A prodigal son story in the book of Romans

As studying the book of Romans, I have started grasping a little bit of interesting thought as bringing a connection with a prodigal son story from the gospel of Luke.

In the book of Romans, Paul addresses a disunity problem between the Jews and Gentiles in the churches of Rome. The majority of members of the church in the beginning were probably the Jews after the Pentecost event in Acts 2. However, it had been changed dramatically after Roman emperor, Claudius, decreed to expel all the Jews to be out of Rome in 49AD. They were allowed to come back to Rome after 54AD by Nero. This 5years of absence of the Jews, the majority of members of the church became the Gentiles. And they probably changed things around in how they did in their meetings.

Therefore, one of big themes in the book of Romans became a unity (equal treatment by God toward Gentile & Jew) as Paul addresses this disunity issue.

As meditating on what would have been like for the heart of Jews at the time, I was being reminded of the heart of Pharisees, which was revealed by Jesus when He confronted them with a prodigal son story in the gospel of Luke. The pharisees and the scribe were audience to this story as well as the tax-collectors and sinners. Jesus was probably pointing the older son as the Pharisees and the younger son as the sinners. The older son was really angry by the fact that their father was graciously receiving the younger son back. Just as this story, the Pharisees were really upset by the fact that Jesus were giving much attention to those sinners and proclaiming the salvation news to them. In their heart, it must have been hurtful since they were the ones who had been faithfully walking in the laws to be citizens of Kingdom of God. With their whole life, they had been devoted to God to please Him while sinners were doing whatever they wished to do. Then, Jesus proclaimed that God's salvation came to those sinners, which the Pharisees couldn't have accepted easily.

The Jews believers in Rome were probably having hard time to see God's abundant grace on the Gentile believers, whom they used to treat them as great sinners. And they were wondering about all those years that they had been trying to keep the laws to please God if that was even worth. What about their covenant, their promises, and blessings toward Israel... these questions were probably in their mind since Paul addresses them in the book of Romans. Paul didn't say that it was counted by God nothing but it was worth and holy when it comes to God's faithful covenants and the law, just as Father mentioned the older son all the things he had in his father's home were his in the prodigal son story. However, Paul pointed out the hardened heart of the Jews who didn't praise God's grace and goodness in His righteousness just as Jesus pointed out the jealousy heart of the older son (the Pharisees) in the prodigal son story in Luke 15.

Furthermore, both Jesus in the gospel of Luke and Paul in the book of Romans were strongly pointing out that the good news of salvation is for everyone who believes in Jesus Christ as the prodigal son begins with God being a Father to both sons.

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Armenia... and the book of Jonah...

I was there mostly during August. And it was a hot and dry weather most of time. It was very hot to walk around during the day, yet there are many water fountains that we could drink along the ways, which I loved to stop and to drink it forever!


I have visited Armenian Genocide museum, which made me once again to think about natural sinfulness of human being. It was hard to even look at the photos of what happened to Armenians by Turks about 100years ago.

'God, how can any human do such a thing to another human being?'

Right after this question in my mind, there wasn't taking any second to be reminded of brutal human history, even including biblical histories from the Bible, terrible news throughout the world in the present, and my own sinfulness of heart. 'Yeah, that is why we desperately need God's grace, Jesus.... Lord, please forgive our sins...'

There was a chance for our team to teach the book of Jonah to one of churches in Armenia. One of big messages of Jonah was to go and to preach to the nations in spite of how terribly we fear about and what they have done because God's heart for everyone is same.'...for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.' Jonah 4:2
Jonah didn't want to obey to God's commandment to preach to Ninevah, which was known as one of cruel nations at the time and an enemy of Israel because he knew that God would be gracious with them if they repent. Nonetheless, God's sovereignty taught Jonah that His love is for every single person on the planet.

I was teaching them of how we should apply the message of Jonah today and to us. Without me talking about their feeling toward Turkey, they talked about their own history, Armenian Genocide by Turks. I am not sure if the message of Jonah has meant anything to them.

