Healing

    I have really wanted to post more on this blog during this year. But I am afraid life just got really busy for me. These past few months have been really rough for me personally. However, I have really seen God work in some amazing ways. 

    One major thing that happened a few months ago is that my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It is very hard for me to be so far away. I was so worried about her having to go through chemo and radiation treatments. This caused me a lot emotional strain. I was worried that she would have to have her breast removed. However, her tumor was very small. In fact it was so small that the doctors could remove it easily. She also did not have to have chemo. My mom only had one week of radiation. This was such a blessing. God really took care of my mom and gave her strength through this whole procedure.

     Also, my dad has been in bad shape physically. After years of working in the coal mines, one of his knees gave out on him. He has been limping very badly for several months. He was really needing to have knee replacement surgery, but he was unable to do it until my mom could get taken care of. Last week my dad had knee surgery. He is in a lot of pain, but eventually he will get better. He has gotten stronger every day and has been actively doing his therapy.

    Also, in the midst of dealing with these issues with my parents, my girlfriend broke up with me. Honestly, it needed to happen. A few months ago she started pulling away from me. She seemed to never have time to spend with me. She never wanted to get to know my friends. She told me that her parents did not approve of me because I violated certain Korean cultural norms that I did not know about. She vanished from my life when I told her my mom had cancer. Her only words of comfort were, "I will be here for you as long as God wills me be to be here". When she broke up with me she told me that God was communicating to her through her dreams telling her that she needed to break up with me. She also said that I was a spiritual distraction to her because she was thinking too much about me and not enough time thinking about God.

    I can not tell you how much this damaged me. After spending a lot of time investing into the relationship to be relegated as being nothing more than a "distraction" has affected me a lot.  However, I have really felt the Lord healing me through this time. I still have a little ways to go.  And I am very thankful for so many things in my life.

I am thankful for my friends at Antioch Bible Baptist Church who during this time have found various ways to love and bless me. Individuals have come together to buy and cook me meals. Some have given my mother gifts. My Sunday School class came together to sign a card and poster for me. They were diligently in praying for me and my family. Some of them even go whole other groups of people that I never met to pray for my situation.  My friends at Antioch Bible Baptist have truly become my family. They have been a huge encouragement to me.

I am thankful for the community at MBTS. Not only were they the only ones who were willing to take a chance on my after graduate school but they have provided such a loving community for me. The students, faculty, and staff at MBTS are wonderful. 

I am also very thankful for my parents. They are loving and kind. I am thankful that the Lord has healed them in amazing ways. I will continue to pray for their healing. 

I am very thankful for the Lord and the great work that he has done in my life. I am thankful all his blessings over the past few months. God is wonderful. Please remember my family and me in your prayers over the next few months.

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes Part I

   

    I have not posted anything since December. Life has been really busy lately. I will give an update on my life on a later post. I just wanted to inform my readers on a book that I started yesterday. It is called Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E.Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'brien. This is a new book that I picked up at the seminary.  Basically this talks about how we as a Western/American culture have taken certain passages of the Bible and misinterpreted them. I do not think any of these misinterpretations that the authors mention was done with evil thoughts, it is just sometimes we read our culture, experiences, and history in to Bible. Instead we should read the Bible in the context of the culture, experiences, and history of the people that it was originally written for. This has been an incredible book and I think that every Christian should read it. I am only about 70 pages into it but it has changed the way that seen certain passage of Scripture. Here are some examples:

   The book starts off with Eugene Peterson's theology of the "Laodicean spectrum of spirituality". This comes from John's address to the church of Laodicea of the message that God has for them in Revelation 3:15-17. "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth." In many sermons that I have heard, pastors describe our spiritual status as hot, cold, and lukewarm. Hot means someone has a zeal and love for the Lord. Cold means that you are lost. Lukewarm means that you are in the church, but you are not living in a way that is honoring to Christ. So basically this interpretation means that God wants us to have a zeal for him and he would prefer us to be lost than be a nominal Christian. However, this book states that the city of Laodicea had no water. There were no springs, lakes, or rivers. They received their water from two prominent cities. One of those cities was Colossae, which had fresh, cold water. The other city was Hierapolis, which had hot mineral water. The water came in through aqueducts. However, the water was lukewarm once it arrived in Laodicea. This is significant because in this context hot and cold are both good. God wants us to be either hot or good. He does not want us just to be in church, but be the Church. And he certainly does not want us to be lost. That is ridiculous.  These verses make more sense when read in the context of the the time and place that it was written.

 
Here is another example of Westerners misinterpreting Scripture. Numbers 12:1 says "Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite." Now Cush is in the Southern Nile River valley. This means that Zipporah was an black skinned African. Since Western civilization enslaved black people and thought them to be inferior, they naturally thought the Hebrew believed that the Cushites were inferior because they were a "slave race". However, the Hebrews were the "slave race". They had recently escaped bondage in Egypt. The Cushites were respected as highly skilled warriors. In fact Jethro, Moses' father in law, was extremely wealthy. So, Aaron and Miriam had tension with Zipporah not because she was in a lower social class or they believed her to be inferior. If anything they probably felt threatened and intimated by her because of her wealth. Moses had not married down. He married up.

   There are more passages of this book that I will share later. This has been an amazing read.  One thing that the professors at Midwestern stress is that context determines meaning. The only way that Scripture can be read and fully understood is if you read it in context. When you are reading the Bible, I have found it helpful to read commentaries and reference books as you go. Take some time to research what you are reading, whether you think you understand it or not. We need to be careful about how we handle God's word. We simply can not get this wrong. Misinterpreting scripture can turn people away from the Gospel. Misinterpretations of scripture have played dark parts in Christian history. Remember that Context Determines Meaning.