Pendeta Stephen Tong

This is my personal summary of Rev Dr Stephen Tong's sermon on 6 November 2011 in STEMI Expository Preaching at True Way Presbyterian Church. It was preached in Chinese with English translation.

Passage: John 12:1-8

In the Bible, top 3 women whose words were recorded most in the Bible are:
1. Rahab
2. Queen of Sheba
3. Mary the mother of Jesus

A major utterance of Mary the mother of Jesus is the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), where Mary said something that even the Roman Catholics could not deny - that she needed a saviour (Lk 1:47). Note that since long time ago the Roman Catholics believed that Mary was divine and had been debating whether she ascended into heaven and did not die, just like Enoch. This debate ended when in 1953, the pope at that time dogmatized that she ascended into heaven and did not die. The dogma next developed into a concept that stated that Mary is the co-redeemer besides Jesus: Jesus is a redeemer and Mary too is a redeemer (the Co-Redemptrix doctrine).

This is completely against the Bible. Firstly, in performing the miracles our Lord Jesus Christ did not need her at all. In John 2 at the wedding in Cana, when Mary asked Jesus to help with the wine shortage, Jesus replied, 'Woman, what does this have to do with me? ...' (or translated 'Woman, what have you got to do with me?') This is because just before performing miracles, Jesus exercised his divinity. Miracles can only be performed by God and man/woman has no part in them. Secondly, while Jesus was preaching and his mother and brothers were looking for him, Jesus answer was based on his divinity, 'Who is my mother? ...' Here Jesus clearly expressed his divine nature as above his mother who was just human. Thirdly, when Jesus was 12 and stayed behind at the temple, his answer reflected that his father was God the Father, even as he obeyed his earthly parents. Lastly, when Mary the mother of Jesus was last mentioned in the Bible (i.e. in Acts 1:14), she joined the disciples in praying before the Pantecost. This implied that she was just a human.

Feet are a man's dirtiest body part and hair is a woman's most glorious body part. But Mary from Bethany offered her hair (highest glory of man) for Jesus' feet (the lowliest part of man) in being used by God to anoint Jesus.

Another Mary used by God is Mary Magdalene. She was used by God to be the first person to tell the world that Jesus Christ had risen after his death.

This is my personal summary of Rev Dr Stephen Tong's sermon on 30 October 2011 in STEMI Expository Preaching at True Way Presbyterian Church. It was preached in Chinese with English translation.

This is my personal summary of Rev Dr Stephen Tong's sermon on 23 October 2011 in STEMI Expository Preaching at True Way Presbyterian Church. It was preached in Chinese with English translation.

Passage: John 11:47 – 12:8

John said the law came from Moses but the grace of salvation came from Jesus Christ. One who could not understand the New Testament cannot really understand the Old Testament. Through Jesus Christ we understand God’s salvation in human history. We see this principle in Lu. 23:24. Jesus appeared before His disciples and explained the Psalms, the Prophets and the history books. The starting point in understanding the Old Testament is from the resurrection of Christ.

After He resurrected Lazarus, the Jews plotted to kill Him. At the end of John 11, He withdrew temporarily and was not easily found (Jn. 11:54). This is not a flight to safety. He would appear again before the Passover. This would be the forth time within 3.5 years of ministry. The first time He went to Jerusalem, He cleansed the temple. The forth time, He cleared the temple again. In His last visit He would be crucified.

Many people put their faith in Jesus because of Lazarus’ resurrection and many Jews also wanted to kill Jesus because of this. The Pharisees and priests had ordered that anyone who saw Jesus should report to them so that they might arrest Him (Jn. 11:57). They wanted to kill Him but because murder is against the law they used Pilate to kill Him instead. Pilate told the Pharisees to judge and punish Jesus themselves according to their own law and the Pharisees said according to their law they could not put Jesus to death.

Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany where Lazarus, Mary and Martha lived. Martha served and Mary prepared a perfume. Here Mary poured Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. This is 6 days before Jesus’ death. This is the guidance of the Holy Spirit. She was very sensitive to God’s timing. The servant of God should do things according to God’s will and timing. Most people do not understand this and end up doing things in their lives out of line with God’s ways and timing.

