I just want you to know that I have not forgotten about this website. I really want to further develop this website someday. It is just now I am very busy. I am teaching and at the same time working on a Translation Studies Certificate in University of Chicago, and I am also using part of my long vacation working towards another graduate degree in Teaching Chinese as Second Language at Middlebury College. My life is, I should say, full to the brim. But I promise you that I will be back to develop this website. I want this website to be further developed and that someday I would finish at least all the verses in New Testament. It is my passion to share my blessings in life with others. And my greatest blessings in life is knowing Jesus. I feel I have been called to do these lessons for Him. Yesterday I promised God that I would do this for Him, after I was a hair’s breadth away from getting into a bad car accident. Life is just so precarious. You never know if you will have tomorrow. I am here now for a reason and for a good purpose. I pray that you would give your life a good thought too. Even if we live to an old ripe age, it is still very short. Where will we be after we are gone? What really matters then?
I will come back when my life slows down a bit. Please subscribe to this if you find them useful, so you can be informed if I have more lessons developed in the future. May God bless you with all His riches.
I am thinking about the passage on Jesus’s genealogy: Why did Matthew bother to put down the details of Jesus’s ancestors? What purpose does the account of Jesus’s genealogy serve? Most of us would care less about knowing all the names of Jesus’s ancestors. I would rather skip the entire passage and move to the more narrative section about his life. I was going to skip first and go directly to Jesus’s birth. Then I thought to myself: There are vocabularies you can learn. However, upon more reflection, I realized that it is not just the vocabularies you can learn. The account of Jesus’s genealogy is important: It points to a very important fact about Jesus. Do you know what it is?
Jesus is a son of man, a descendant of Adam, Eve, Abraham, David, Boas, Ruth, Jacob, Joseph, and Mary. He is the king who would reign from the seed of Abraham and David as prophesied in the Old Testament （e.g., Genesis 21:12, Jeremiah 23:5). Although Jesus was the son of man, a descendant of a human race, he is unlike us who are short of the glory of God. Unlike us, Jesus was conceived through the Holy Spirit (He was sent by the father in Heaven). Jesus’ genealogy was traced through his patrilineage. Although few keep such a complete genealogy as we can find in Jesus’s genealogy, we are also an offspring of our ancestors. Our ancestors can be traced back all the way to the beginning of life on earth. According to the bible, it went all the way back to the day God created the first Man Adam and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. “The Lord god formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2: 7). Yes, God is our creator; we are His wonderful design. But over time, we became alienated from our creator. It began with our first ancestors’ desire to be like God. Tempted by the promise of the ancient serpent, “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3: 5), Eve ate what God told her not to, and she even enticed Adam to rebel against God’s will along with her. Ever since the beginning, the ancient serpent (devil) has always tried to find opportune time to tempt us. Unless we are with God, we fall easy pray to his evil schemes. We kept drifted apart from God who created us…further and further away; many live an independent life of quiet desperation. We go after what we see is appealing in our eyes: an apple, a red apple, a redder apple, a bigger apple… Even if we get what we want in life, our hunger is never filled and our thirst is never quenched. Jesus, even though he is a son of man, is different from us. Jesus only wanted what his father in heaven desired. Before his impending crucifixion, he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done“ (Luke 22: 42). He was the only man of perfection that ever lived. Even though, like us, he was a son of man–of flesh and blood, he never faltered like us when faced with big temptations on earth. He triumphed over evil and even death, because he is also the Son of God and God himself.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3：16-17). God sent His beloved son here on earth to save us from our sins. Through Him, we find our way back to our father in heaven. He is the only son of man without any blemishes. He is the Word, who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only. who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1: 14). And “the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (John 1: 1-2).