But, I pray that by God's grace and power, they would be used greatly to preach His good news to everyone including Turks.
I believe that God would use this nation mightily to be a blessing to surrounding nations, mostly Islam countries.

Bible learners of Armenia!

It has been about 2weeks since our Titus project outreach team arrived in Armenia.

Shnor ha Karigion (Thank you in Armenia). Some simple words we have been learning in order to feel connected with people here. Whenever, I speak little Armenian we just learned to them, they always responded us back with a big smile on their face.
Shut Hamova bait Gustem (It tastes very good but I am full). It was another Armenian sentence I have been using much, since they are so hospitable and generous. They wanted us to eat much!!!


We have been visiting to several different small groups of the church, which we have been working with here. I and our team members have been teaching the Inductive Method Overview with them last week and teaching the book of Philemon about observation this week.
During this week, we led them to observe the book of Philemon so closely just like a good detective would do on his work. So, they traced what kind of people were mentioned and what kind of words are repeated in this book, in order to find out what Paul was communicating to Philemon in this letter.

They are so eager to study the Bible in spite of the fact that some older people couldn't read words well because they didn't bring their glasses. So, we had to come up with a special way of studying. Someone had to read the passage for them and they had to listen very carefully and answer whenever they recognized repeated words, and people (all the who's in that passage). It was just wonderful to watch how focused they were in this way of studying. Most of small group members were so engaged with our teachings, especially when we show our interesting illustrations and skits to create the need of studying the Bible.

Thank you Jesus for this wonderful people! They as a nation have been so faithfully protecting Christianity since 300AD in spite of all the persecutions they faced throughout their history time. I pray that they would get to know the words of You and You in a very personal way, which would change their lives as going deeper with You, Jesus.
I also pray that all of them in these small groups would continually come back to this Bible study and be impacted by the truths from the words of God!

Going to Armenia soon!

I am leaving in a week for Armenia for my outreach from Titus project!!!
Armenia is the first country where adopted Christianity as their national religion. Over 93% of their populations belongs to the Apostolic church according to Wikipedia Very interestingly enough, this country is surrounded by Islam countries, except Georgia.

I have been learning about why we are to teach and preach and how we are to deliver out message to the people in need of knowing the Bible. I have been learning much in these area and especially in the context of outreach. In spite of richness of their Christian heritage in Armenia, they have lack of Bible Study Resources as far as I know. So, that is why our Titus project team is going to Armenia to teach the Bible with an Inductive Method.

One thing that is stuck in my heart is that without knowing what their own culture and history background, it would be very insensitive thing to do for us to preach / teach on anything, which made me to be a bit more serious toward preparing my teachings. I think that it is great that we are already praying for Armenia, researching about Armenia and preparing teachings that we will do in context of being in Armenia. However, I feel that I still don't really know about Armenia. Oh, I desperately need God's grace on this trip!

Lord, please help me to be sensitive to Your Spirit, so that I could be sensitive to your loving children in Armenia while teaching/ preaching Your message to them. And let me be able to build a good relationship with them in spite of language barrier by Your grace, So, they would be excited to learn to study the Bible and experiencing God's grace and love in their life, which could result in sending missionaries to neighbor countries...

The 7 laws of the learner - Revival on us?

I am doing a Titus project, which is designed to train participants to be effective Bible teachers and preachers.

As one of our homework is reading this book, 'The seven laws of the Learner by Bruce Wilkinson, I have been reading this book as fully enjoying it. It wasn't for me first time to be introduced to his teaching because I have watched same teaching on his DVD a couple of times before. Nonetheless, I found that this book is again just amazingly helpful and challenging to have right heart for being a teacher.

