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| 2018/02/18 14:09:04瀏覽81｜回應0｜推薦0 | |
| 8/27 06
Dear Pastor Pete: Thanks a lot for your wonderful OT Survey and the sermon on sexuality today. I have greatly benefited from them! I agree with you on almost everything regarding your OT Survey. However, I have some different opinions on your characterization of Lot as a compromiser, the slightly overemphasis of mystery over striving to work out a theory that could help us to understand God’s will on His sovereignty and human free will, which I have shared with you Friday night. Moreover, I have some reservation about your teaching about the different ways of working of the Holy Spirit in the OT and NT periods. In the following two paragraphs, I will share with you briefly on the updates of Lot and Holy Spirit. As for Lot, after checking all the passages on Lot in the whole bible (thanks for the advanced technology today), I am pretty sure that there are no explicit negative descriptions of Lot, but there is a negative statement on his wife (Luke 17:32). Moreover, Genesis 19:29 implies that Lot was righteous so the Lord spared his family. Besides, it is explicated state that Lot was a righteous man who was tormented by the lawless deeds surrounding him (2 Peter 2:7-8). I think the passage from 2 Peter is conclusive enough. However, you do not need to change the structure of the OT Survey. Abraham did separate with Lot and it was probably good to be so as the second and complete separation with his old family. As for the Holy Spirit, you mentioned that in the OT period the work of HS was very selective in terms of what kind of persons He worked with and that HS comes and goes in the OT period, dwelling in humans only for a short period of time. Your ideas are indeed shared by many Christians. However, according to what I have read in “Hard Sayings of the Bible” (Walter Kaiser, Peter Davids, F.F. Bruce, Manfred Brauch, Intervarsity Press, 1996), it appears that HS also dwelt within humans for a long or even life time (such as David or other major prophets) during the OT period, not just for a brief period of time. (Please see P. 273-274 of the aforementioned book.) (The proponents of this thesis probably had Samson and Saul in mind, but the reason that HS left that was probably because they were disobedient to God.) As for the selectivity of HS in OT period, I would say that HS also selected low-born people such as Amos as His agent. Therefore, I currently agreed with the thesis of the aforementioned book, that the difference between the HS in OT and NT is that it is a “downpour” of HS after Pentecost compared to the previous showers. This thesis can also explain the phenomenon of the seemingly selectivity of HS in the OT period. Although the frequency of HS in the OT period was less, the ways of manifestation and the power of HS through the agents seem to be the same. Thanks you for taking so much time to prepare the course and sermons to build us. I am especially touched by your warmth and gentleness. You are preaching with a gentle and pleading tongue (like the end of today’s sermon). I believe that this is much more appealing that most of the pastors who tend to preach in the authoritative tongue that disallows any room of inquiry and doubts. BTW, I am happy to share with you that I have been getting up before noon for the past six days, which is indeed a great success for me with the help of Melatonin. I have failed many times in my previous efforts to adjust my schedule. Praise the Lord! Hope that I could further improve my schedule and maintain it! In Christ’s love and peace! Mu-Te^_^ PS: I know you are busy and that you probably have your Sabbath on Monday. Thus, there is no need to rush your reply. Just reply when you have time! (Deleting the signature part at 8:00PM on June 26, 2018, Taipei time as shown on my Asus computer.) |
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