Posted by binsar on 06 Nov 2007 at 12:04 am | Tagged as: Bible Study, Christianity
I am posting my email to a friend here. She asked me some questions about Christianity and I think her questions are really genuine, important, and worth to share here. I will not put her name here, instead, I will post my email to her as an answer to her questions.
Dear friend (…..)
I have to apologize for such a late response, but I have been very busy with life lately and I really don’t want to answer your serious questions half heartedly. Now I am ready for your questions, and even more questions hahaha.. please don’t take this as a signal that I will not respond to you in the future. I will definitely answer you quicker than this one. I promise you that! hey, how do you know so much Indonesian? Who taught you that???
…. (edit, personal part)
Now, lets go to the serious stuff. Well, its always nice to hear that someone is searching for the real meaning of God and Christ in her/his life. And I’m glad that you feel that you are on the right track on getting to know more about Christianity.
I’m not worried about you getting interested in Islam. Islam is a fascinating religion. I have always admire how systematically structured it is as a religion. It really gives you a clear sight of what you should do and how you can engage to it. But let me put your questions about the bad things that you see in Christianity in this metaphor. Well, they say a good tree only produces good fruit. And that is how you can judge how good a religion is. But now even the fruits can be damaged by bad weather, insects, and even the parasites from the tree itself. It’s like religion. Most of the religions meant to give a sense of order and peacefulness towards its followers. So are Christianity and Islam. But sometimes you got the wrong fruit, not yet ripe, or being attacked by insects. Sometimes you think that because of the bad fruit, all the other fruits are like that and therefore the tree must be a bad tree. But its not.
You ask me why you don’t really feel happy when you sing in the church and not like our friends Moslems that are really praying as good as they can. I don’t want to comment on Islam because it is not fair for me to say anything about it. I can only say what I know about Christianity. The intention of the singing in the Mass is to praise the Lord for God has been good to us. There are lots of churches who sing like that (have you seen the movie ‘sister act’?). Well, in Africa and Latin America, they even dance because they really want to praise the lord with wholeheartedly. Now, there are churches that prefer to sing in a solemn and serene environment, and there are churches that use band instruments to sing. I happen to know both extremes and happy to be in any of them. I can feel God’s presence in the quite of the hymns as well as in the glorious singing with the band (since I also play drums in this kind of church hahaha). However, you can feel empty when you don’t know what you are singing, and there’s no spirit in the singing. This thing could also happen when the service was not really well-prepared, i.e. music players did not really rehearse. And this is exactly the wonderful thing about Christianity is that you are free to decide how you are going to worship God. The rules about how you should praise the Lord are mostly man made. Even Christians in Syria pray like Moslems pray, and they even have 7 times prayer a day (more than Moslem’s 5 times prayer)! Imagine that! That is the wonderful free-will that God has given towards us. We are free to do anything, based only one simple rule: love. Love God, and if you love God you must love your neighbor. And you can’t love God when you don’t love your neighbor.
Now about your question, “Why did Jesus die on the crucifix for our sins, why did he sacrifice himself for us, ( I mean I really appreciate that) but I think that we all have to learn from our mistakes and don´t push it to Jesus, who release us from our sins anyway. This is the same with the confession – he release us from our sins, so we can do mistakes as many as we want?! ….. so please tell me what that all is about, because I know that this is one of the most important aspects we Christians have to believe on.”
Well, John 3:16 says that “God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.” So, you see its not because God wanted us not to learn from our mistakes, but because God loves us so much. And we can also put it this way. What would you feel if you were in a war, and your commander keep telling you to be brave and go out to attack, while he is sitting comfortably in his tent and only putting out words of orders; He never experiences the war at all. Would you be upset or not? isn’t it wonderful to have a loving God that are willing to sacrifice all God’s being and come down with us, suffered, thirsty, hungry, tempted, mocked, beaten, and conquered death. And despite all that, God still give you the freedom to choose.
Through the risen Christ, God’s blessings becomes universal and for all human. The blessings that were meant for the world through the people of the covenant which is Israel (Genesis 12:1 The LORD said to Abram: Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you. 12:2 I will bless you and make your descendants into a great nation. You will become famous and be a blessing to others. 12:3 I will bless anyone who blesses you, but I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you.). Now it is for everyone who believed in God through Jesus Christ.