Do you believe that Jesus is a real person like you and me? A person who had lived on earth about two thousand years ago? When we read about his life on earth, we are not reading about a fictitious figure in a make-believe story. What we are about to learn here in the gospel according to Matthew and other gospels are about Jesus’ life–his word, the miracles he had performed, and his death and resurrection–based on eyewitnesses’ accounts. No matter which stage of our faith journey is, we have to constantly remind ourselves that Jesus really came down on earth as son of man for us. He went through all the temptations, mental anguish and physical pains. His greatness lies not only in his divinity but his humanness. He truly understands us because He has come down on earth and experienced what we have experienced. I was not sure if God could be as compassionate, had he not had the experience to go through what he had gone through as a son of man. Perhaps, regardless, since he is all-knowing, all merciful God. I am speaking for myself in human terms. I know that I am more compassionate about certain things because I have lived through them. These are the things that made me more humane and more understanding.
The genealogy of Jesus is revealing about the authenticity of Jesus’s life on earth, his humanness as son of man. He is a perfect man and perfect God in One. Through Him, we see what our father in heaven is like. As Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). “Through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:20). Jesus’s birth into a human family, his life on earth, his crucifixion, and resurrection are God’s grace and love for us.
16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 … 5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, … 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was righteous man did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
yǒu fǎlìsàirén lái shìtan yēsū shuō, rén wúlùn shénme yuángù , dōu kěyǐ xiū qī ma Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
(experienced action marker); to cross; to go over; to pass (time); to celebrate (a holiday); to live; to get along; (surname); excessively; too-
念过: have ever read
Reflection 感想:
Dear readers,
It has been a long while since I made my last lesson. I have to apologize for taking so long to get back to this. I decided not to insert captions in my Youtube videos from now on, because it takes a lot of time to put in the caption into a video. That way I won’t be intimidated by the enormous time it takes to create a video with captions and can have more time to create more lessons for you. However, the deletion of caption would not hamper your learning since you can still have access to my written content for each lesson through this website.
This lesson is about Jesus’ view on divorce. Everyone who has undergone divorce knows that it is a challenging period to go through. As the societal values change, divorce has become commonplace in many countries. However, no one has walked into a marriage thinking that he or she may become one of the statistics. The wheels of time are irreversible and when things happening in your life are beyond your control, you have no choice but move forward.
The common occurrence of divorce has made it more acceptable among people but it has not made it so in God’s eyes. When asked by Pharisees, whether a man can divorce his wife under any circumstances, Jesus replied,
“Haven’t you read…that at the beginning the creator made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? what God has joined together, let men not separate” (Matthew 13: 6).
In no uncertain terms, he expressed his strong objection to divorce: “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness and marries another woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19: 9).
You may have many other “legitimate” reasons to divorce your spouse, but Jesus adamantly admonished that marital unfaithfulness should be the only ground for divorce! Not the ember of romantic love for one another. Not your unfulfilled physical needs. Not unmet emotional needs. Not irreconcilable personality compatibility…
In Corinthians 7: 10, Apostle Paul writes, “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried. And a husband must not divorce his wife.”
The conjugal bond, in God’s view, is sacred and should not be separated willfully by either spouse. It hurts so much when marriage breaks up, for God intends for them to stay together until death does them apart. When man and woman come together through the most intimate relationship, they become one flesh. It hurts so much when one flesh has to be torn apart through separation or divorce. The physical bonding is meant for wife and husband–They join together and become ONE. That is why it can cause so much pain when an intimately committed relationship breaks up and not end in permanent conjugal bond. Shouldn’t we take our relationship with the opposite sex more seriously?
God admonishes us not to divorce; however, According to Corinthians 7: 15, in certain circumstances divorce is acceptable:
“But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. “
God has called us to live in peace, if the unbeliever chooses to leave. He wants us to come to terms with what has happened and move on with our lives. “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3: 13-14). Things can happen to us beyond our control. We can only trust our lives in God’s hands. We don’t want to wallow ourselves in self-pity and other negative emotions, because we believe that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8: 28).
Marital problems are more than a mere result of physically growing apart from one another. The cause goes even deeper than that—The fundamental problem lies in disconnectedness in the spiritual realm– from God and from one another.
Marriage will thrive only if both are truly in tune with God and one another. Without a deep relationship with God, it is hard to have an unselfish loving relationship with one another. If we firmly plant ourselves in God’s soil, our love with others will flourish. Human love is limited and superficial, but when we draw our strength from God, our father, through Jesus Christ, we are able to love in a way that surpasses human limitations.
