This blog's name consciously 'reaped a phrase' off Augustine's Confessions...
What does the word 'confession' remind you of?
It means, at least, 3 things to me:
1. A guilty fella admitting his sins... ('confess your sins to each other'?)
2. A declaration of beliefs or creed... (plenty of those, here...)
3. Praises to God (song/hymn lyrics)
In spite of that encouraging (head-inflating!) round of kind words at the Yahoogroups recently, I've not always been what an ambassador of Christ should be.
In fact, when I started out as "Dave Chang" (defender of the universe), it was near total disaster. If you wanna learn how NOT to be an apologist, you can find all the object lessons you want from the Cognizance archive:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cognizance/
Here is a list of my confessions:
1. Overzealous as a 'penjual ubat' of Reformed theology
2. Too 'cheong hei' (long winded)
3. Plagiarism (didn't bother to credit the sources)
4. Aura of arrogance/argumentative nitpicking
5. Basically made a total nuisance of myself, and reinforce the notion that a
theologian usually looks like that
Perhaps a lesson for us all is that a 'convert' is the most zealous salesperson.
Many Calvinist brothers have a similar experience as mine. They shared how revolutionary Reformed theology has been to them, and how passionately they set their friends straight... Heheh...
But they are not alone. Take someone who just experienced the 'baptism of the Holy SPirit' and spoke in tongues. He'd go around, telling everyone it's the best thing since Pentecost.
Or the Emergent who had her 'second conversion' from undue stress on propositional truths will find herself the new Joan of Arc against that abuse?
More often that not, though, we cause a lot more confusion/irritation in the process than shedding helpful light for most people.
Morpheus is right! There are people who are not yet ready to be taken off the Matrix, because they are so reliant on it.. heheh!
The best thing is probably, drop a 'stone in their shoes' (as Greg Koukl put it).. i.e. drop hints and clues that people can pick up and ask for more if they are really keen.
Ask them to "Follow the white rabbit!"
What does the word 'confession' remind you of?
It means, at least, 3 things to me:
1. A guilty fella admitting his sins... ('confess your sins to each other'?)
2. A declaration of beliefs or creed... (plenty of those, here...)
3. Praises to God (song/hymn lyrics)
In spite of that encouraging (head-inflating!) round of kind words at the Yahoogroups recently, I've not always been what an ambassador of Christ should be.
In fact, when I started out as "Dave Chang" (defender of the universe), it was near total disaster. If you wanna learn how NOT to be an apologist, you can find all the object lessons you want from the Cognizance archive:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cognizance/
Here is a list of my confessions:
1. Overzealous as a 'penjual ubat' of Reformed theology
2. Too 'cheong hei' (long winded)
3. Plagiarism (didn't bother to credit the sources)
4. Aura of arrogance/argumentative nitpicking
5. Basically made a total nuisance of myself, and reinforce the notion that a
theologian usually looks like that
Perhaps a lesson for us all is that a 'convert' is the most zealous salesperson.
Many Calvinist brothers have a similar experience as mine. They shared how revolutionary Reformed theology has been to them, and how passionately they set their friends straight... Heheh...
But they are not alone. Take someone who just experienced the 'baptism of the Holy SPirit' and spoke in tongues. He'd go around, telling everyone it's the best thing since Pentecost.
Or the Emergent who had her 'second conversion' from undue stress on propositional truths will find herself the new Joan of Arc against that abuse?
More often that not, though, we cause a lot more confusion/irritation in the process than shedding helpful light for most people.
Morpheus is right! There are people who are not yet ready to be taken off the Matrix, because they are so reliant on it.. heheh!
The best thing is probably, drop a 'stone in their shoes' (as Greg Koukl put it).. i.e. drop hints and clues that people can pick up and ask for more if they are really keen.
Ask them to "Follow the white rabbit!"
Comments
PS: Dun worry, will spare u the details so to protect the guilty.