I recently completed my reading of Leviticus.  The book sets out the laws which God requires the Israelites to obey, and is perceived by many as a book of laws.  Some of these laws are, admittedly, somewhat harsh and difficult to stomach, especially in this day and age when personal liberty is paramount.  Hence, there are people like Sir Ian McKellan, who express their disaffection for the book by tearing out pages from Leviticus which they find particularly offensive, in every Gideon bible they find at whichever hotel they stay at.

I believe that by viewing Leviticus is nothing more than a book of laws, we miss God’s greater intention and grace.  At verses 11 to 13 of chapter 26 , God says :

I will put My dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you.  I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would not longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.

God could have demanded obedience to fanciful religious rules from afar.  But it is not God’s intention to be a cosmic killjoy.  God’s intention, rather, was to draw near to man.  The Levitical laws were necessary so that a Holy God could make his dwelling amongst an otherwise unholy people.

What a refreshing view of Leviticus !

Whilst the harsh laws of Leviticus are traditionally viewed as a burden, they in fact free us from slavery to the even harsher standards of society.  (But for the Judeo-Christian influence on society, we might still engage in human sacrifice.  Of course we still sacrifice humans today on the altar of the economy to the god of capitalism, but that’s quite different from physical human sacrifice).

Whilst the harsh laws of Leviticus are traditionally viewed as an obstacle to people drawing near to God, God was in fact drawing near to His people through the Levitical laws, as this was the way by which a Holy God could dwell amongst an otherwise unholy people.

Thankfully, in these New Testament times, there is a new covenant - a new law - because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  We are no longer condemned for failing to comply with every letter of the law in Leviticus.  Rather :

a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known ….  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

- Romans 3 : 21 - 24

I’m going to do all Singaporean males a serious disfavour by introducing the Bae Yong Jun Winter Sonata Voice Cup. 

This irresistable Winter Sonata Voice Cup, according to www.yesasia.com, emits "handsome star Bae Yong Jun’s hot tempting voice whenever you miss him" (choke), and aims to make light-headed asian ladies giddy and weak in the knees with gag-inducing words (probably in Korean, which none of us Singaporeans understand) like

"I love only one woman and want to live with her until our hair turns gray. I also want to have children who look like her. I want to form a sound haven for my woman and our children and want to fill my family with strength. I will love them forever."

Joyce and I talked about the cup at some length during the drive home today.

"Bae Yong Jun is so cute.  Can you imagine how good my kids will look if I bear his children ?"

To which I retorted : "You already bear my kids, and everyone thinks Jed is cute".

Click here to get his latest must-have for your girlfriend / wife !  I need to throw up …

In case you happen to be a sucker for internet get-rich-quick schemes, I’m publishing an e-mail I received recently from one Iqbal Admed Khan (emailiqbalkhan@katamail.com) that you can reply to, to claim your 20.5 millions dollars.

Good day,

I sincerely seek your honest assistance and contribution to this crucial business that is very important to me and if you are not interested in the proposal, please accept my apologies in advance.

I am Mr. Iqbal Ahmed Khan, the Managing Director Hong Kong & Shanghai Bancorp HSBC Amanah Finance, London, United Kingdom and the chief executive officer, HSBC Middle East, Dubai, UAE.

In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of 20.5 million dollars in an account that belongs to a foreign customer of my bank who died alongside his wife, Children and other relatives in the Air France concord plane crash bound for New York in their plan for a world cruise. See the link below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

This late customer has an account valued at 20.5 million dollars. Already, the bank has issued a notice for any of his next of kin to come forward and redeem the money or the bank will take over his account. Unfortunately from our investigations and confirmations from his attorney he has no family member to stand in as his next of kin.

Since the bank has been unsuccessful in locating the relatives of the deceased for some years now, and with the bank giving a deadline, I now seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that the proceeds of this account valued at 20.5 million dollars could be paid to you and then you and I can share the money. 50% for me, 40% for you and 10% for miscellaneous expenses that might arise. I have been in contact with his attorney who is also a part of this business, who also has all the necessary information that can be used to back up our application.

Obviously we need to conclude this business as soon as possible before the money goes into the Bank’s Treasury because the HSBC banking law and guideline stipulates that if such fund remains un-claimed for 6 years, the money would be declared unserviceable by the bank particularly and transferred into the Bank’s Treasury as un-claimed debt.

All I require is your honest co-operation to enable us see this business through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Trust me; this is a Risk free business relationship.

