetic than the earlier match. It looked like the teams wanted to win to give themselves a psychological booster. It was not as intense as what you would see in a real Barclays’ EPL match but it was pretty to the eye and for the most part entertaining. When the team you support wins you feel satisfied.

We left the stadium about 20 minutes before the end. How were over 50,000 people going to leave the stadium and get on the MRT? How long would that take? At least 2 hours. We were glad we left early. We were among the earliest kiasus to have boarded the train from Kallang MRT after a 20 minute walk from the Stadium.

Relieved and satisfied: a good evening.

Revelation adventure

11 July 2015 blogpastor Leave a comment

I have started a series of sermons on the book of Revelation. I never thought that I would ever preach through such a puzzling book. A leader suggested it recently and my immediate reaction was that there were too many interpretations. A Bible study or small group discussion instead of the Sunday pulpit would be a better place to explore it. That was that. However, over a period of time something happened inside that I cannot fully explain. Like the tide, grace came in and I was ready to go for it. One reason could be the messages to the seven churches that I heard during the Turkey-Greece Bible tour. Another was simply a sense of the Spirit inviting me to get out of the safety of my Pentecostal boat and walk on expository waters over the long stretch. In addition, there was that inner freedom to delegate my other duties and to focus on maximizing my spiritual gift of teaching/preaching.

I know that the easy portions of Revelation chapters 1-5 would give me about 3 months to examine the more difficult terrain beyond. Beyond are the lands of dragons, seals, trumpets, beheaded saints, pale horses and all kinds of strange creatures. This is going to be an interesting journey. I hope to blog a little about the insights I gained while preparing these sermons. I trust I am not biting more than I can chew.

Last Sunday I preached Revelation chapter 1 and sort of gave an introduction to the series. The who, why, what, where, how and when questions were answered in the course of going through the text. The real meat was the vision that John had of the glorified Christ. It was an overwhelming vision of a Christ John never quite knew. John lived with, touched, saw, talked to the Word made flesh, the meek Lamb of God, but this time he had a startling vision of great majesty and glory of a risen, exalted, fierce Christ who symbolically revealed Himself as the Sovereign and Judge (Rev1:13-17). It was so powerful that strength and energy left him and he fell dead like one electrocuted by Life.

We always have to stay in the creative tension caused by the opposite pulls of polar truths. In this case it was Christ as both Saviour and King/Judge. If we see Jesus only as the King and Judge, full of ruthless severity we will cultivate a spirituality that tends towards being Pharisaical – full of hypocrisy and hidden sin, or a self righteousness and a joyless religiosity and pride. If on the opposite end we see Jesus only as the Saviour full of gentle kindness always, we will develop a spirituality that tends towards that of the Sadducees – tolerant to if not compromising to the values, practices and spirit of the world. But if we view Jesus in his fullness as Saviour and King/Judge, we live in a creative tension that grows a wholesome discipleship after Jesus own heart. “Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God. (Romans 11:22 Message).