Author: Al Ngu, MDiv
Divine Author of the Bible Makes all the differences for our life
I love the idea that we have a divine author for the scripture and of course rightly so. I’m only saying this to counter folks like Kaiser who, only believing the human author and the historical text, and when I read that I have an immediate reaction thinking is he even a Christian to begin with? And if anyone wants to do critical thinking, I would imagine a better subject would not be a divine book, maybe critical race theory now I suppose. There are s may critical theological scholars who love to dabble with the holy Word of God, not knowing that they are dabbling with every power of God himself. To call Bible as written by a human author, and to eliminate anything that’s of sign and wonders for their sake of human reasoning and rationale is beyond anything that’s even remotely rational on the first place. Because God cannot be rationalized, He is above reason. Even the foolishness of God (so to speak) is wiser than the wisdom of men. 1 Cor 9. So why dabble with the holy word of God? I am amazed I haven’t not heard of any dabbing with Koran or the Buddhist book thus far, why? I wonder if the devil knows who is he going after?
To make the matter worse, these scholarship has produced man made theology twisted to fit their agenda, case in point homosexuality usually be taking the case of slave, women. Calling slaves of the bible as wrong, therefore the whole bible is not from God is so wrong, for instance, because the slavery of the bible is not closed, and its debt paying, while the American slavery of the past is closed (meaning you are in it for life and your children etc.), and also its not debt paying, it’s just bought. Therefore the argument via the slavery just doesn’t stand at all. The case for women, its actually the bible teaching that lifted women in the Roman empire days, and its Jesus who included Mary Magdalene, it’s Jesus who stopped on his way with many men following him, for the bleeding woman who was unclean. It was Jesus who wept after seeing Mary and Martha wept for their brother who was dead. It was Jesus who rebuked Simon the Pharisee who tried to stop the woman pouring her perfume on Jesus’ feet. It was Jesus who chose to appear to women first at his resurrection even before the apostle big names like Peter James and John. So scholarship has no ground to criticize that the Bible is old fashion and out of date for the women.
To even select a divine book or at least a religious book full of God’s love, glory, passion and interaction with his people called Bible and to call it as a human author book is either a total waste of time or as a spiritual assault of the divinity of God and his hands on his book. It is inconceivable how Bible has been made to be so broad , in fact as broad as you want, in the way you interpret it to suit one’s agenda. The critical and progressive churches today love to remove the supernatural of Christ, and to remove any scriptures on his resurrection, and to impose their LBGTQ ideology upon scriptures, by bending a twisting the scriptures to fit their quest. Now it’s shocking and deeply disappointing the Church of England Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury has endorse same sex marriage with all his theological training. It tells you something, the liberal theologians have no lack of knowledge, and knowledge itself if not taught properly falls in bad hands. People need to be aware of the warning Jesus gave:
Rev 22: 18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.
I love what Dr Belcher said about his exposition on David when he wrote Psalm 23:4, because there is the divine author, he understood that the Messiah will go through the valley of the shadow of death and therefore we today have the assurance of Christ as we are going through tough times and difficulties that Christ has gone thru that before us. We have therefore the assurance he will be with us and pull us through. And that is beautiful. Like professor said if we don’t have a divine author, we won’t see the connection of that Psalm 23 text for God’s people today. If we take away the divine authorship from the Bible, what is there left for us to find God and seek God from his holy scriptures,? We might as well read out some human author best seller book on how to be a good guy or how to find happiness in life!
Psalm 1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
Psalm 1 says blessed be the man who meditates upon the Word of the Lord day and night, he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, and bear fruits in due season. You know why is it so blessed by reading the bible and meditating it? Because the bible is life. It’s the logos, the Lord Jesus himself, and you draw life, strength, hope, joy from it. Because the author is God himself. And such divine book is no just intellectual book, but its intellectual but LIFE in it too.
Jesus struck the man of lawlessness on his coming back by the word of his mouth. It’s the word that Jesus and the Father created the world. Word is so powerful, and we must submit and honor and love passionately the word of the Lord daily.
True salvation means perseverance and obedience to the very end
Unbelief causes someone to fall away from the Lord Unbelief causes someone to fall away from the Lord
Cultural Christianity Must Not Collapse
Ben Dunson, in his article in First Thing, in August 2021, pointed out some very poignant things about the way evangelicals or the reformed evangelicals handle the cultural Christianity.
