End of the First Year????

I cannot believe how fast time has flown by!!! I know I mention this every single blog-post, but there is no way that I have come near to the end of my first year at seminary. I thank everyone for always praying for and supporting me during this year, it has been a crazy adventure full of spiritual warfare, and spiritual growth. This last month has also been super busy, so that could definitely be a reason that it went by so fast as well. This month I had papers to write, exams to study for, my school had our Student Association elections, and Easter also happened! In terms of my studying and all the work that I had to do, this past month I have been the most diligent that I can remember being while up here. I had to write a 2500 word paper on the existence of Hell, write a Historical Context Paper about Paul and Epictetus on 1 Corinthians 7, and write a 15 page Exegesis Paper on 1 John 2:3-11. Praise God that he kept me faithful to my studies and diligent in my work, and I was able to finish all of them right before my final exams started. My Historical Context Paper came first, which was just a short critical analysis of the connections between Paul and the Stoic Philosopher Epictetus on the passage of 1 Corinthians 7. The reason is that they both use similar language and have connections even though they should have been years apart, and the conclusion is because of the culture and environment that they grew up in. Stoicism and the Cynics were very prominent during that time, so it wouldn't be surprising that they had similar foundations. My paper on Hell for Systematic Theology II was to respond to the prompt of "The concept of hell as eternal conscious torment is incompatible with a God who ultimately triumphs over evil." This was a fun

assignment to just think through the attributes of God, and work through how his providence and justice ultimately come together. My final conclusion was; since all people sin, and God cannot be with sin, there necessitates a place for sinners. Even beyond that is the fact that sin requires a punishment, there necessarily needs to be a consequence to sin. God cannot just have gratuitous forgiveness, which is just forgiving the sins even of those who do not recognize and repent of their own sins. Anselm of Canterbury brings up the point that; 'if God were to forgive gratuitously, then there would be no difference between righteousness and sin because the result is the same.' After that, I worked on my Exegesis Paper which literally took me a whole week. I must have spent at least a good 20 something hours on this paper, and when i finished it, I forgot that it had to only be 15 pages with 1.5 spacing. I ended up with 21 pages... and had to cut out 4 pages.  Anyway the passage that I worked on was from 1 John 2:3-11. The final application was basically that John was calling the people of God to follow God's commands, to take action for their beliefs, that matched their beliefs. He warned against the secessionists of the time, and not to be swayed by their lying and evil ways, but instead to truly and wholeheartedly follow after Christ.

Other interesting things that happened during this time was a play that my friends had written and acted for fun. The play was on April 8th, and was called "Love Impossible."  This play not only struck home on many great points, but was also very real in its representation of life as we know it. The premise was basically that a mother found out that she had cancer and had to break the news to her son and daughter who came back to visit her. The mother had miraculously been peaceful and accepted the fact that she was going to die and was actively going to spread the gospel and do ministry in the places no one would. Then, at this point, the children realize that their mother has actually been in contact with the man that had murdered her husband, and had been going to the

prison consistently to pray with him. The son is furious because that man was his real father, and had killed his adopted father, while the daughter was just in shock and fear. The mother tries to invite the man to try and reconcile things with her son, but instead her son blows up and reveals the hidden secret that he had left his faith long ago and could not accept a God that would allow such a thing to happen. The play then jumps to a scene of the woman just crying out to the Lord, revealing how hard it was for her to forgive the man, and even to this point, every time she looks at him, she is reminded of her husband that had died and it hurt her so much. Even though God was moving in her heart and she had forgiven him, there was still a very real pain that had not gone away. She was also crying out to the Lord for her son who had turned away and she understood how hard it was for him, but she could not do anything for him. The play then jumps to her post funeral, and her daughter basically attempts to reconcile with the man that killed her father because of the true display of life and Christ that her mother had continually been showing. One more thing was that throughout this play, there was also a Gigolo character that the mother hired just as a helping hand. It was later revealed that this gigolo's parents were missionaries in another country and he talked about how he had to escape the hypocrisy of their ministry. Although it seemed like ministry work was great, he realized his parents were just there to avoid the issues and situation with the real world back in America. They served there doing God's work, but was also just running away from problems, and the gigolo himself could not take the hypocrisy of his parent's and had himself left the faith because all he could see were Christians proclaiming their faith, with their Christ like lives, no where to be found. However after serving the mother for the extended period, he realized that there are people who live out their life for Christ, and slowly opened his heart again to God's love. This play was very real and relate-able to real life. I think many times we think that and ask for happy endings as in movies and such, but the reality of life is that in our time here, we may not always experience it. As shown by the mother who had to go to the grave, not knowing whether her son had ever turned back to Christ. There was also the very real aspect of how hard forgiveness was. Forgiveness did not just mean a wiping and clearing and being completely okay, there was still a very real pain and suffering that she went through. Even though God was working through her, she still had to live with the facts of what had happened, but the beautiful thing was her willingness to reconcile and love on the man even through all he had done. 

I also had the chance to go home during Easter, which was a great time to witness my brother being baptized. I headed back to New York on the Wednesday before, and attended church for Good Friday Service. We had an interesting experience with the message being told in parallel to handing out objects that let us reflect deeper on the kind of suffering that Christ had to go through on the Cross. We had coins that represented the price that Judas took for Jesus' betrayal, we had a little bit of nard to understand the anointing that Mary had done on Jesus' feet, we had string that symbolized the rope that bound Jesus as he was dragged from place to place, we had toothpicks that represented the pricking and pain of the crown of thorns, and finally a nail to represent his nailing on the cross. At the end, we were asked to write our sins on a piece of paper, and use the nail to pierce through it to show the act of love and grace that Jesus had shown by dying for us on the cross and taking up our sins. Easter Sunday was also a very joyous time watching my youngest brother be baptized. He was the last one in our family to do this outward profession of his faith, and it was really touching to see his renewed commitment to Christ. Being the youngest he had grown up with his own struggles and difficulties, and for a time me and my parents were most worried about his faith, but God had been working powerfully in ways we did not realize, and in this short year, he was slowly being molded and reformed by God. Now I can officially call him my brother by blood and in Christ! I also had the chance to catch up with friends and spend some time with my girlfriend which is always a huge blessing every time I come back. It is encouraging to know that even though distance increases, relationships can still be maintained.

One key thing that I was brought to light this month was the importance of reconciliation with one's brothers from Matthew 5:23-25. It was something that Jesus valued and saw as more important than just offering up gifts to him. He calls us to go and reconcile before coming before the altar to worship. In 1 John 2:9-11, John is very strict about loving one's brother and not be hating them. We would be a liar and a hypocrite were we to say that we love God and follow his commands and yet be hating our brother. During one of the chapel services, the speaker challenged us with the idea of healing. This semester our chapel focus has been on healing, and this message he spoke challenged the doubts of healing, "Do we doubt that we can be healed?" I think this is a very real issue in that many times, people do not believe in the possibility of healing, or even further, that they are so comfortable/complacent in the hurt and pain that they do not want to step out of it to pursue healing. There is simplicity in being hurt and just pretending to brush it off, but there is more pain and difficulty in allowing healing, and I think this is very true, especially in an Asian church context. We rather be passive aggressive or just pretend like nothings wrong than to tackle the pain and the heart, than to really strike at the core of our issues. I myself am not exempt from this, and that's why the message struck so close to home. Do we doubt that we can be healed, or do we doubt that we deserve healing, or do we not want to even step outside to be healed? Do we not want to let go of our anger and pain, or are we so comfortable in it that we don't want to leave it?