IS READING A MUST?

 I have learnt reading since the day I set foot on school. From learning my ABC to reading philosophy. It has been a long way of reading for me. Of course, I admit that I had not loved reading the way I do now. It was a long journey. I should rather say that it was a roller coaster ride. There were days, and many of them, when reading felt like a burden to bear. The best option was of course to skip reading. But how many precious times and lessons I have lost when I didn’t read? I think I have lost countless ones.

Can I redeem the past? Or can I redeem reading-time lost? Of course, there is always a new beginning. You can pick up a simple book now that you can easily finish in a short period of time, then enjoy your journey from there.

But why should you read? Let me give you at least three important reasons for you to think seriously about reading and make it your priority in life. First, reading helps you know your story. Life is a story, and so is yours. You did not come into this world from nowhere. You are part of a grand story of life. Your story is what shapes your life now. It is how you perceived the world around you. You may not know it, but you do what you do because of your story, be it good or bad. There are things in your story that you need to understand and deconstruct for a better life and a better tomorrow. You cannot just remain from where you are. But the way to progress is to know your past.

Second, you now live in a world of vast information. There is so much information out there. In fact, you can be lost in a vast ocean of information if you don’t know your way. People become victims of wrong information for their lack of knowledge. As the Bible rightly says, “People perish for lack of knowledge.” Knowledge is important to life. To live effectively in today’s world, you must be a man or a woman of reading.

Third, reading helps you think. It is amazing that this activity of reading has the capacity to stimulate our mind to think. We are thinking beings. But thinking needs discipline. It needs exercise as our body does. You won’t be able to think best if you don’t know how. When you don’t know how to think, somebody will do the thinking for you. Believe me, as you are reading this, somebody is thinking for you. Well some think for your good just as I hope I do, but countless out there think to take advantage of you. I cannot be there for you all the time. You have to learn how to think yourself.

So, is reading a must? It is. Pick up a book and read. Have fun with your new life.

WHAT HAPPENED TO PEACE?

The message of peace is at the heart of Jesus’s life and ministry. The angels announced it to the people: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rest.” (Luke 2:14). Jesus preached a message centered on peace—that wholeness of life that is found only in God. He likewise demonstrated it to people. He went around bringing peace to men and women. Thousands upon thousands gathered to listen to his words of peace. He taught people about God.  

Jesus was not an advocate of violence. Yes, he got angry in His temple in Jerusalem but he did so for the zeal of his house desecrated by the religious leaders who turned the house of prayer into dens of robbers. But beyond that Jesus was a man of peace. He never taught his disciples to raise arms against their enemies. He rebuked Peter for striking a man’s ear.

When arrested and tried, he never called on His angels to fight for him. He did not open his mouth. He willingly took all the injustices done to him. He took the pain brought upon His body. He was humiliated the worst possible way, but He took it all. All for the sake of peace. A peace that the world neither knows nor understand. For there at the cross, bearing the sins of men and women, He made peace with God.  He is our peace!

At His resurrection, Jesus never commanded his disciples to go and take vengeance. He asked them to preach forgiveness and to forgive people. Jesus was indeed a man of peace.

Today, the same Jesus calls His church to peace.  The ethics of the kingdom is non-retaliatory: “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn him the other also.” Jesus taught his disciples to love and not to hate. It is love that will mark them as Jesus’s true disciples. It is never about our fight for justice, nor our fight for equality or prosperity, but our love for one another and others that will tell the world who really are—Jesus’s disciples.

Yet we turn it into a fight for human causes—justice, equality, and prosperity. What happened to peace? Have we lost the message of peace? Are we to conquer the world by rallies and riots? Should we really go to Caesar’s palace and call for justice and peace? Can today’s Caesars give us what the kingdom of God offers? Isn’t our message of peace Jesus himself? Is he not our peace? Yes, He remains to be our peace! We know of no other peace but Jesus. Men and women will only have real peace when they come under the kingship of Jesus and the kingdom of peace. Peace is not the absence of troubles or pains, or sufferings, or injustices; it is wholeness, completeness of life without anything lacking. What is lacking in men and women is not really the things of this world or the quality of earthly living. Men and women lack God. Hence, we are not complete. Jesus is our peace. As Paul declares in Colossians 1:15-20 Jesus is the exact representation of God. In Him we experience God. He is our peace.  

I AM NOT A POLITICIAN

I admit that what I am and what I do as a Christian has political implications. But I am not a politician. Politics is not the same thing with what I do in the context of my identity as part of the Kingdom of God. I don't seek justice, peace and prosperity in the language of politics or even of economics. They involve them yes, but they are far greater than the rhetoric of politicians.

