One of my fav. speakers, Rev Stephen Thong (from Reformed Injili Indonesia) has been called the "successor of John Sung" among Chinese-speaking churches. And he has an interesting story to share from his seminary students.
It seems one of them said, "Rev Thong, I want to be like John Sung and renounce all intellectual achievements for God's sake. He threw his Phd into the sea so I'd also refuse to sit for my examinations tomorrow. I count it as rubbish compared to God's grace!"
Rev Thong thought for a while and said, "But in order to renounce something, you
must first possess it! As it is, you don't even have a degree to throw away. Why
don't you take the exams, and throw it away after you get it?"
The student sheepishly agreed to take the exams, and not surprisingly, he failed miserably! Hehhe... It seems to me that the moral of the story is, John Sung could speak of renunciation because he is a learned fellow with a Phd and theological training in the first place. More often than not, it is not so in our case... Our hearts could be very subtle to camouflage an anti-intellectual streak with an appearance of holiness.
It seems one of them said, "Rev Thong, I want to be like John Sung and renounce all intellectual achievements for God's sake. He threw his Phd into the sea so I'd also refuse to sit for my examinations tomorrow. I count it as rubbish compared to God's grace!"
Rev Thong thought for a while and said, "But in order to renounce something, you
must first possess it! As it is, you don't even have a degree to throw away. Why
don't you take the exams, and throw it away after you get it?"
The student sheepishly agreed to take the exams, and not surprisingly, he failed miserably! Hehhe... It seems to me that the moral of the story is, John Sung could speak of renunciation because he is a learned fellow with a Phd and theological training in the first place. More often than not, it is not so in our case... Our hearts could be very subtle to camouflage an anti-intellectual streak with an appearance of holiness.
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