Divorce would never happen if things are going as what they are supposed to be. I pray that God will grant wisdom to all of us who are experiencing this painful experience and continue to strengthen our bond with Him. No matter where we are in life, we admit that we are all sinners. We come to God and humbly ask for forgiveness. He promises “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1: 9).
I want to start a new chapter in my life by responding to God’s call for a holy life:
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holly’” (1 Peter 1: 13-16).
It is certainly a tall call to be holy as God is. But “with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect,” we can be “redeemed from the empty way of life” (1 Peter 1: 18-19). And we “have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1: 24).
May the living and enduring word of God transform our life, our thoughts, and guide our actions.
These two verses are excerpts from Mary’s song, where Mary praised God after she was impregnated through the Holy Spirit. The following is Mary’s entire song (Luke 1: 46-55):
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God my savior,
For he has been mindful
Of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
For the Mighty One has done great things for me—
Holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
But has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
But has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
Remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.”
Mary glorifies the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior. To glorify, is “to give praise and thanks to God” (as defined by Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). In our prayers, are we often long on the list of petitions for our needs and wants, but short on our praise and thanks to God? Does our spirit rejoice in God our Savior? Only a thankful and repentant heart will be able to experience God’s love and grace for us.
We have taken for granted for what we have, forgetting what we have are all from God: our life, the Sun, the moon, the air we breath, the food we eat, the water we drink, everything we own, and the immense universe we live in! Everything is from Him!
We would also sing praise to God and rejoice like Mary if we understand what He has done for us, in us, and through us.
Mary rejoices in God the Savior, for she did not take for granted the great things the Mighty One has done for her. Do we take stock of the great things which the Mighty One has done for us? Do we even realize and receive the gifts which he has so generously given us? Or do we reject the loving gift he has sent from heaven to us? The gift of salvation.
“His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”
Only the humble, the hungry can be filled with good things that God provides through the sacrifices of His beloved Son. They have the humility to turn to God for forgiveness of their sins. They are hungry for God’s righteousness in their own lives and want to follow His Son to stay on the straight path. God extends mercy and blessings to those who take to heart his teachings and guard themselves against temptations. God blesses those (such as Noah, Abraham, Zachariah and Elizabeth) who are upright in his sight. Few of us can live a blameless life like Zachariah and Elizabeth; fortunately, our God is a forgiving God. He has also made it possible for any one of us–regardless of our past–to live a god-blessed life as long as we believe in him and follow him. So we may put on a new self and become a vessel of blessing to our family, offspring, and others as well.
Those who are proud in their “inmost thoughts” think proudly that they do not need to rely on anyone else, not even God, but themselves. The proud may be the rich and the powerful. They believe that they have all the riches, power, and kingdom they want from the world, but Jesus said, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” On the day of reckoning, they will be sent away empty-handed, with nothing to show for but the sins that they have never repented. Maybe to that day they might still insist in their own way not realizing what they have done wrong, for they have never gotten to know God through his words. Are we like them? Maybe we are a bit better off, we have repented and accepted Christ as our savior. Have we repented and continued to go back to our old ways? That is the challenge for all of us.
Yes, the challenge for all of us lies not so much in the knowledge of his teachings, but the actions required of us from his teachings. God never guaranteed us that once we believe in him, we stop facing evil’s temptations. It only means that we, as believers, will have to be even more vigilant and stay close to God for fear that we may get lost again. People can’t assume ignorance once they know what is expected of them. That is why Christians can sometimes appear to be more hypocritical than non-Christians because of our failure to practice what we believe. That is why it behooves us to sit down and set time aside to reflect upon his words and think about how his words may be applied to our daily life so to make a real change in our lives.
It is, as we all know, easier to “talk the talk;” it is not easy to “walk the walk.” That is the challenge for all of us! I admit that I find it extremely hard to practice what I have learned in the bible and continue to pray to God for strength.
Before ending this long reflection, let me ask:
Are you the proud or are you rather be the humble?
Are you the rich or are you rather be the hungry?
May we all be the humble, lifted from the grip of our sinful nature!