The kingdom of God speaks of righteousness, peace, and joy. But these are not defined from the perspective of humanism. Man is not the center of the Kingdom. God is. We cannot have righteousness, peace, and joy independent of God. Man's wholeness is not achieved by the mere presence of justice, peace, and prosperity. We must be naive to think so. We have so many examples of men and women who live such lives. But they never possess real peace and joy. I could not even talk of them being righteous. That is just unthinkable.

The righteousness, peace, and joy of the kingdom is received only through the person of Jesus Christ. Such relationship brings us to the reality of divine-human relation necessary for having the maxims of the Kingdom of God. Paul never had his eyes on what Caesar could offer. He was in Rome not to proclaim a political manifesto. He went there to proclaim Christ as the Lord of creation and nations. Jesus is the new King that invites men and women into the new creation.

It is in this context that I as a Christian speak of justice, peace, and prosperity in the language of the kingdom of God that offers me more than what politicians or even this world could afford to give. Hence, let me make it very clear, I m not a politician. I am a Christian. I serve the King and His kingdom. Our message is righteousness, peace, and joy in Jesus my only Lord and King.

A PERSONAL LETTER

 Greetings!

Let me introduce to you my new book REFLECTIONS: COVID-19, BIBLE, AND THEOLOGY available on Ebook and Softcopy/Paperback. It is a book I have written during the pandemic in dialogue with the Holy Scripture and the sacred task of doing theology. The 43 reflections are personal and prayerful ones I have done in light of what I believe as a Christian. It is my prayer that it will help you address some of the issues pause by this pandemic that affected us all, and challenge you to do your own personal and prayerful reflections of circumstances that come our way.

I have decided to have it published for three main reasons in addition to what I said above:

1.      To help the families of those who have lost their loved ones in the fight against Coronavirus.

2.      I want to put up a scholarship for women Bible College students.

3.      I want to fund 'trainings' and activities that would help young people write and publish.

I pray that you would be my partner in making these prayers answered. May I therefore humbly and prayerfully ask you the following:

1.      That you purchase your own copy (Ebook or Softcopy/Paperback)

For Ebook please buy at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1027311

For Softcopy/Paperback you can just email me or message me with my messenger

2.      Give your friends this book as a gift

3.      Endorse it to your friends through ways that you are comfortable with like the social networks.

4.      You can endorse it to an organization or organizations that would be interested in the book and in my advocacies.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to serve the Lord, you and others.

 

With prayers and blessings,

 

Jason Valeriano Hallig, Author  

REFLECTIONS: COVID-19, BIBLE, AND THEOLOGY

Let me introduce to you my new book entitled, 

REFLECTIONS: COVID-19, BIBLE, AND THEOLOGY

T

HIS BOOK BEGAN AS a reaction to what people were saying on Facebook about Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Bible, and theology. There was a disconnect in what people say about the situation and the Christian faith. Some were quick to dismiss the idea that God has anything to do with the COVID-19. Based on their belief that COVID-19 has nothing to do with God.

As a student of the Bible and a theologian, I refuse to engage in speculative interpretation not only of the Bible but more so of various circumstances in relation to the Bible. While I do not disregard and dismiss other interpretations, I also don’t want my students, some of my colleagues and my congregation to be left at the mercy of biblical and theological ideas that are either imaginative speculations - with neither explicit nor implicit support from the Scripture - or hyper spiritualized assertions.

As a Christian, I believe that COVID-19 and what is happen-ing as a consequence are not independent of who God is and what He is doing. Life is a correlation of beings or an intersect of realities happening in space and time. What life is and who God is have an effect on who we are. Hence, there is a need for reflection—an activity that brings life’s questions such as “What [it] is,” “Who God is,” and “Who we are” to the discourse of life. It is best to do such a dynamic or interactive reflection in the midst of the situation itself.

In this book are 43 reflections on the many issues touched by this pandemic concerning life and faith. Each entry is written through the Christian worldview as shaped and influenced by the Holy Scripture and takes on the sacred task of theology.

I wrote about the topics as they came to my attention in my daily life, activities, and interactions with people in the middle of the pandemic. I originally shared them with my Facebook friends, who would give me some feedback in the form of affirmations, criticisms, and suggestions. These reflections have been tried, tested, and edited for the final versions that you now have in this book.  I kept them short for further studies and deeper reflections because these are not the final thoughts on the subjects I have written here because I believe that theology as a task is an on-going and growing prayerful reflection of the Holy Scripture or a personal reflection of life’s circumstances in relation to the Holy Scripture. Further theological reflection will lead to a more mature understanding of our faith as Christians, but it will never arrive at its final conclusion. I hope that these 43 REFLECTIONS will lead you to hunger and thirst for more of the word of God and its theological insights. I hope that you would not only read these entries but may be encouraged to also do your own prayerful and personal reflections on COVID-19, the Bible, and theology as it would lead us to a deeper understanding of who we are, what is wrong in this world, what is happening right now and what is the future going to be.