Let me tell you a story I read about a loving dad. Once there is a son who was lying to his dad. He promised that he would pick him up.but his son hung out with his friends using the family’s car that he forgot to pick up his dad. Then finally he went to pick up his dad. His dad asked him, “Where have you been, I’ve been expecting you.” Then the son said, “I had a flat tire, and I have to wait very long to get it fixed. ” His dad was very sad because he knew that his son is lying, then he said, ‘I’ve called your friends house and they said you were there. You lied my son. I have made a mistake that you told me such a lie. I am so sad. As my own punishment I will walk home from here.” What happened next is that the father walked home 15 kilometres while his son is driving behind him pleading that his dad would get into the car, but he never did. His son was very sad seeing his dad walked all the way home. He realized his mistake and since that time he never tell any lie anymore to his dad. Sometimes, your parent loves you so much that they are willing to suffer for you, not to make you feel that you can do whatever you want, but to teach you the lesson.
Now about learning from mistakes, the point about forgiveness is so that we will do no more sins. It is meant to stop us from doing sin. If one really confess and regret her/his sin, it also demands that he will stop doing it, and feel sorry about it, and remorse. Now, confession is the part where you need to stop doing your sin and remorse. If you still doing it by intention, then it is not really a confession. You would still lie and your sins will be placed upon you. The other thing about Christianity is that we are not active to seek God, God is the one who seek for God’s people. God will save those who believed in God’s love. And believing in God’s love means you no longer do sin purposely. God comes to all people, but not everyone accept God. We love God simply because God loves us first and not because we want to go to heaven. Heaven is just a bonus of God’s love. The main thing is God’s love in our life and God has been looking for us to respond.
I have an idea, why don’t we read the bible together, and we can discuss several difficult verses, and also read some comforting verses together. The Koran and Bible is a bit different in authority. Moslem believe that Koran is God’s own words that came down through the Prophet Muhammad, while the Bible is a book full of people’s story on their encounter with the loving God. It tells the story of a relation between God who is actively seeking for people and human. Thus, reading the Bible is not like reading the book of law, or a string of rules, instead it’s a book full of testimonies how people feel god’s presence in their lives and how they worship god. The whole book is about the story of God’s love. We should read it freely and happily. We will soon recognize our own story in the bible, our fears, our disappointments, our questions, our sadness, our happiness, and our longing heart for God. This is why the bible is not only a book that we read; it is actually a book that reads you. It reads your life and mine.
Being Christian is not about worrying how you should address God, or how you should pray, or how you should sing in a church, or how you should go to mass. Being Christian is about feeling God’s love and light in your life and without hesitation you will answer, “Yes, I will follow you God”. I am happy to be a christian because I knew God is looking for me and God sent Jesus for the salvation of human, and all I have to do is just believe in God. After I believe in God then I will automatically do the love of God towards my neighbor human, and I don’t have to worry about making up my past mistakes because God forgives.
I would really love to take you to the church where I go in Amsterdam and play drums. They have a living testimony and a free spirit as well, not bound with so many rules and tries to spread the message in a light way even for non believer. They are not quite evangelical but they have good music that can bring you sing in joy hehehe. And I can also take you to a traditional church where their hymns will also gives you the chill on your spine because of the mystery and the solemnest of God’s love will be present in the room. So my dear, I am happy to read and answer your questions, and if you ever think about coming to Amsterdam for one weekend to have a good spiritual journey, I will gladly accompany you.
Now, you know why it took me a long time to write this email because I know I need a lot of time to write this one. Now, you have a whole book to read from me hahaha… I know that I didn’t answer all your questions but I hope you can look at your questions from a new perspective.
Hey, my English is not that good either, das heisst ich bin ausslander und ich spreche nicht gut English hahaha.
Looking forward to hearing your reaction! Blessings to you my dear!
Binsar Pakpahan
2 Responses to “Dear Friend,”
- on 17 Jan 2008 at 8:25 am # yayas
I like the Bible Study and Christianity sections. Hoping that it would be blessing others too. - on 20 Jan 2008 at 1:34 am # binsar
Thanks Yayas. I hope so too. I will try to write more on this topic instead of those foolish love threads hahaha
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