The milestones in my pilgrimage are marked by books.
As young believer, I had a steady diet of “name-it-claim-it” teachings like Yonggi Cho’s “Fourth Dimension”, Kenneth Hagin’s “Word of Faith” stuffs and Don Gossett’s “What you say is what you get”.
Not surprisingly, I was part of this Teenage Charismatic Militant Rebel group (eat your heart out, ninja turtles!) in a conservative Chinese Methodist church, Pasir Pinji. Our idea of revival, as Alphadarius rightly said, is “drum set and a bass guitar”.
No joke! We’d fight tooth and nail over it.
That’s how ‘cute’ our youthful zeal can be, and how parochial our notion of revival is. “The Normal Christian Life” by allegory expert Watchman Nee was probably the most profound tome that marked my journey.
During college holidays, I worked for a month or so in Evangel bookstore. Just a good excuse to stay away from Ipoh. Also within striking distance of the Bangsar gals.
The fringe benefit of the job is an opportunity to read stalwarts like Schaeffer, McArthur, Packer and Martyn Lloyd Jones. My second milestone, however, was RC Sproul’s “Grace Unknown” or “Heart of Reformed theology”.
http://www.ligonier.org
Discovered my evangelical ‘roots’, and fell in love with tulips. Revival now means a modern Reformation of doctrine and practice. Onwards to the 16th century!
Feeling like the loneliest Calvinist in Malaysia, I flirted with a few Reformed churches. But it seems that I am still too ‘liberal’ when it comes to drums and bass guitars.
That’s when a friend introduced me to “Desiring God” by John Piper.
Here, I found a happy marriage of seeing and savoring, glorifying and enjoying the Almighty. Knowledge about God is not an enemy, but an ally to relationship with God.
Revival means passion fueled by truth… logic on fire… doxology soaked in theology…
Spirit and Scripture… Personal Piety and Public Proclamation/Action…
Selah. Let him who has eyes let him read!
(If I’d start a church, it’d be in the model of PDI or Sovereign Grace church of CJ Mahaney/ Josh Harris)
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/sovereignty.html
As young believer, I had a steady diet of “name-it-claim-it” teachings like Yonggi Cho’s “Fourth Dimension”, Kenneth Hagin’s “Word of Faith” stuffs and Don Gossett’s “What you say is what you get”.
Not surprisingly, I was part of this Teenage Charismatic Militant Rebel group (eat your heart out, ninja turtles!) in a conservative Chinese Methodist church, Pasir Pinji. Our idea of revival, as Alphadarius rightly said, is “drum set and a bass guitar”.
No joke! We’d fight tooth and nail over it.
That’s how ‘cute’ our youthful zeal can be, and how parochial our notion of revival is. “The Normal Christian Life” by allegory expert Watchman Nee was probably the most profound tome that marked my journey.
During college holidays, I worked for a month or so in Evangel bookstore. Just a good excuse to stay away from Ipoh. Also within striking distance of the Bangsar gals.
The fringe benefit of the job is an opportunity to read stalwarts like Schaeffer, McArthur, Packer and Martyn Lloyd Jones. My second milestone, however, was RC Sproul’s “Grace Unknown” or “Heart of Reformed theology”.
http://www.ligonier.org
Discovered my evangelical ‘roots’, and fell in love with tulips. Revival now means a modern Reformation of doctrine and practice. Onwards to the 16th century!
Feeling like the loneliest Calvinist in Malaysia, I flirted with a few Reformed churches. But it seems that I am still too ‘liberal’ when it comes to drums and bass guitars.
That’s when a friend introduced me to “Desiring God” by John Piper.
Here, I found a happy marriage of seeing and savoring, glorifying and enjoying the Almighty. Knowledge about God is not an enemy, but an ally to relationship with God.
Revival means passion fueled by truth… logic on fire… doxology soaked in theology…
Spirit and Scripture… Personal Piety and Public Proclamation/Action…
Selah. Let him who has eyes let him read!
(If I’d start a church, it’d be in the model of PDI or Sovereign Grace church of CJ Mahaney/ Josh Harris)
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/sovereignty.html
Comments
I was converted in a charismatic context and so naturally most books I read had a charismatic bent to them.
Then I came to Britain, and discovered both books and preaching from a Reformed standpoint. And it sounded so sensible and biblical. Nothing I could really quibble with. But at times, I've felt too 'liberal' as well to be considered a throughbred 'Reformed'.
Meanwhile, I read Desiring God. (Sounds familiar?) I know I'll have to read and reread it again to grasp everything, but even on a first reading, I was blown away!
And I'm also deeply attracted to the PDI/Sovereign Grace model. Reformed Charismatic, or impassioned orthodoxy has a nice ring to it. :)
Things may yet change and maybe I'll end up on a completely different path. Stay tuned???
BK
Thanks to my frens I'm dabbling with stuffs like NT Wright, Emergent, historical Jesus... and it's constantly refining my perspectives.
But I'd encourage other armchair theologians out there to have a good foundation of their 'conservative, evangelical' tradition first before venturing out to interact with the new stuffs. Otherwise we'd be easily swept along with the illusion that 'newer is better'.