Scott Yang's Playground

SMH: Judas redeemed — A fifth gospel challenges one of the basic Christian beliefs. Basically a manuscript of “the Gospel of Judas”, a gnostic writing dated in the 300-400 AD has been released, where it stated Judas “the good guy” betrayed Jesus on Jesus’ ordered, the beloved disciple of Jesus is not John but Mary [...]

Stephen from ESV.org researched the “Origin of Red-Letter Bibles”, i.e. Jesus’ words printed in red. I too always wondered where they came about. I actually liked red-letter Bibles. Not because these parts are more God-breathed than the rest (though some think they are), but I just found it sometimes easier to search for a particular [...]

Via Neil, Everything you ever needed to know about copyright in the church context. Looks very complicated, and it seems it can be quite easy to violate with short clips taken out from full length movies (which many ministries often do). However as Christians I think we should either (1) comply and pay, or (2) [...]

One thing new I’ve learnt from Joshua’s preaching today on John 1. He mentioned that in John 20:31, despite the way it has been translated, it literally means “… so that you may believe that the Christ is Jesus” instead of Jesus is the Christ. Purpose of John’s Gospel is more towards “Finding the One” [...]

SMH: the religion-lite today — prosperity Gospel, charismatic churches, cheap grace, etc. “Why are they attracting so many followers?” First, they make people feel good. Second, there is an energy and buzz to most of the services that are totally lacking from most traditional churches. Third, they are optimistic — you won’t hear much talk [...]

Via Neil A, CMS has put their 2006 Summer School talks MP3 on the net for free download. It is Peter O’Brien on Ephesians, and each talk is around 10-12Mb. I have always enjoyed CMS summer school talks, and it is great they have offered the talks for free, for those who have not been [...]

I have read a few John Dickson’s books. They’re great — his books are easy to read, not too difficult, not too many jargon, and are perfect for new believers or non-Christian to discover Christianity. However I have never had a chance to listen to him speak, until today. From this week, John Dickson will [...]

During link-hooping today, I spotted a post on “Free Money Finance” (don’t ask me how I got there) — Biblical Investing. Not sure whether the site is operated by Christians (probably is, as it is American </sacarsm>), but it did spell out the principle: The first topic that needs to be considered is whether investing [...]

In MBF review last month, my group was responsible to review “Story of Kingdom”, a series of biblical theology seminars that we did on Fridays in session 2. However, for some reason I was the only one in the bible study group that can do the review on that day, so I ended up scribbling [...]

In the very last talk Al Stewart gave to the City Bible Forum a few weeks ago, we look at Luke 17:1-10, the passage on forgiveness. He started with an interview between Andrew Denton and Mark Latham on how Latham felt he has been wronged by Gough Whitlam. When Denton asked about his future relationship [...]

It was great that Al Stewart is back preaching at the City Bible Forum for the rest of this year. He’s one of my favourite Bible teacher. Sharp and clear his preaching is, and they are always challenging. The passage for this week is on Luke 12:49-57. Al started with different images of Jesus people [...]

Via ESV Blog, Logos Bible Software Blog — a weblog that talks about, hmm, Bible software in general, especially (probably) the industrial leading Logos. Lots of very interesting entries.

詩篇 117 (和合本) 1萬國啊，你們都當讚美耶和華！萬民哪，你們都當頌讚他！2因為他向我們大施慈愛；耶和華的誠實存到永遠。你們要讚美耶和華！ 上個星期天在教會裡，Grimmo 講道的經文就是這一段詩篇。整本聖經中最短的一章，包含了在詩篇裡重複過無數次的文字 — 似乎又是另一篇感謝耶和華的短詩。 但直到我們了解在第二節裡的「我們」指的並不是星期天早上那些聽道的「我們」，而是將近三千年前寫這詩的以色列人，我們才能體會到耶和華的慈愛是何等的大。要是一位身為耶和華選民的以色列人可以因耶和華的信實而頌讚祂，我們這些不配面對神的外邦人、這些生下來就拒絕祂的敵人，就更應當讚美祂的慈愛與大能。因為祂記得拯救與祂有約的以色列人，我們才有幸可以通過他們而得救。 羅馬書 11:28-31 (和合本) 28就著福音說，他們為你們的緣故是仇敵；就著揀選說，他們為列祖的緣故是蒙愛的。29因為神的恩賜和選召是沒有後悔的。30你們從前不順服神，如今因他們的不順服，你們倒蒙了憐恤。31這樣，他們也是不順服，叫他們因著施給你們的憐恤，現在也就蒙憐恤。

Douglas Adams said in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about the origin of the “Babel Fish”.

ESV Bible Blog quoted Andrew Ow’s explanation on “propitiation”, and showed why the English Standard Bible chose this theological terminology in translating “hilasmos”. I remembered a good illustration from the Mid-Year Conference 3-4 years ago, where “propitiation” used by ESV is constrasted against “expiation” used by RSV. “Propitiation” means “dealing with one’s anger”, and it [...]