The perfume was worth a year’s wages. Our her love for Jesus, she saved all her money and bought the expensive perfume to anoint Him for the death of Jesus. This true High Priest would be crucified soon for the sin of the world. Who would anoint Him? God has prepared this woman to anoint Him. No one else knew He was about to die.

Jesus was born from the womb of Mary who was submissive to God’s will. She was anointed for His death by another Mary who loved Jesus. And Mary Magdalene, the woman out of whom Jesus cast out 7 demons, was the first woman who saw the resurrection of Jesus. The most obedient and the most defiled were all used by God. These women were blessed indeed.

She broke the bottle. She did not want to leave anything behind as a memory for her contribution. The way Martha and Mary loved Jesus were different. Martha was always visibly the hardworking one who served. Mary was unreserved and quietly working hard and saving up to anoint Jesus with all she had. This sacrifice is very rare. Jesus said when the gospel was preached to the end world, what Mary had done will also be told in memory of her.

Judas protested, saying the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Judas himself did not help or care for the poor but he rebuked Mary for not using the money to give to the poor. John said Judas said that because Judas was the money keeper and often stole. Who realised Judas was the thief? Even on the day He was betrayed, His 11 disciples still did not know. They were simple-minded. But Jesus knew.

Jesus said, “Leave her alone, it was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (Jn. 12:7-7) The lesson here is we should seize the moment to serve God or we will lose the opportunities.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (v.25-26)
If you believe you will see the glory of God. This is how faith works. We need to believe first then we will see. The world says seeing and experiencing is believing. But God says to believe first. The gospel of John is consistent with other gospels, the Acts and Hebrews 11.

After arriving at Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus’ first command was to take away the stone (v.39). His second command was, “Lazarus, come out!” (v.44) and His last command was, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” (v.45)

Lazarus’ resurrection teaches us that God’s timing is never wrong, that we should not judge God by our finite mind. Jesus’ 3 commands also teach us important spiritual principles. The first command indicates that we have to be prepared to work to see the glory of God. We need to roll away the stone of barrier that prevents people from hearing the gospel. The work of pre-evangelism is important, carried out through cultural mandate to remove barriers to the gospel.

The second commands show the dead will rise to life when hearing the voice of the Son of God. He is the Lord of life. He gives us life. When we preach the gospel, the Lord uses His Word to regenerate unbelievers. The spiritually dead will be born again.

The third command shows that after regeneration we need to be freed to live out your new life. After we are saved, it is not the end. We have a new life to live. Good tree will have good fruits.

Are we removing the stones? Are we preaching the gospel? Are we making disciples? This is the responsibility of the church. May the life of Christ come upon us.

This is my personal summary of Rev Dr Stephen Tong's sermon on 26 June 2011 in STEMI Expository Preaching at True Way Presbyterian Church. It was preached in Chinese with English translation.

Passage: John 10:7-15

At the last sermon we have studied that Jesus Christ described himself as the door and the good shepherd. Now in this passage his relationship with us as his sheep is explained: This relationship is an organic and living relationship. We are the flock with Jesus Christ as the great shepherd. Strangely, both Old Testament and New Testament refers to us as sheep. In Isaiah 53 we are described as 'like sheep we have gone astray,' about which 150 years ago Charles Spurgeon remarked, 'Why does the Bible use sheep [to describe man], not cats, dogs, or other animals?' It's because of all animals, sheep are the ones that are most likely to lose their way and yet, they are also the ones who could not find their own way home. The Bible does not say 'Like dogs we have gone astray,' because a dog that has gone astray could find its own way home. It likens us to sheep because we could not find our own way to God and therefore it teaches us that we need to depend on God to direct our lives onto the right path.

