Category: Faith

What Martin Luther King has taught me about God’s divine presence?

I was introduced to Mr. King’s writings by an immigrant Dutch professor at Seminary who moved to the United States when he was younger. He believed theology must be lived out and embodied, and Mr. King appealed to this idea. Throughout the years, I have noted how right he was! I was highly impacted when I read one of Mr. King’s books, Strength to Love, which made me aware about the importance of noticing God’s work in history. In Strength to Love, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. reflected in a series of issues that affected the American culture of his times, …

What the early church can teach us about growing in the knowledge and piety of the Lord?

Writings of the Early church such as The Didache, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, Ignatius’s Letters, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and Justin’s First Apology deal, in some ways, with the formation of Christians’ faith and the promotion of the Christian life and its values. Although Christianity had its foundation in the Jewish tradition, it soon developed its own religious system theologically and practically. These writings are not only a reliable testimony of the development of the Christian faith and its departure from Judaism. They also show modern readers the importance Early Christian writers gave to the balance …

What I believe series – on the christian hope

I don’t know why many Christians are extremely negative about the future. I do not deny the sad events that have happened in the last decades; however; I believe that in this life the true church has a taste of the heavenly joy — a joy that will be completed in heaven. God has graciously given his children a glimpse of eternal joy now, yet the perfect joy God has promised in the Scriptures is still to come. Christian hope is set on the glorious day when the number of people who have been called to the church is completed, …

What I believe series – Why the church needs to engage in morality?

When the Scriptures speak of the church as an assembly, one should remember that the church is not a human project, but a God’s project that He has given to us so that every Christian can participate in communion with Him. This makes morality of high significance in the church. In this short post, I will offer three reasons the church must firmly engage in morality. The Church Is Called to be a Community of Saints. Even though the visible church is not made of morally perfect persons, the church is called to be a community of saints — of …

What I believe series – marks of the true church

All Christians who have believed in God and His message constitute the Body of Christ, the Church (from the Greek ekklesia, which means assembly), which is universal and invisible. However, although believers are united in Christ with one faith, the members of this Body also share different sociocultural backgrounds and have diverse thought about how the Christian life should be, among other aspects. This is the visible church. Thus, while one can find a particular congregation that emphasizes the role of worship in the community of faith, one also finds another congregation that believes that a social gospel is what …

What I believe series – The works of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity (Art. 11, Belgic Confession). He is omnipresent and uncreated, among other divine attributes. He is the sanctifier of God’s people and the sustainer of life. He works with every Christian by leading them to the Word of God and preparing them for Christ. As Calvin states, the Holy Spirit is the bond of our union with Christ by faith (Calvin, Institutes, 3.1). The Holy Spirit also teaches the Church to preserve the unity of the Body of Christ. His role is not passive, but active regarding what He does in God’s people. …

What I believe series – Who is Christ, and how is he a savior?

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet. Psalm 8:3-6 In order to reflect upon how Christ is our savior, I think it is also important to reflect about the reasons why humankind exists, the nature of sin, …

What I believe series – Knowing God amidst cultural noise

Talking about God has been a divisive topic in modern culture. While for some people, God is just a force rather than a person, others do not distinguish between the creator and the creation. From a biblical and Christian perspective, God is not an idea, concept, religion, or a philosophical system. He, instead, is an underived and powerful spiritual person who has always existed from before time. Because of this, there are some necessary aspects one should know about God. God Has Revealed to Humanity The knowledge about God is not something human beings need to discover, but to receive. God …

How Vincent Donovan challenges and redefines the concept of mission?

When Christianity began expanding to other lands outside of Jerusalem, at the beginning, there were religious practices of the Early Church that linked Christianity to Jewish traditions. As time passed by, many cultures adopted Christianity, and those practices disappeared, giving birth to a local gospel. Places like Europe and North America later developed their “own” Christianity, and when missionaries from these places went abroad in a missional field such as Asia or Africa, not only they shared the Gospel but also their culture, customs, and worldviews. An example of this process, Father Vincent J. Donovan in Christianity Rediscovered shares significant insights about …

Newbigin and Bauckham on how Christians should understand missions?

Authors Richard Bauckham in Bible and Mission and Leslie Newbigin in The Open Secret discuss the concept of mission and how it should be understood correctly by Christians today. While Bauckham initially explains the idea of metanarrative and universalist cultures, and how overemphasizing them challenges the way Christians do mission today; Newbigin, instead, associates missions with the very ministry of Jesus and his baptism by John the Baptist. Both authors agree that mission is God’s work as he uses mission as a means of not only proclaiming the Gospel but also bringing justice to the entire world. Bauckham writes: This …