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Did a day of ‘cold turkey’ on the main walkway of UNSW. Really exhausted now but had some good conversations.

Got a reply from Big Al a few minutes later:

@scottyang cold turkey.. ?

So… What exactly does cold turkey mean, especially in my context?

I cannot remember where the term “cold turkey” was from, but I guess it would be familiar with the gangs at Unichurch or Campus Bible Study at UNSW — especially if you have done some SOCM courses (oops, way too many jargons already). It basically means doing street evangelism with complete strangers — and in my context, on the main university walkway during O-week. Another phrase for it — “library lawning” although as an engineering student back in my days, library has never been my territory :)

O-week 2009 for UNSW kicked start yesterday so I took a day off from work to get on campus to do pamphleting and chatting with whoever is interested to come to Christian church on campus. I had a few good conversations and I think one guy from China where I talked to near CLB might actually understand the gospel for the 1st time!

Another thing I have realised — I am probably getting too old to do this. Body is still aching…

¹ There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ² And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? ³ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. ⁴ Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Dominic Steele used these verses in today’s talk at City Bible Forum in response to the Victorian bush fire, and they made great rebuke to pastor Danny Nalliah who dreamed the Victorian bush fire was caused by the abortion bill.

At St Andrew’s Cathedral the Anglican Archbishop, Peter Jensen, told the assembled crowd they were a bunch of failures: “But that’s the message of Christmas – the arrival of Jesus to save us from those failures.”

In a very personal sermon, Dr Jensen spoke of his near failure in his leaving certificate. He said the greatest failure was the unwillingness to accept our faults.

Looks like the media has done it again, failed to pick up the main failure that Peter Jensen talked about yesterday — the relationship failure between God and man. At least the conclusion was not too bad.

The Christmas message, he said, was “not of grimness, gloom and disaffection but joy in the saviour who comes along to fix the colossal mess in the world”.

It just needs a few more words to make it clearer — “… to fix the colossal mess in the world, i.e. sin“. Back to editing room, now!

I was there when they crucified my Lord
I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword
I threw the dice when they pierced his side
But I’ve seen love conquer the great divide

Interesting. I don’t usually listen to lyrics as music is usually something that helps me to focus on other things, but Bono’s lyrics sort of reflected what we would do if we were there in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. We would have been shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” But the love of God did conquer the great divide…

A bit disappointed that I was the only one from work that went to the CBF today, consider we had enough people to fill up more than 1 row in the beginning of this year. Work work work — it is getting a bit like slippy slop. A client to help here, and a bit other distraction there, and sooner or later we’ll put God that has conquered the great divide behind.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)

Yeah. Having seen enough Hollywood movies we all know that CIA is all about finding the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Just that they have conveniently left out the entire quote from Jesus, which starts from 8:31 and says “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”.

Ahem. Talking about mis-quoting the Bible…

Ian made a comparison with God. Unlike Jason Bourne, through the propitiation of Jesus Christ on the cross, God Remembers Nothing but Forgives Everything, so that the sinful men can come clean before God.

Still looking forward to see the movie though, although it’s unlikely we will watch it in the cinema…

As I was busy changing Elsie‘s nappy, Vivian went and opened the door, told them that we are Protestant Christians, we are sure of eternal salvation, Bible is the only authority, Jesus Christ is LORD, yada yada. However, obviously those two JW won’t let go this chance of “evangelising” a disciple of Christendom, and the guy started to try to persuade us about JW’s view of end-time. A few minutes later I have done what I was doing, so I took over from Vivian, and continued to converse with that JW guy.

He is surely prepared, unlike those who merely hand out Watch Tower to those who walk pass. He is well-versed in the New World Translation, and certainly had experience talking to protestant Christians. The usual tactics — “hey we are both Christians, we both believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and we both believe that God will fix up all these mess at the end” (trying to trick me into thinking that we are in fact believing the same thing), “but then blah blah blah” (babbling JW’s theology to try to confuse me). So I pretty much made the statement up-front — “mate, I think you have got it wrong“.

Anyway. He was quoting the Bible all over the place to say (1) devil is still around not fully defeated (2) God promised a paradise on this planet earth (3) Jesus is not YHWH God. I too was quoting the Bible all over the place, rebuking him saying that he had drawn the passages out of context, and trying to show what Christians believe — which he already knew. We didn’t go anywhere after 15 minutes, so we pretty much concluded with, “hey I respect your enthusiasm but I don’t believe what you are believing”. They went their way (knocking on our neighbour’s door maybe?) and I went back home getting ready for lunch.

On reflection of what I have said yesterday,

1. There is no point evangelise an evangelist. At least not with the apologetic arguments. These JW came with one single purpose — to convince you with their own theology. They are not trying to ask for opinions nor truth, nor being agnostic. The door knockers are not even trying to defend — they just want you to believe what they believe. In this case I find it’s very difficult to convince them.

2. I could have been more gracious and hospitable. I have not been a good model I am afraid. Too defensive, too argumentative, too much “in your face”, and not even letting them stepping in the door. I certainly wasn’t as gracious to them as I should have been, to show that I am indeed a follower of Christ.

3. It is important to know your Bible. When they grill you with Bible passages, it is important to know what these Bible passages are talking about, and what they actually meant! Otherwise you can be very easily confused when they play the “yes we are the same, hey why don’t you agree with this one as well” game.