Jesus says we are his sheep among his flock and he is the good shepherd. The relationship between the sheep and the shepherd is that those sheep who belong to him will recognise his voice, then will follow him and so will love him. This is what Christians will do. The questions are then, are we listening carefully to recognise Jesus' voice? Are we obedient to him? Do we follow him? As Christians we ought to carefully think about these questions.

In verses 7-8 Jesus says, '... I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.' When God sent Jesus to come to the earth, He sent Him to come as the Messiah among His people.

The Messiah has been in the concept of Israelites since the Old Testament time. There are 3 main schools of thought in the era of Jesus Christ:
1. Among the Jews who returned from Babylon
2. Among the Jews who returned from Alexandria
3. Among the Jews diaspora in Greece and Rome

There are some common thoughts among them, but they came to different conclusions. Some thought that the Messiah would come as God, so he will not die. Some thought that he would come as a son of man, so in the end he will die. Some thought he would come as the Prince of Peace. But the common thread among them all is that he would come as a sort of hero/saviour of the people, from the lineage of King David, to reestablish the throne of David.

However among the Israelites at that time, the king of the Jews (Herod) was not a Jew, and certainly not THAT descendant of David (Note: The Bible used the singular term for this descendant when referring to the Messiah). Herod was a puppet king installed by the Roman empire, and the Jews definitely did not recognise him as a king of the Jews as the Bible had set out that the king must come from the Judah tribe and from the lineage of David. This was an important edict from the Bible and the Israelites will not anyhow carry out this order.

So the Israelites were still praying for the Messiah to come. However they were faced with the question of where to find this king. As such, they need to pray, but where to pray for him to come? The answer has to be at the temple and thus the Israelites found themselves in a state of contradiction: They gave thanks for such a magnificent temple but this temple was built by Herod, the king that they did not recognise as the Messiah. Yet the Jews still went there to worship because it was very grand and was built on the same site as Solomon's temple. As such, externally they appeared to worship at Herod's temple, but in their hearts they did not obey Herod as their king. Nonetheless, this thing that Herod did, together with the 180,000 Roman soldiers placed in Jerusalem helped the Roman empire in controlling the Jewish people from revolting.

Before Jesus's birth, it was politics making use of religion - Herod used the temple to control the Jews. After Jesus's birth, it was religion making use of politics - The religious leaders used Pontius Pilate to kill Jesus because their religion forbade them from killing anyone.

When Jesus came, although Jesus confessed that he was the good shepherd (i.e. the Messiah), many Jews denied that he was the Messiah. There are 2 reasons for this. One is the Jews had been persistently challenging the rule of the Roman empire and by the time Jesus started his ministry, they had also become very stubborn. Also, before Jesus came there were more than 200 people who claimed to be the Messiah. The Jews checked each of them against the description in the Scripture and found all of them to be false. Some of them ended up killed by the enemy.

These false messiahs were collectively referred to as the thief by Jesus in verse 8. Throughout history we could find this kind of people, who claimed to be so and so but turned out to be ordinary people. Many of them did it for wealth, power and fame. In contrast, Jesus is the real Messiah. He said, '... I am the door' (Note: the word 'door' is singular). He is the only gate to the Father through which the sheep will find pasture with enough grass to feed on, in the Father's kingdom.

Besides the shepherd and the robbers, Jesus also talked about the hired hand. There is a big difference between a shepherd and a hired hand. The hired hand are people who seem to take care of the sheep but actually have no heart for the sheep; they simply work for money. Anything they do, it's for the money. When the wolves come, they will run away. In contrast, Jesus Christ does not only say he is the only door but he is also the good shepherd, who cares for his sheep's needs and gives his life for them to give them eternal life.

These are also the 2 types of attitude with which people work. One is of the good shepherd. People with such an attitude care for the sheep deeply and protect them from the enemy. This attitude is truly great. The other is of the hired hand. People with this attitude work only if they are paid. If they are not paid, they will not do anything. If we want to serve God, we must not serve Him with the hired hand's attitude; we must serve Him with the good shepherd's attitude. We ought to be a small shepherd who truly loves his sheep, works responsibly for them and does not make decisions merely based on our selfish desires. To the hired hand it's all about the money, but to the good shepherd it is people's lives. This also applies to all other areas of society, e.g.: An air stewardess ought to serve passengers out of genuine care and not measured by the class of their seats, a doctor out to treat his patients' illnesses well, a husband ought to care for his wife well, and a storekeeper should go miles in serving his customers. A pastor should not just 'play safe' in serving his sheep.

