I am more and more convinced that it is not really worship that Jesus wants, but followership. Jesus said “follow me” way more than he said “worship me”.

Yes, I love stories and stories definitely resonate with people. So in Deuteronomy (which are actually predominantly speeches [or sermons] or a recitation of Laws by Moses) I do want to tell the story, which is predominantly about what God did for them and how God dealt with them over their last 40 years in the wilderness of Sinai.

Interestingly, it concludes with Blessing for Obedience (Dt 28:1-14) and Curses for Disobedience (Dt 28:15-68) in chapter 28–with only 14 verses regarding blessing for obedience and 54 verses regarding curses for disobedience!

Here is an excellent resource about becoming a better story teller:

“As we encounter the stories of our Christian tradition we are all invited to enter God’s story as both story-listeners and storytellers.”

Stories, Stories Everywhere: Good Practice for Storytellers

@MJ, yes the gospel/the truth should awaken an intense resentment. That’s why it is always good to not mainly surround ourselves by those who are impressed by us, and who will only pat us on the back.

Both my lovely cat and the lovely polar bear generate virtually exactly the same emotions from any animal lover (Proverbs 12:10), I think.

I can only imagine how sad I would be if I found the polar bear drowned under the thin ice that it could have so easily cracked with its paw!

This article made me think of the other article about sexual sins commited by Christian leaders. How could a polar bear forget how to crack ice? How could a Christian forget to stay faithful to his current/future spouse? It happens and “there but for the grace of God go I.”

I agree with Chris, not completely (I dont think we can use the universal quantifier here), but I see his point. When Christians don’t flex their hand and feet muscles, then like the polar bear, Chrisitans die under the ice and cannot withstand temptations. The church is meant to be the hands and feet in this world. Jesus’ way of living is not easy. It’s not supposed to make you wrm and fuzzy on the inside, sometimes it can happen but not always. Reading Chris’ comment made me uncomfortable because I became aware of my own self-righteousness.

I read yesterday, “The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me.” The truth hurts. Our example is Christ so we have a long way to go. There will always be room for improvement. We are in the sanctification stage so it will never get comfortable. I pray to live the way God created me to live not in my own “artificial zoo park” based on my ideas and standards.

PS Have you watched Chris Rock’s documentary “good hair”? It looks hilarious.

Maybe it’s because in reality I’m not very eloquent. Actually I was a mathematician. These people have a reduced language with actually only two quantifiers, the universal quantifier and the existential quantifier. Since the existential quantifier always seems to be to weak to support what I want to say, I’m always using the universal quantifier instead. Yes, it’s a bad habit.

Of course, you know that not many current UBFers (except me) will think that what you wrote is funny at all. I wish they would have a sense of humor, and laugh, which is perhaps an attribute that some lack. An inability to laugh, especially at yourself (a sign of taking yourself too seriously), is not conducive to a happy joyful life.

As I was reading what you wrote, it reminded me of Chris Rock, who is so funny, because he is simply describing life as it is, with all of its oddness, denials, foibles, hypocrisy, inconsistency, etc.

I will have to say that some of what you write is a slight exaggeration, but not by much. My wife rebuked me many times for using words like “always” or “never.” Perhaps that might be helpful to your writing.

I think that if and when I do meet you in person, we will be having quite a laughing conversation together. If not, we will have lots of time to do so after Jesus comes again.

Concerning the idea of “working hard” in which UBFers take pride (some UBF missionaries even have “Work Hard” as a name), believing all other people are living an “easy-going life style”: This belief really angers me, in many ways. None of the UBFers, particularly the leaders, know what real hard work is. They are all upper-class, 1st world, white-handed college people, most of which never experienced even once the real hard work of the “working class”, of the majority of all people in the world. They have no idea of how dirty and troublesome the life of the majority of people on the world in 2nd or 3d world countries is, or even for the working class in our 1st world in times like these, just in order to survive. UBF people have the time and luxury to sit in endless, boring meetings (as a UBFer, your most trained body part is surely the one you need to sit on), to attend conferences and make mission journeys, they have good houses, cars, heating, air con, yummy and helathy food like bulgogi every day. Compared to the majority of people in the world, they all live a luxury life. Yes, there is a small percentage of UBF missionaries in 2nd and 3d world countries, but even there, compared to the majority of the people in these countries, they live a priviledged, luxury life. Their bragging about “working hard” is disgusting. Or, when they say “work”, do they mean “study”? But UBF Bible study and theology is so shallow and wrong compared to any Bible study in any ordinary seminary. It does not even deserve the name “study”, and certainly it shouldn’t be considered as “hard work”. A hard-working Bible scholar would at least try to learn Greek or Hebrew, but I have never met a UBFer who really wanted to spend so much energy and hard mental work on learning the Bible. What they really mean with “work” is “activity”, more specifically “UBF activity”. It is neither effective, not particularly spiritual. Again, it mainly consists in sitting in meetings, where you are permanently manipulating yourself and others to believe your activity is valuable and you should keep on doing it, it’s a self-energizing process that keeps you active like a hamster in a wheel. Also, you don’t really learn anything on the way. In addition, in the sogam meetings you constantly undermine your feeling of self-worth until you believe you’re so weak that you can’t even break a thin layer of ice, like that sad polar bear.