June 2011
1 post
When not to Pray
This is a sermon by my dad’s friend (who is now a pastor in Taiwan) this Sunday, and it does echo with what I got from the Lord recently, so I would like to share it here. Ever since we go to Church, we all heard sermons that says something like we should give all our burdens to the Lord, we should not do things our way but we should follow God’s will. Eventually, when we encounter...
May 2011
1 post
College Review
Yay!!! I graduated! After all these years I finally finished school, and I’ll start working beginning of July (although I plan to go back to grad school after couple years). Looking back, I’ve grown up a lot and learned a lot of things in college, of which several things I’ve shared here. God really guided me by the hand for these four years and I am forever grateful (and...
February 2011
3 posts
How I understand math
So once Andrew Tai (Hope that’s how to spell his last name) passed by Berkeley, and because of his strange “never eat alone when you can grab a friend” policy, he drag me out to eat dinner with him and talk about stuffs. And he mentioned how in school he just can’t do math right. So that got me thinking, a lot of times people just say “Wow Eric you’re so smart...
Goal and Plan
When me and Justin first got serious about Christianity, we got very interested in spritual phenomenon, such as being filled with the holy spirit, having spiritual dream, speaking in tongue, hearing the voice of God, etc. (which is typical of all new born Christians). So, we asked our dad what is it like hearing the voice of God, and he told us the time when he most clearly heard the voice of...
Self Reflection
There’s an incident that happened right before Justin passed away that I would like to share (and remember for the rest of my life). So while I was in Taiwan, actually we spent most of the time in hotel. My dad even jokingly said that happiness is a whole family being together in a room, each with their own laptops and working on their own business. Which, I think, is true on a...
January 2011
1 post
In memory of Justin
It’s been one year since my brother passed away. Both my dad and my mom gave their sharings, I feel that I should write something too. Looking back at justin’s life, I’ve learned a lot of things, but one of the things that touched me the most is how God completely changed my brother’s life. When we’re young, we moved to many different places. Every time we ...
November 2009
1 post
Solution to Puzzle
Since Justin kept on nagging me I’ll post the solution now. The puzzle is reproduced below:
There are three magicians performing a fantastic trick. The trick is as follows: They stand in a circle with their eyes closed. Then 3 audience will put the number 1, 2, or 3 on each of their forehead. Each magician then open their eyes, and see the number on the forehead of the other two...
September 2009
6 posts
Faith (final wrap up)
So let’s finish that ancient discussion on faith. (Then hopefully I’ll go onto predestination as planned).
So in the Book of James, it says “Faith without works is dead.” But doesn’t Paul kept on emphasizing that we are saved by Grace, through Faith, not of Works, lest any man should boast?? How can we reconcil this?
The key comes in understanding that James and...
fun puzzle
There are three magicians performing a fantastic trick. The trick is as follows: They stand in a circle with their eyes closed. Then 3 audience will put the number 1, 2, or 3 on each of their forehead. Each magician then open their eyes, and see the number on the forehead of the other two magicians, but not their own number. Without any communication, they each write simultaneously on separate...
Jonah
Actually the title of this article should be “Cool Stuffs Part 3”, as the topic started in my family vacation, but afterwards there’s some further development, so I changed the title.
So the Book of Jonah is perhaps one of the most interesting and awkward ending book in the Old Testament. It is also of great significance because Jesus mentioned Jonah TWICE during his ministry. ...
Pride and Confidence
So I remember this plot from a manga I read in elementary school (The name is 龍狼傳 btw), where the main character is trying to impress someone (say Bob) about his kung fu skills by beating his followers like crazy, then Bob’s advisor feels angry and ask Bob something like: “Sure that’s impressive, but don’t you think he is too prideful??”, and Bob replied, “No,...
Amazing Analogy
Man I was reading Pastor’s Tong’s sermon, and he’s talking about Augustine’s explanation of sin. Because if you read the Bible closely, you know that it uses sin in both singular and plural form. When it uses “sins”, it usually refers to the acts that violates the Laws of God, but when it uses “sin” (Maybe capital S), it seems like it’s much...
Cool Stuffs (part two)
OK, now I appreciate those online novel authors who can actually put up with 3000+ words/day (in Chinese too, which means it probably has more content than 3000 words in English), that’s commitment. Oh well so let’s get on to part 2. So one night in our family vacation we’re just driving on State St. in Santa Barbara (to eat some really expensive dinner), then we noticed...