As for the thief:
1. He will not tell his victims what he is going to do beforehand.
2. He will come when his victims are not aware. So if you are spiritually asleep, you should pray that God to awaken you. The Bible says that we ought to be careful and ready.
3. He comes to steal what he thinks as important, not what the victims think as important.
The thief has to be strong, otherwise he will not be able to steal and kill. He  destroys, so that it will be easier for him to steal.

In verse 10 Jesus says, 'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.' This is not an ordinary statement; it is what Christianity is all about. Religion talks about good and evil, science talks about truth and falsehood, philosophy talks about wisdom and foolishness. Not only that, the most important cultures, philosophy, and arts in the world talk about beauty and ugliness, and value. But Christianity does not treat these as the most important; there is only one thing that surpasses all of them: death and life. God's first command to Adam was 'You are not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for the day you eat of it, you will surely die.' Now in the garden of Eden there were many other trees, and another important tree among these trees is the tree of life. Figuratively speaking, there is a contrast here. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents all religions, but the tree of life represents salvation which is only found in Jesus Christ.

This is a very important contrast to know. The whole Bible tells us that we are fallen in matters of good and evil but saved in the matter of life. Its overarching theme is for man to return to life that is in relationship with God. Jesus says that we are to come to him so that we will have eternal life and not perish. This is what Christianity is all about.

Life alone is not enough; one must have an abundant life. These are 2 different lives. In the world, there are (only) 2 types of Christians: One has life, and the other one has abundant life. The former is saved, and is half alive and half dead, but you cannot say that he or she is dead - he survives. He IS a Christian, but cannot do anything: Cannot read the bible, cannot pray, cannot bear testimony for Christ, cannot lead others to Christ, cannot share the gospel to others, cannot bear fruit, cannot glorify God, cannot even go to church on Sundays on his own initiative but need others to bring him. He is saved, but weak in everything. But the other one has abundant life. Not only he has joy, he can do all those things and hence display abundant life. I realised this after 3 life-threatening accidents that I had gone through. In all those occasions I experienced concussions and had to lie in the hospital bed, depending on the nurse even for doing simple things like washing my face and brushing my teeth. This is what a merely surviving Christian is like.

Therefore we Christians ought to live an abundant life and express it in everyday life. An abundant life entails:
1. Abundance in faith
2. Abundance in truth and knowledge
3. Abundance in hope and God's love
Having these, your life will then be shared with others.

You believe and then you will know the truth. When you know the truth, you will believe even more. This is like what Augustine wrote 'Believe and know the truth, then understand in order to believe even more.' My faith and my knowledge is like the rings of a tree that year by year keeps growing and bearing fruit. May the Lord help us all, that we will be Christians that keeps growing and sharing our lives with others and bearing fruit forevermore.

“Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside—36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?” (Jn. 10:34-36)

Jesus responded to the Jews’ protest that in the Scripture, the people who received and obeyed the word, not the Word Himself, who are made in God’s image, but not God Himself, are called ‘gods’, how then can Christ, the very Word sent by God, not be called God’s Son? This is the Word proclaimed in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.” This is the Word through whom all things were made. The Word who is distinct and separate from the created world. This Word became flesh and dwelt among men. How then can He not be called the Son of God? How then could they accuse Christ of blasphemy?

His miracles are divine indeed. His miracles demonstrates He is divine, He is God. His deeds show who He is. Yet the Jews accepted the miracles, but refused to acknowledge that the One who does the miracles is God. They reject the divinity of Christ. How foolish and stubborn. They cannot see their own ignorance. All that He has done clearly show He is who He claims to be. They think nothing is wrong with His miracles, but everything is wrong with what He says.

