Queen's Road Cell

I began by asking who in church we felt had the marks of a Spirit-filled life. All agreed on Siew Leong!  :) We agreed that spiritual fruit was more indicative of the Spirit's filling than spiritual gifting, but we noted that, had Siew Leong's gifts been less public, we might have found it harder to identify him as being filled with the Spirit. I noted that there are many other people in church who exhibit the fruit of the Spirit and who live lives of surrendered devotion to Christ but who remain relatively unknown. Although all are commanded to be filled with the Spirit (Eph 6:18), not all are obedient to this command. We would expect that the life of one marked by the Spirit's filling would demonstrate a great extent of the purifying, unifying, revealing and empowering ("P-U-R-E") work of the Spirit. The Scripture references before us, espeically of Ephesians 5:18ff give specific pointers of the Spirit's filling. These include a life of worship 'from t...

Selwyn, Joshua and Winnie each shared different aspects of discipleship at work. Selwyn mentioned how he felt that having an attitude of working "as to the Lord" and not people had eventually led to blessing at his workplace. Joshua shared how he had been challenged to be fervent at the workplace by a fellow teacher and had been asked to do BS with BB boys, and Winnie shared how the Lord had perhaps been placing Christian educators in Singapore schools to witness. We asked how it was that each one of us could be born with a fallen nature (i.e. have "original sin") if in fact it was Adam who fell. I mentioned that the orthodox view of how this occurs is called the "Federal/Representative" view of the Fall. In Romans 5:12ff and 1 Cor 15:21-22 we learn that humanity is represented by two Adams, the second Adam being Christ. We who believe receive the imputed righteousness of the second Adam, just as all men receive the imputed sin of the first Adam. He was ...

We spent no time on the book questions on this topic and instead focused on John 7:37-39 as well as some of the concepts in the introduction in our study guide. Jesus 'stood up' (Jewish rabbis customarily sat to teach) and 'cried out'. This draws attention to the importance of his teaching.  I noted that the Greek punctuation in v.37-38 can also be "If anyone thirst, let him come to me. And (let him) drink, whoever believes in me. As the Scripture has said...". This variant reading is found in the ESV as well as the NIV and makes Christ rather than the one who comes to Him the subject of the Scriptural reference. John 4:10-14 suggests that both readings are possible and true. Although there is no single OT verse that speaks of rivers of living water flowing out of hearts, there are numerous references (Zec 14:9, Is 55:1 Is 12:3 , Ez 47) to living water in the OT. Jesus then must be speaking of the entirety of what the OT teaches about the Spirit's coming...

Mr 2: 1-8, 16-18. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Mag ] from the east came to Jerusalem 2  and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3  When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4  When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5  “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: 6  “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,      are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler      who will shepherd my people Israel.’” 7  Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8  He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child...

At Amelia's workplace! We are grateful for some interest expressed by 2 ladies who thought of attending FFMC Christmas service afterwards. Followed by most people meeting for dessert at the basement of Tiong Bahru Plaza.

We met in Shaun and Wen Ai's place today. As I said, we had a rather morbid QC session where Selwyn shared his recent apparently paranormal experiences (phones ringing after office hours, objects on tables moving) in his office. We discussed briefly what the Bible taught about 'ghosts'. There is the story of the witch of Endor in 1 Sa 28 when the spirit of the departed Samuel seemed to appear to Saul. Some think that God would not have allowed the repose of a godly man to be troubled by being summonable by someone practicing forbidden magical arts. I personally think that God allowed this encounter specifically to pass judgement on Saul. In Matt 14:26 and Mark 6.49 the disciples think that Jesus was a 'ghost' ('phantasma'). But we are told no more about this, and we are left to surmise that there was certainly a belief in ghosts, but not taught anything about their nature. Given that people die and afterwards face judgement (Heb 9:27), it seems wrong that...

The previous lesson we learned how the apostles were transformed when the Holy Spirit entered into their lives. From a timid group attempting to escape from the Pharisees they became bold preachers and teachers. In the second sequel to the “Spirit-filled life” series we learned about the adverse impact when Holy Spirit is absent in churches (and individual Christians). The failings of the Corinthian and Galatian churches were attributed to the absence of the Holy Spirit amongst the believers. Without the Holy Spirit in their lives they become filled with jealously and strife (1 Cor 3:1-3), salvation through human efforts (Gal 3:1-3) and led by the desires of flesh (Gal 5:16-18). King Hee’s short article has expanded on the three failings. While these examples are not exhaustive, these passages illustrate specific instances of Christians without the Holy Spirit. Herein lies a stark contrast within the Christian community; those filled with the Holy Spirit are transformed while tho...