May we all be the hungry, filled with God’s holy spirit and his righteousness!
May we all be like Mary, eager to give praise and thanks to the Lord and rejoice in him our savior!
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Jesus and his disciples came to a place called Gethsemane. There he told his disciples to sit and wait while he prayed. Knowing that he was about to be crucified, his heart was overwhelmed with deep sorrow. At the depth of his deep sorrow, Jesus told his disciples to “stay here and keep watch” before he went away to pray. When he came back he saw his disciples all falling asleep. He said to Peter the following: “Are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” He has just personally experienced the temptations from his own body. If he followed the desires of his flesh and blood, he would have opted for fleeing from his impending crucifixion and death. He can relate to us on our level–He knew fully how difficult for us to resist temptations without being prayerful and watchful.
What did Jesus do when he was distressed to the point of death and experienced the weakness of his human body? He immediately went to pray to Father in heaven for strength to endure the hardship in his earthly life. He was watchful and prayerful so as not to fall into temptation. In his prayer, Jesus also demonstrated his complete submission to the will of the heavenly Father. He shows us his willingness to follow Father’s demand for the fulfillment of his purpose on earth. In his quiet prayer, he said to the heavenly Father: “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
I probably said this in my earlier entry– As I grow older, I am more acutely aware of my own limitations and my own weaknesses. Without submitting our will to God, we often find ourselves wanting in the strength to carry out what our spirits call us to do and falling into easy prey to carnal desires. Without understanding, we naively think that we are blameless based on our own set of values. We can’t repent unless we fully realize what areas we are falling short of the glory of God.
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It is not easy to always keep a happy and joyful heart. Our mood can go up and down due to the influence of the outside factors. How can we feel happy if we are afflicted with ill health and physical pains? How can we feel happy if the spouse with whom we are married for years suddenly left us? How can we feel happy if we are laid off by the company we have worked for years? How can we feel happy when we did poorly in our test in spite of hard work and late-hour study? How can we feel joy when our car ran into a problem on the road? Many things in life do not go as we wish and the list is endless, but how can we maintain a happy and joyful heart? It is impossible without a spiritual support and strong faith.
We can have peace and joy only if we lean on the Lord. Yes, we can have peace and joy only if we lean on the Lord.
Apostle Paul said, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus“ (Philippians 4:6). We learn to lean on God, when things do not go as we wish and when we encounter difficulties in life. By prayer, request, with Thanksgiving, tell God what we want, and God will grant us peace that is beyond our comprehension. In Christ Jesus, He will guard our hearts and minds, so our inner world will not be subject to the influence of the outside world. Yes, besides prayer and request, we also need to give thanks [to God]. We give thanks even when things in life do not go as we wish. As long as we deeply believe that God has his good will in anything that has happened to us, we can treat the unexpected things in life with positive attitude and accept them like other things in life. Anything that has taken place in our life has its divine purpose: God may want us to learn to lean on Him in times of difficulty, glorify Him through us, or provide us with a rare and precious opportunity to learn. Give thanks and always see the positive side of things. Learn from whatever we have encountered in life, and in our weakness we learn to lean on Him with all our hearts. God will give us strength and courage to face any challenges in life and help us overcome any hardships. As Paul said in Philippians 4:11, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Only through him who gives him strength, can Paul be content in all circumstances.
After reading this verse and my reflections, what is your thoughts on this? I would like to hear what you think.
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“此时此刻”是神给我们的礼物。如果我们一直缅怀过去，就不能完全投入当今的生活里。你的人生目的神早已经给 你安排好了。我们经常努力朝着自己设定的目标，忘了停下脚步问神:”我们为什么来到这个世上？“ ”神啊！你要我来这个世界的目的‘是什么？“ 我相信我们每个人不是白白来世上走一遭的，我们活着是有目的的！我 们来这世上不光是为了赚钱过活！就如 Jean-Jaques Rousseu所说的，”It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.” （要是一个人满头脑所想的只是赚钱养活，就很难有崇高的思想。）很多人追求物质上的成功–殊不知在追求荣华富贵的过程中，精神日趋贫乏。
