PASTORAL CHAT
My Dear Readers
Far Eastern Bible College reopened Monday, July 19th with a new intake of 15 students as follows:
1. Sun Dawei, PRC (M);
2. Justin Paul V. J., India (M);
3. Jabaz David Krapa, India (M);
4. Linda Yohana Kurnia, Indonesia (F);
5. Tjung Joan Manlin, Indonesia (F);
6. Kiantoro Lie, Indonesia (M);
7. Merlin, Indonesia (F);
8. Lal Lian Uk, Myanmar (M);
9. Maung Cin Lam Mung, Myanmar (M);
10. Lek Aik Wee, Singapore (M);
11. Ruth Low Mei Ern, Singapore (F);
12. Weerapong Harichaikul,
Thailand (M);
13. Tran Thi Minh Dieu, Vietnam (F);
14. Huynh Khanh Nha Uyen, Vietnam (F);
15. Oh Sung Hwa, Korea (F).
plus 92 already enrolled, the total number of students is 107.
The Faculty this Semester are:
1. Rev Timothy Tow, MDiv, STM, DD
2. Mrs Ivy Tow, BTh
3. Rev Jeffrey Khoo, BTh, MDiv, STM, PhD
4. Rev Koa Keng Woo, BTh
5. Rev Quek Suan Yew, BArch, BTh, MDiv, STM
6. Rev Prabhudas Koshy, BSc, BTh, MDiv, ThM
7. Rev Jack Sin, BA, MDiv
8. Mr Tan Kian Sing, BEng, GDBA, MDiv
9. Mrs Jemima Khoo, BTh, MA, MRE
10. Miss Carol Lee, BBA, DipEd, MEd, MDiv
11. Mr George Skariah, BTh, MDiv, ThM
12. Elder Han Soon Juan, CertEd, CertTESL, DipTESL, MA
13. Elder Geoffrey Tan, BSc, BA (Hons), DipEd
14. Mrs Anne Lim, DipRSA, CertRK
15. Mrs Koa Keng Woo, Music studies
Your affectionate pastor
T T
THE GOSPEL OF LIFE:
Chapter IV
John 4:44-45
A Prophet Comes Home
“Familiarity breeds contempt” was quoted in our notes for Ch. 2. This English saying has a parallel in Jesus’ statement about a prophet not being accepted in his own country (Matt. 14:57, Mark 6:4, Lk. 4:24). Jn. 4:44: “For Jesus himself testified that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” Therefore we can conclude that His homecoming was an anticlimax to his resounding ministry in Samaria. Oftentimes God’s servants find themselves in the same predicament. The pastor is taken for granted by his own congregation. But that is the lot of Christian service our Lord has borne, a cross we must also bear.
Nevertheless, our Lord’s homecoming to Galilee was not altogether cold shouldered as seen in Mark 6:4-6. There we see He could do no mighty work because of His relatives’ unbelief. In Jn. 4:45 we see the exception to the maxim in their reception: “Then when he was come into Galilee, the Galileans received him”. Reason? There were those who went with Christ to the Passover in Jerusalem and they were impressed by His cleansing of the Temple and miracles (Jn. 2:13-25). “For we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth” (II Cor. 13:8). Do you still try to brush aside those whom God has effectively used?
John 4:46-54
Second Miracle in Cana – The
Water of Life Quenches a Fever
One good deed brings forth another. The miracle of water into wine at Cana made such an impression in the hearts of believers that it was talked about everywhere. The fame had spread to Capernaum, Peter’s fishing village. Here lived a nobleman whose son was down with a high fever. This nobleman came to Jesus earnestly pleading for help as his son “was at the point of death” (Jn. 4:47). There’s a saying in Beijing according to John Sung: When you have a small sickness Go to the Taifu (Doctor) When you have a big sickness Then you must go to Yesu The nobleman had no way out of this crucial situation except Jesus. He could have found no better person than the Lord to help him. Why don’t you also ask the Lord to help you out of your trouble? Notice that Jesus at one word healed the sick boy instantaneously, at a great distance. Who can do this but God? What can quench the fever of death but the Water of Life?
Chapter V
To the Invalid, sick and abandoned Jesus Christ is the Physician of Life
Around the pool of Bethesda by the Sheep market, or gate, in Jerusalem there lay a “great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered” – the incurables. These invalid, sick, were abandoned by their own people, but found a ray of hope for recovery from the moving of water in this pool. For they believed that the first to get into the pool, when the water became alive by action of an angel, would be healed. How often the water was “troubled” is not recorded, nor how many there were that were healed. The fact that there lay by the poolside a great multitude shows that there were no “miracle rallies” by action of angel nor by the Lord Himself.
What is more significant is that on this occasion our Lord healed only one out of perhaps several hundred, viz., a man who had an “infirmity” thirty and eight years. And it was He who took the initiative to ask this invalid if he needed to be made whole. For this poor man had given up hope of ever walking again, nor did He know there was a Saviour who could heal him.
Yes, it is to the hopeless ones that Christ comes. He seeks us out who are destitute and derelict. He reveals Himself the Saviour of God by delivering us from our hopeless situation.
And He does it for our good against all the odds that surround Him – the intolerable, legalistic traditions of the Jews in Sabbath keeping. Pharisaical legalism is like grave clothes binding a corpse which must be ripped away for true religion to thrive: for the saving of soul and body. As for the Jews they had not lifted a finger to relieve the suffering of these invalid, sick and abandoned.
It is interesting to note that from the argument about the Sabbath the Jews came to further verbal blows with the Lord as regards His person and work. This leads us to a wonderful, deeper lesson of theology! Do you begin to like the study of theology?
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Last Christmas at the extended Kindergarten, Kuantan, which is also used for Church and Sunday School