Jesus said, “Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (Jn. 10:37-38)

This is the best answer which cannot be improved. Christ did the works which only God can do. But the Jews still could not understand. They still wanted to stone Him. This is because they are not His sheep.

Many people listen to sermons over and over again without truly listening and receiving. The Scripture says faith comes from hearing the Word of God. If you do not listen, how can you believe? If we are not listening, we cannot understand. May we truly hear His Word and follow Him as His sheep.

This is a personal summary of the preaching of Rev Dr Stephen Tong on 21 August 2011 in True Way Presbyterian Church. It was preached in Chinese with English translation.

Passage: John 10:7-18

John 10 portrays Christ’s relationship with His church as that of a shepherd with his sheep. Jesus said “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I come that my sheep might have life abundantly.” (See Jn. 10:11-12)

Christianity is about life. Other religion focuses on morality, on good and evil. Science is about knowledge and ignorance. Philosophy is about wisdom and ignorance. Christianity is about life and death. While Christianity also concerns itself with morality, good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, the central theme is life and death.

The Scripture says, when the time comes, those who hear the voice of the Son we will be resurrected to life. The Bible talks about 3 kinds of deaths – the first is the decay of physical body, the second is the segregation of the spirit from the Source of life, God Himself. The third is eternal separation from God the Father, where the unrepentant are thrown to the lake of fire and suffer forever and ever. Most of us only understand the first kind of death. Science also only confines the concept of death to the first one.

God commanded Adam not to eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and on the day he eat he will surely die. However when he ate, physically he did not die immediately but at that instant he did die spiritually. He was cut off from his relationship with God. This is the second type of death.

Christianity speaks of the One who came to give us life. He saved a people chosen from the foundation of the world. The angel said He is to be named Jesus as He will save His people from their sin. Jesus said He came that they may have life and have it to the full (Jn. 10:11). There are two kinds of Christian. The first group are those have been born again the second group are those who, after being born again, have life to the full. It is not enough just to have a new life, but Christians have it to the full.

We wonder why many Christians do not seem to grow, why after 10 years nothing has changed and the prayers remain the same. There does not seem to be evidende of abundant life and fruits of the Spirit. It appears that for many Christians, after salvation they are just waiting to go to heaven. We need to remember that the person God wants us to become is not the person we are now. We cannot be satisfied where we are. In the tension of two different states of our nature we need to find harmony. Instead of pursuing material things, we need to pursue life to the full spiritually.

Jesus teaches that the true shepherd will lay his life down to the sheep. The church need to build up true shepherds, not hirelings who do not care for the sheep (Jn. 10:13).

In this passage, Jesus also teaches another principle: “My sheep hear my voice and follow me” (Jn. 10:14). To hear is a very important verb in Hebrew culture. The God of the Hebrews is the God who wants His people to listen to His word, to believe and obey His word. Believing comes from hearing. Yet often times church pastors are the ones who cannot listen. They think they are the preachers so they do not need to listen and they are better than their congregation, not realising that their congregation might have been listening to a lot of better teaching elsewhere. Christians need to keep listening and learning.

Further Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (v. 17) This kind of love for lost sheep is the love of the shepherd. We need to have the heart to bring more lost souls to Christ. Many Christians have no interests and empathy towards non-Christians. But they too are made in God’s image and likeness. They too need the salvation of Christ. If we never love the gospel, we will never have fervency to preach. The church which only looks after the congregation within the four walls and are indifferent towards those outside is not in a right state. There are lost sheep outside the four walls of the church. We need to have the heart to reach out to them.

This is a personal summary of the preaching of Rev Dr Stephen Tong on 19 June 2011 in True Way Presbyterian Church. It was preached in Chinese with English translation.