August 2009
8 posts
Cool stuffs (part one)
So I just went on like a 2 weekish family vacation, and we have some really good time and discussion. truly, as Malachi chapter 3 said,
16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another,
And the LORD listened and heard them;
So a book of remembrance was written before Him
For those who fear the LORD
And who meditate on His name.
17 “ They shall be...
A joke on Christian Sects
One day, several members of the Presbyterian church were debating over some theological issues on a Sunday. They debated for so long that they took a mid section break and cross a river to eat lunch. On the way back, they started debating again, and the argument grew so furious that they are yelling and stomping on the bridge.
A guard saw them and tried to stop them, saying “Stop it now!!...
Interesting Story
At one of Pastor Tung’s gospel conference, one fifty year old philosopher repented and got saved. Afterwards, he told Pastor Tung, “I can’t believe I wasted 50 years of my life searching for the truth, when it’s been within my grasp all this time.”
Interestingly, Pastor Tung replied, “Why do you say that you wasted 50 years? Why don’t you look at it as...
Response to Dennis's comment
So I started thinking about this individuality stuffs after reading his comments, then I got the following thoughts:
Personally, I think instead of saying Eastern culture has a lack of individuality, it’s more like the Western culture deviated from the old beliefs of family/social ties and bondage and developed the concept individuality. And I believe this shift is due mostly to...
Science Rules?
“If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.” ~ Gerald Wienberg
It’s kinda sad that the more well learned you are in engineering, the more you realize how many things out there are designed in such a fragile matter that we’re almost all at the brink of destruction. It is the grace of God that...
Predestination stuffs
Ah my code is compiling/testing VERY SLOWLY…. might as well write something here.
So I was planning on wrapping up on the topic of faith, but Justin called me yesterday saying how good those links to sermons about faith I posted before are (yes so you should go check them out now), and he then ask me some questions about predestination. I figure I’ll just put the answers I gave him...
Faith (cont.)
So last time we settled on what faith is, and is left with the two questions:
1) Where does the basis of faith come from?
2) How can we truly know that the basis is true?
Well so we can go to the Bible, in Romans 10:
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how...
Faith
Faith is probably one of the important but often misunderstood concept in Christianity. And throughout my Christian life I’ve heard many different definitions/descriptions of what faith is, so I guess I’ll compile them here.
What is NOT faith? Faith is obviously not what the Hollywood movies portray, where the main character is put into an awkward situation and some mysterious voice...
July 2009
6 posts
Justice
From now on I’ll start a series of theological discussions leading up to predestination, as I think this is one of the most controversial and confused subject in Christianity. All the stuffs here are obtained from Pastor Tang’s theology lecture series. Justice What is justice? Many people today demands justice, they want to be treated fairly. What do they mean by justice? If my dad...
Cool nerd article
Dude my friend introduced this to me this and it is cool for you nerds and mathy people
Article: How JAVA’s Floating-Point Hurts Everyone Everywhere
Author: William Kahan, Father of Floating Point Arithmetic, Recepient of Turing Award, and most importantly, Professor at UCB!!! (although retired, he still wanders around randomly on campus).
Oh for you people who loves reading but lack...
A must read for every Asian Christians
Well, given that you can read chinese.
Should-I-Read-This-Book-Test: If you’ve ever heard (or even still believe) the theory that a man has body, soul, and spirit from some church, then you should read this.
If there’s a book that spiritually revived me recently, it has to be this book. This is not only a historical research paper, but the author also wrote a very elegant analysis...
Good Stuffs
Want to listen to something pro on your ipod? Go here:
http://livingwater4u.com/sermon/Theology/394.html
find the download links and right click, select “save link as…”
Title: The Word of God and the Faith of Man
Speaker: Pastor Tang
Crazily good and one of the few lectures with english translation. I guess now I’ll write an intro to this theology sermon series:
What...
Responsibility cont.
after writing the article, I felt that I’m too fat so I went out biking for 30 min. :P
then while biking I thought about this more, and I feel that this article will be incomplete (i.e. too pessimistic) without the following:
All that being said, our God is always full of grace and understanding. He knows our weakness, He knows our struggles, and He is always waiting there patiently,...
Responsibility
What is responsibility? Even since my brother got his first job offer, my dad has been very happy. He started to be very generous with money (buying an uber-bike for my brother, etc.), and calls us frequently to share about what he learned. He said that there’s nothing more satisfying to a father (either the Heavenly father or the earthly father) than to know that his children had all...