My friend invited me, yesterday, to a talk by Ron Choong on Job & The Gospels (at Community Baptist Church, PJ). Actually, it was more of him introducing Project Timothy and also a talk about worldviews and hermeneutics. It was interesting, refreshing and broad.
May I say it certainly challenged the conventions of quite many people there (which Choong said, was the whole point of Project Timothy). Indeed, this guy has done his homework. Hehe.
The exegetical methods and depth of scholarship of Choong (and of course, others, such as Carson, Wright, Witherington etc.) are much needed today. So it's quite sad they are often ignored by (at least) my church, where almost every sermon sounds like a page from a self-help, motivational book with "Jesus Christ", "God" and "The Bible" thrown in. Of course, a whole lot of other churches have similar sounding sermons. But I generalize, certainly.
I can't quite remember what he spoke on about the Gospels (hey, I have a bad memory, hehe), but I do remember how we put the book of Job in fresh perspective- interpreting him as a non-literal person would cast the book in new light. Choong added that the point of Job was about God, not him and his trials and tribulations.
He went on to discuss a few theological debates, such as the ordination of women and homosexuality. If I'm not mistaken, Ron is leans towards the egalitarian view (if so, Tim Keller wouldn't be too pleased, hehehe). He argues against the view that the biblical condemnation of homosexuality is merely cultural by saying that in all instances, the order of creation is referred to.
Which is ironic, because his view of 1 Timothy 2 as "probably cultural" (I paraphrase him slightly here) is somewhat at odds with Paul grounding his prohibition of women having authority in the order of creation. I'm sure, though, he has thought it through well. Hehe...
It was fun (if I may be permitted to describe it thus!) overall, though he didn't attempt (or perhaps forgot) to define the "big words". I had to explain what "epistemic" meant to my friend!
Ah well, this shows all the more the need for such projects.
Would have like to talked to him, especially about his views on creation (his specialty, I gathered), but time didn't permit me. Grrr...
Oh well, another time.
Tschus!
May I say it certainly challenged the conventions of quite many people there (which Choong said, was the whole point of Project Timothy). Indeed, this guy has done his homework. Hehe.
The exegetical methods and depth of scholarship of Choong (and of course, others, such as Carson, Wright, Witherington etc.) are much needed today. So it's quite sad they are often ignored by (at least) my church, where almost every sermon sounds like a page from a self-help, motivational book with "Jesus Christ", "God" and "The Bible" thrown in. Of course, a whole lot of other churches have similar sounding sermons. But I generalize, certainly.
I can't quite remember what he spoke on about the Gospels (hey, I have a bad memory, hehe), but I do remember how we put the book of Job in fresh perspective- interpreting him as a non-literal person would cast the book in new light. Choong added that the point of Job was about God, not him and his trials and tribulations.
He went on to discuss a few theological debates, such as the ordination of women and homosexuality. If I'm not mistaken, Ron is leans towards the egalitarian view (if so, Tim Keller wouldn't be too pleased, hehehe). He argues against the view that the biblical condemnation of homosexuality is merely cultural by saying that in all instances, the order of creation is referred to.
Which is ironic, because his view of 1 Timothy 2 as "probably cultural" (I paraphrase him slightly here) is somewhat at odds with Paul grounding his prohibition of women having authority in the order of creation. I'm sure, though, he has thought it through well. Hehe...
It was fun (if I may be permitted to describe it thus!) overall, though he didn't attempt (or perhaps forgot) to define the "big words". I had to explain what "epistemic" meant to my friend!
Ah well, this shows all the more the need for such projects.
Would have like to talked to him, especially about his views on creation (his specialty, I gathered), but time didn't permit me. Grrr...
Oh well, another time.
Tschus!
1 comment:
i read yr posting and thought perhaps you might want to know about the up coming seminar on 'Christian and Science' where Dr Ron's touching on creation. Google it.
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