Monthly Archives: September 2008

Evangelism using the 4 R’s

We were talking about evangelism at the leaders meeting few days ago. I remember a simple approach on explaining the gospel to someone. This is taken from Six Steps To Talking About Jesus (excellent course by the way, recommend this resource to your bible study leaders).

Basically we read only 1 passage, the passage is from Ephesians 2:1-10 (NKJV):

1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

And then you explain the passage by using 4 R’s:

  1. Rebellion vs 1-3
  2. Rescue vs 4-5
  3. Resurrection vs 6-7
  4. Response vs 8-10

Engage 08 – John 4

Some points from the talk by Mark Driscoll.

When reading the narrative, Christians need to realize that they should identify themselves as the Samaritan woman.

The Samaritan woman idolizing something (can’t remember what, maybe stable relationship?) that’s why she offer herself to the 5 husbands.

Jesus offers living water to the Samaritan woman. Living water is a metaphor of the Holy Spirit. The book of John contains few metaphors for the Holy Spirit.

The subject of conversation now turns to worship (can’t remember the explanation from Mark as to why the woman changes the conversation from discussing her situation to worship).

Worship = giving glory + sacrifice

Worship is both gathered (with other people, at church for example) and scattered (at work for example). Scattered nature of worship (everywhere & everytime) means in a sense, Chritians are in full time ministry.

Beware of your functional saviour (the one that you worship) as you WILL ultimately offer sacrifice to him/her/it. Some functional saviour can be: career, spouse, children etc2. Christians are to worship God and offer ourselves to God (Romans 12).

In conclusion, Christians need to ask themselves:

  1. What do you long for most?
  2. Where do you run for comfort?
  3. What makes you angry with God?
  4. What do you sacrifice for?
  5. Whose approval do you seek?
  6. What makes you happiest?

Christianity in Dance Dance Revolution

Thinking of blogging of things that I learned from Engange 08, found out that it’s actually a big task 🙁 Rather than waiting for days to get something written, I might just start with something small, hopefully it will trigger other posts (not necessarily from me)

A rather unimportant thing that I heard from Don Carson’s talk (unimportant in comparison to the rest of his talk) is how “interesting” two of his students were.

Sterling Christian one of the graduates in Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School is the holder of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) Guinness World Records. What’s interesting about this is, his combining this unusual skills with evangelism (reading from his online resume).

The other guy apparently holds record for most weight a guy can bench press. Now maybe it’ll take more imagination to combine the ability to bench press with evangelism.. but who knows :).

Now these two guys are no doubt impressive, but our identity as believer is even more impressive as Don explains from Matthew chapter 11.

BTW, I am still waiting for my DDR Supernova, I think it got lost in the mail… sigh.

Way of the Turtle – Curtis M. Faith

Finished reading this book sometimes last week. It’s the story of the most successful Turtle traders, Curtis. You’d heard of the story of Turtle traders if you are into trading.

Usually trading books are full of charts and formulas, so I am bit surprised by the simplicity of the methods outlined in this book. The trading system that Turtle uses is quite simple but Curtis assert that Trend Following system requires a very large fund to start with as you have to consistently follow every signals as well as be involved in several markets (he’s thinking $100k is a bare minimum).

Not sure whether I gained anything practical from the book since I no longer trade.

Book no 13 finished.