Passage: John 10:1-6

It is an irony that while religious leaders were most knowledgeable in the Law of Moses, when the Messiah came they were the most resistant. The blind beggar was healed, physically and spiritually, but the Pharisees were learned in the law of God well was blind spiritually. Jesus said He came to the world so that the blind would see and those who see become blind. It a religious paradox. Those who think they know actually do not know, those who think they see actually do not see. The Pharisees despised the blind beggar as uneducated, poor and of low social status. We should not despise the poor and uneducated because some of them had treasures within them that influence many generations to come. We need to honour people of lowly social status. John 9 exposes human weakness and social ills in this respect. It has not changed much for 2000 years. Some Christians behave worse than non-Christians. Some pastors are more evil than those who do not have religious education.

John 10 speaks of Jesus as the good Shepherd and the gate to the sheep. It does not seem connected to the previous chapter. But the Bible was not revealed and arranged in a systematic manner. It is the word of life, the expression of the truth, not formed by systematic teaching, but by organic principles of life.

Systematic theology categorises everything in a logical manner. It is insufficient to teach the Bible. The methodology to put everything in a logical system comes from the Enlightenment Age. The word “systematic theology” is the literary product of the Enlightenment. It is good to study systematic theology as a start but we should not stop there. We need to go in depth to let our study form organic relationship with our life. We need to influence others with our life and character. The relationship between life and the word of God is organic. Three great theologians, Augustine, John Calvin and Karl Barth would not use the term systematic theology.

In John 10, the relationship between Jesus and His church is described as the Shepherd and the sheep. There are five illustrations of the relationship between Christ and His church. Firstly, it is like the relationship between husband and wife, bridegroom and bride. Christ love His church and give His life for His church like a husband loves his wife. The Church ought to submit to Christ as a wife submits to her husband. Secondly, Christ is the foundation and the Church is the house. The house dose not support the foundation, but is supported by the foundation. Christ is the foundation of our spirituality. That’s how the church can stand firm.

Thirdly, Jesus is the Head, the Church is His body. The body is directed by the head, not the other way round. The church needs to be submissive to her Head, Christ, just as Christ submits to God the Father. Here we see the hierarchy of power. Forthly, as illustrated in John 10, Christ is the Shepherd and and the Church is His flock and His sheep recognise his voice. Finally, Christ is the vine and we are the branches. Out of the 5 illustrations, only one relationship is not organic, i.e the house and its foundation. Other illustrations are life relationships or organic relationships.

How then is John 10 related to John 9? The Pharisees studied the Law so carefully but could not believe in Christ, so Jesus said they are not His sheep. The blind beggar was uneducated but believe in Christ, so he is His sheep.

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.” (Jn. 10:1-2)

Who is the robber and who is the shepherd? Some church leaders are robbers. A true shepherd will give of his life for his flock. He loves his flock and care about their safety. The thief and the robber does not care about the sheep and will instead takes away their peace and your possessions for himself.

There are two kinds of leaders and preachers in church. One is the true shepherd who is self-sacrificial and give his life to the flock of God. The other is the thief and robber who take advantage of the congregation and cheat their money. He uses church offerings to enrich himself and support his luxurious lifestyle.

These robbers did not come in by the door but climed in by an illegitimate way. They entered the church by the wrong way, not by the proper gate. They are false prophets and false apostles who cheat the church. A lot of people work hard and give their offerings to false prophets. False prophets speak things people like to hear and naïve Christians often believe.

Jesus said He is the gate. He is the good Shepherd. Why is Jesus so stern to refer to other religious leaders as robbers? He was not willing that people just follow anybody in confusion. We need to discern. Many people give offerings to the wrong place.

Jesus said He came to give life but the robber comes to take life away. His sheep hears His voice and follow Him. He said sheep will never follow a stranger for they do not recognise his voice. They could feel the love of the Shepherd. Many people leave churches because they cannot recognise a true shepherd hear in their pastors who act more like hired men. They are disappointed. The true shepherd sacrifices himself, loves the flock and never tries to get something from the flock. The sheep will recognise that this is God’s shepherd.

Yet some of us cannot recognise voices and follow the kidnappers. We need to be trained to recognise the voice of the Lord because His sheep hears His voice and follow Him.