There are evils, abuses, and hypocrisies in every human society. But the collapse of a Christian culture in America is nothing to celebrate. The old Protestant establishment in this country did much to promote human flourishing and to restrain destructive ideologies in the public square. With the decline of that establishment, we are now at the point where, if one hopes to maintain a position in politics or business, one may not publicly maintain that men cannot become women, or that homosexuality should be condemned. Violent and degrading pornography streams on countless computers and smartphones.[1]
To say the collapse of cultural Christianity is applaudable is throwing out the baby with the bath water, highly ignorant thinking and destructive to the body of Christ’s life and role in the society that God has put us in.
God clearly told Jeremiah to tell Israel to pray for the shalom of the city while they were in exile. Yes, today we are in exile , very much so, in a country that is calling transgenderism and abortion as the # 1 priority in the White House administration. How can we pray and work for the shalom of the city and nation we are in if we do not want to build a Christian culture and express that to the city? Yes, there had been some bad apples in the past, and there will always be some, we can’t throw out the baby! Unless those evangelical thinkers have a better idea, please let us know. The world at large is at a starvation mode spiritually morally now in America. I listened to John MacArthur exposition of Romans 1 the other day, he mentioned the collapse of a human civilization started with denying God, then comes adultery sexual overreach, the homosexuality. That seems to eb the case for America.
The protestant has dome much to promote human flourishing and restrain destructive ideologies in the public square.[2] Slavery was abolished by Christians, thousands and millions of poor were fed by Christians organization like Red Cross, Mother Teresa, etc., and in local city, Hope for New York. Lifting up women’s status in society especially in the early church, isn’t that Christian influence upon the culture and nation? So by downplaying cultural Christian, just exactly what these evangelicals have in mind as a means to influence the society? Be a salt to the world, is a command of our Lord Jesus.
There is no question in my mind the elite evangelicals have played down the cultural Christianity in the name of winsome, witnessing or theology that keeps your faith to yourself, and expressed no displeasure or protest to any disfigurement of Christianity in the public arena. Only focus on your own relationship with God and the life of the Redemption Gospel, and provide no voice to the public square on the pressing burning issues like transgenderism homosexuality that just split the Anglican church, etc. Only the expression of fighting racism, and helping the marginalized is to be publicly expressed and praised. Sadly, this is all what they do in the public arena and it will not be enough.
The eerie silence on the issue of transgenderism and same sex marriage or even same sex priest in churches from these very same evangelicals when they trumpeted their anger and displeasure at racism, etc is such a hypocritical mannerism and thinking. The biggest problem is why can’t we all embrace them all together? Why trumpet and fight for some, and leave out the rest? It’s as if the abomination sin in Romans 1 weighs somehow much lighter than helping the poor and marginalized. How?
Folks, our cultural Christianity must be upheld but must be done according to the Word of God. Any distraction from doing God’s will and desire, is a deep dive into the power of darkness. We must be like the Pentecostals and charismatics where they stand strong united and praying against the powers of darkness and call out the devil and the principalities of darkness at work.
By avoiding speaking up and engaging ourselves in the social political front, we will only bring a swift destruction to our culture. If our cultural Christianity doesn’t express well our Lord’s desire, then it’s of utmost importance we fix our problems thereof, but not to dismantle the entire cultural Christianity. If our cultural Christianity collapse, there will be a huge void, that the enemy will gladly occupy with a large glee.
It has come to such a dire situation now, drag queen preforms in our classrooms in elementary, middle schools, but ban Christian bibles and prayer meetings. Transgenderism has seen biological male changing in female locker rooms, and compete against female athletes. And if Christians remain silent, there will be a collapse of Christianity culture at large, and we will only be a holy club in our churches itself. The world will be hugely comfortable in carrying out the evil deed of darkness, and they welcome the fact that they have a group of silent Christians who either have no guts to confront the evils, or they rather stay within the church and not to mingle with the problems at lager. But Jesus was contently on the move to meet new folks of all kinds of background from the hated tax collectors to fishermen, to women with demons cast out, etc. etc. Jesus would have confronted the society with their evils that are constantly being poured out at us. They scorned at Christians stand. They completely pushed us aside.
If we don’t stand up and speak for God’s will , who will?
[1] Ben Dunson, DON’T REJOICE IN THE COLLAPSE OF CULTURAL CHRISTIANITY, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/08/dont-rejoice-in-the-collapse-of-cultural-christianity
[2] Ibid.
Al Ngu sermons & devotion 