One of my favorite parts of this book is revival because it did teach me about revival in a refreshing way, which I really agree with. In order to give you some taste of what I mean by this, I would like to quote some part from his book:

'My first writing of this maxim, before searching the Scriptures, produced something like this: "Revival is a sovereign act of God and not the responsibility of man except to be prayed for by the Christian." .....
2Ch 7:14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. .....
There it was, in black and white - a clear and indisputable revelation directly from God that revival was fully dependent on us and not Him! He clearly promised that He would send revival if we fulfilled His conditions. We weren't doing what He requested in order for revival to flood our lives.'

I was convinced by this and had to pray for God to show me if there was anything that I needed to confess my sins. He was so faithful to this prayer, which I wasn't aware of that right after my prayer. When I read this part of this book and prayed for God to show me my sins it was during the night just before I wanted to go to bed.
But I couldn't go to bed at that night as being reminded of disturbed memories, which I had to pray out to God to let me know why I was being reminded of those memories again. And He revealed the part of reason on that night, which made me crying aloud for a while. And another part of reason was revealed a couple of days later, which I finally understood that I needed His forgiveness badly as confessing my sins.

Thank you Lord for your grace to my sin and faithfulness to my prayer.
I love You soooooo much!!! I cheer You to work on my heart continually even if I know that it gets tough to go through...

Feeling love under wings of God?

What would be like feeling God's love with heart not only knowing His love with head? How can we feel His love a tangible way?

This question has been in my heart lately.
I don't really know what it would that be. Yet, I am wondering if people can taste His goodness and love from time to time like these little duck babies can feel warmth, protection & love under wings of their mom.
I have seen deep healing process of someone when Jesus touched deep wounded heart of that person. I bet that no one could bring healing like He did to that person on that day. The person has experienced the sweet presence of Jesus, which I believe that it must have been so warm and loving as a witness of what was happening.

I am just thankful that I could be there to help to open up for Jesus' ministering to this friend. I recognized that I could be a little help just because I have done an IBC/FCM (Foundation for Christian Ministry) for myself. It did help me to know what to do when someone shares heart broken stories.
After all, the gift I received from God to do the counseling school in Hawaii wasn't only for myself but for more.

God is sooooo big all the time!!!

Healing to my heart!

What I have learned during my FCM (Foundation for Counseling Ministry),,,

I used to say that I can trust in God, but I can’t trust myself.
And I also used to easily find myself hearing from my heart “ I am useless and I am not lovable". One thing I realized in this counseling school was that what I was saying to myself was actually that I was saying to God, “God created me useless”. God has spoken to me about this through many different things, doing my journal, reading some books, and finally speaking to me directly; “You look gorgeous to Me, so don’t let others determine how you look. Don’t let the enemy despise on how you look because it means that you let the enemy despise my masterpiece. This would be one little step of how you can also praise and worship Me.”

After listening to this from God, I have convinced that I was sinning against Him as despising myself, whom God has created. So, I had to ask Him for forgiveness that I have done that so many times throughout my life. I started weeping as soon as realizing this thinking that I have almost cursed God as cursing myself.

‘Walls of My heart by Bruce & Barbara Tompson’ confirms my realization that self-pity is not only a bad habit; it’s also a sin. The more we indulge in it, the easier it is to shift into this thinking pattern whenever disagreeable circumstances confront us.

And Tompson says in their book that many people are obsessed with the fear of failure, and when they do fail, they seem unable to recover and learn from the experience. Instead, they fall apart, pre-programmed to believe the words they were told as children. I believe that it is one of the reasons why I had been so stuck with the wrong belief, ‘I am useless’. Through my life experiences, I had been pre-programmed to believe about myself that I am useless.

What I have also realized is that pre-programmed beliefs out of my past experiences can hinder from bringing down the truths to my heart from my head. This gave me an understanding of why it is so important to look back to my past and deal with the wounds in my heart. Otherwise, I can totally act differently than what I actually believe with my mind because another belief is engraved in my heart.

So, I have seen once again that having a surgery for the wounds of my heart is painful but necessary. And I am thankful to God because I believe that He has brought much powerful healing to my heart during this time than ever before.