Please send me your full name and address, telephone and fax numbers to enable us discuss further about this transaction.

We brought Jed out to celebrate his maternal grandfather’s birthday last weekend.

We didn’t expect Jed to be able to sit up in a chair, not having attempted it before.  But apparently he quite liked it …

… though only for a while !

Sometime ago, I had complained about my inequitable employment terms to the former Senior Director and present Senior Director of my workplace.  I was told that I could leave if I found the terms unacceptable.

And so it is, just like you said it would be …

Dear Director,

I enjoy my work here at the Organisation, where I have supportive colleagues, understanding superiors and a good working relationship with most clients.

It is therefore with some difficulty that I arrived at my decision to resign from the Organisation.  My last day of service will be on XX June.

I am grateful for the opportunities that you have provided for my professional development.  Thank you.

Signed

I tendered my resignation today.

A month ago, my dad’s doctor had assessed his condition to be "life or death".  By the grace of God, the new drug (Velcade®) that the doctor administered is working well and he is feeling much better now. 

More importantly, I think that spiritually his life is more in order.  He has let go of much of the hurts in the past.  It is my theory - I say theory because I don’t have a lot of experience to speak of - that generally, death and disease is a symptom of sin, and that physical healing of disease comes after spiritual healing from sin.  That is why in Mark 2, Jesus demonstrated His power to bring about spiritual healing (forgiveness of sins) by physically healing a paralytic.  (John 5 : 14, the parallel passage, tells us that the paralysis was a result of sin).

When my dad was admitted to hospital for his second round of Velcade® treatment, he asked my mother to get a book for him to read.  By divine arrangement, my mother picked a book from my bookshelf on "Healing : Three Great Classics".  About two years ago, Chong Yew passed this book to me when my dad was first diagnosed with cancer, but I did not pass it to my dad to read because I didn’t think that he would be interested in it.  As you can tell from its title, the book contains classics.  Like all great classics, it has a plain, boring cover without any pictures on it too.  So I didn’t think it would be make interesting reading, even if it contained some rather profound truths.  In fact I even thought I had returned it to Chong Yew.

I was therefore surprised to find my dad reading the book these couple of days, and telling me how meaningful it is.  After I related the story of how the book came into his hands, my dad said, with the wisdom of one who has been through quite a bit of suffering, that it had to do with God’s perfect timing.

Well, praise God.

For avoidance of doubt, what I write below is not intended to and does not have any theological significance.  I certainly do not believe that Jesus got married (or, for that matter, that He was gay).  I just can’t help but find Ian McKellan’s quote below hilariously witty.

Sir Ian McKellan, a professing homosexual (yes, of the Gandalf "the Gay" fame, which explains why the hobbits were acting somewhat queerly in the Lord of the Rings), and who plays Sir Leigh Teabing in the Da Vinci Code movie, had this to say in response to the Roman Catholic Church’s unhappiness with the book and movie :

"I’m very happy to believe that Jesus was married … I know the Catholic Church has problems with gay people and I thought this would be absolute proof that Jesus was not gay."

Absolutely wicked !

Did a search on "Year of Jubilee" and found an interesting "sermon" delivered by Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, earlier this year.  While I can’t say that I agree with everything he said, particularly on some theological points, there’s still a lot of stuff that is meaningful.  In particular, Bono asks - are Christians demonstrating God’s love and grace, by looking beyond themselves, and caring about (global) poverty, equality, justice and other social issues that also matter to God ?  Extract -

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.  "If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places".

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times.  It’s not an accident.  That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions.  [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.]   "As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."  (Matthew 25:40).   As I say, good news to the poor.

Read the full "sermon" here.

Sometime ago, a church leader (for avoidance of doubt, not my church) prophesised that the older of my two younger sisters would meet a man of God.

As Joyce and I were discussing this "prophecy" today, we asked ourselves the question - with all due respect to that church leader - if a Christian is walking in step with God to begin with, why would God cause anyone but a Godly partner to enter that Christian’s life (the prophet Hoshea being the only exception that we could think of) ?  Was that leader suggesting (which I’m sure he was not) that Godly Christians who do not receive such a spoken blessing may meet and marry less than Godly partners ?

I suppose I might be overly critical here - but this was really one of those "prophecies" that couldn’t be off the mark, and maybe in that extent need not have been said ?  Personally, I think it might be more helpful to simply exhort a Christian to walk more faithfully with God, who promised in Psalms 34 : 7 :

Delight yourself in the Lord,
and He will give you the desires of your heart.