4. It is also important to know what others believe. The best defence is always knowing what they are on about. There are gazallion apologetic websites detailing what the JW believes, how is it different from the Bible, why they are wrong, and how you can defend against them. Now you know a few JWs are roaming around the Kingsford area — make sure you go to read some articles about them before they knock on your door!

Ian once told me that after arguing with a pair JWs at door, they just sent down a “heavy weight” two weeks later and bombard him with a few hours of more arguments. At the end no one wants to back down — neither the Christian nor the JW. So I guess it would actually be more productive by keeping the door shut, and “thank you but no thanks”.

First we have the Dan Brown‘s Da Vinci Code, where Jesus married to Mary Magdalene the “Holy Grail”, had kids before he was crucified on the cross, and Jesus’ descendants moved to France to form their own cult. Then we have the Tomb of Jesus, featuring block buster movie director James Cameron, where the bones of Jesus were uncovered back in Jerusalem with other two Mary’s. Presumable Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene — get this — the wife of Jesus.

We will not get into discussion of how utterly non-sense these “discoveries” were. After all, the entertainment sectors know these best –

1. Create false controversies around popular religions.
2. …
3. Profit!

However they are too chicken to mock other religions like Islam and Buddhism. Or maybe there is just not enough profit in it. Either way, the Da Vinci Code and the Tomb of Jesus share some similarities, i.e. Jesus is a mere mortal (debated ever since the resurrection of Christ) and Jesus married Mary Magdalene (only came out over the last decade or two).

You can almost hear Mary Magdalene yelling out from heaven

Aarghh! Aarghh! Aarghh!!! Why oh why!!! Why do all these 20^th/21^st story tellers have to cook up romantic love non-sense between me and our Lord Jesus Christ?!! I am just a follower — a believe in his death and resurrection! I SWEAR!! Got nothing better to do, huh?! I thought I could have some rest after that stupid Da Vinci Code thingy died down a bit, but then what the #$%^!@ a new one just came out from the Follywood!!!

Oh yeah. That is Mary, poor Mary…

I requested that booklet in late December, and it finally appeared in our mailbox last week, although I later found the online version on their website as well. The title of the booklet suggests that it is about how to choose the right Chinese Bible translation, although the content is more about how CNV (New Chinese Version) is a better translation than CUV (Chinese Union Version). By the way, 新譯本 has changed its acronym from NCV to CNV, because there is another Bible translation that uses the same acronym (New Century Version).

First of all, I’ll say that it is an interesting read, and I can see why the translators of CNV were trying to make it a better Chinese translation than the 90-year-old CUV. However, from the examples given in the booklet, the practise CNV guys took also made it more “dynamic”, i.e. not as literal as CUV, in order to bring out meanings of some passages. After all, I feel written Chinese is not an expressive language, so a literal translation in Chinese might make less sense than a literal translation in English.

Anyway. I’ve got the booklet in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Give me a buzz if you want to borrow it, but otherwise you should be able to read them online.

Also we still have 2 box full of ESV-CNV bilingual Bible in traditional Chinese under our bed that need to be sold :) Thirty bucks of Aussie dollar each (much cheaper than buying from the Chinese Christian bookshops). We’ll bring them to church on Sunday if you need one.

Even if you don’t consider your blog a ministry, it serves as one. And, as we found out, you never know when one of your posts will become popular or how people will interpret you.

So true. Especially when your targeted audiences are young, technology-oriented, and most likely athists. Something I still need to grasp upon.

Materialism here is actually talking about Christ’s incarnation to man — immortal God took on flesh and blood, humbled himself to become one of us, so that he can bring salvation to all. Creator turns into the “material”, and this is really what the Christmas is all about!

Need to think about how the concept can be translated into Chinese. 聖誕節的中心在物質主義? Doesn’t sound very convincing…

Next week will be the last CBF of 2006. Title: “Why the tree is one of the best things about Christmas” We all know what it is going to be about, right? :)

Amber: “I think the Internet generation and people online as being like full of life and energy and all of sudden you see this ‘dark side’…

Leo: “If you think about it, it just shows how young the net is really… death is part of life, and of course everywhere else you have this going on…”

True. It’s sad, and it’s depressed. You hang around on the Internet, read a few blogs here and there, subscribe to a few RSS feeds, and have “friends” you never met on all popular social networks. Everything looks so refreshing — at yet so deceiving. The very fact of death is there, but most people avoid thinking about it just like what we do in our real lives.

Someone on your Bloglines or Google Readers that has somehow stopped posting anymore? What about that guy on Friendster that you have never heard again since last July? Are they still around? Are they still alive?

I have actually seen quite a few “death notices” in some of the development blogs that I have subscribed to. Of course it is not the dead person posting, but somehow one of the team mates discovered the accident that killed that developer a few days later, and then posted about it. It’s always shocking reading your daily development news and then suddenly an item like this hits you in the face. What about all these open source projects where there’s no team mates checking up on each other? They just cease to update?

Death is there, and is still part of our lives. No, Web 2.0 did not cure it.

I guess that’s why services like MyFinalParty.com will be popular. Since death is inevitable, then might as well organise a big bash for your family and friends, although you won’t be able to attend it yourself. Nevertheless, they have promised that “you will not be disappointed”.

Yeah right. Death itself is the biggest disappointment in life. It’s wages of sin, it’s judgement of God, and the only cure is Jesus, through trusting his work of salvation.

Maybe death should be more talked about on the net.

(btw, don’t be too alarmed if I has failed to post something for a week)