Thank God for this opportunity of being able to hear God's Word in this semester in FEBC. Truly I acknowledged that the time spend during all the Mondays were indeed worth while. At first, I did not want to take credit for this semester cause I am afraid that I will be busy. Another reason is that I have some financial problem at that point of time. Never the less, God has His own plan. I shared during one of the prayer meetings that I was considering whether to take credit or not.
During that week, on Sunday, a sister in Christ passed to me forty dollars and she said that someone is willing to pay half of the fees for me. After looking at the requirements of this module and also making prayer unto God, I decided to take the step of faith.
Before attending the class, I must acknowledge that my spiritual life do not have any improvement. In fact, I felt a bit down. As I begin to study God's Word, there is this peace and joy in my heart. I had never spent so much time in studying God's Word. Never did I imagine that I can study more than one hour without feeling much tiredness. I had read the New Testament two years ago. During that time, I had been rushing through the reading as it was the church resolution to complete the reading of New Testament in a year. I did not benefit much for that moment of time.
However, never did I expect that I am able to complete the New Testament reading in half a year and this time with much understanding. Truly, I must thank God for giving me the wisdom and desire to seek His Word. There are two things that have left a deep memory in my mind. I have always wanted to know more about the canonisation of the King James Bible. Thank God that this doctrine had been wonderfully preached and now I appreciate the Bible that I had held now. My faith is greatly strengthen to know that God's Word will never perish. God had breathed in His Words for us and He will preserve His Words forever! It is really important for me to know this or my faith may be shakened. Thank God for this assurance of His Word in the Holy scriptures itself.
I also have some doubts regarding why the King James Bible in the year 1611 include the book of Apocrypha and now the King James Bible does not include it in now. After that, I came to know that during the translation, the King James translators did not translate this part of the scripture seriously. Later on the church fathers acknowledge that this portion of scripture is not the Words of God. This is why now King James Bible does not include the book of Apocrypha.
Another interesting thing that I learn is that the King James Translators took God's Word very seriously. When they came to write the name of God, “Elohim or Yahweh”, they need to bathe themselves clean before writing it. This reminds me that I have to treat the Word of God very seriously also. I also learn that it is important to know the author of the book that I am studying. This gives me an idea of what kind of perspective I should have before even embarking in the studying of God's Word.
It was also after attending the night class then I came to know what is verbal plenary inspiration and verbal plenary preservation. Satan never fails to attack God's Word. Knowing this doctrine has helped me to defend God's Word more confidently. Truly, it is hard to defend God's Word if you say that some parts of the Bible is not preserve by God. I cannot make myself to think what will other religious people will think if we ourselves cannot even trust God's Word.
The next one is regarding 1 Corinthians 13. One of my favourite portion of the scripture is 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a. This few verses tells me what is true love. I even compose a song regarding these verses. Thank God that now I understand the whole chapter after attending the night class. For verse 10, I also want to thank God that now I am convince that the “perfect” in the verse refers to the Bible. Now I can explain to the Charismatic friends what does the word “perfect” means. In the past, I thought that it means the second coming of Christ.
For the four gospels, it is new to me that the four books can be categorised as Lion for the book of Matthew, Ox for the box of Mark, Man for the book of Luke and Eagle for the book of John. These are quite similar to the four beasts in Revelation 4:7, except that the Ox is replace by calf. By using the four animals to represent the four gospels, it really helps me to understand the gospels better. Now I know that the Lion represents Christ as a king, Ox represents Jesus as a servant, Man represent Jesus as the perfect man and Eagle represents Jesus as God Himself. These summarise the four gospels, truly amazing!
Thanks to God that I have now found many verses in the new testament that are worth remembering. It covers a lot of areas like how should we live our life, how we ought to behave towards God and Man, how we can encourage brethren, how we should not stumble a brethren, awareness of false teaching and false prophets and also our great commission to preach the gospel and many other more precious truth. Thank God also for small blessings on the way. Next year, if God willing, I hope that I can still continue to attend the night class. Truly, attending night class is a foretaste of heaven! Alleluia!
Psalms 19:7 and 10:
“The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:” sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. “
