Talks

Living as Christians in Religious Diverse Singapore

  • 28 Apr 2024
  • Recording
  • Presentation

  • Living as Christians in Religiously Diverse Singapore

    Most Christians today live among ethnic and religious others across the globe. In fact, many regard Singapore as one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world.

    The challenge of the Christian church in Singapore is that Christians must not only live with followers of other religions without compromising our faith, but we must also work with religious others to build a cohesive society. How can Christians live with authenticity and
    maintain social harmony for the common good?

    In our class, we will discuss several issues:

    1. What is religious pluralism?
    2. Do all religions lead to the same God?
    3. How are Christians to witness for Christ in a religiously diverse environment?

How did we get the bible?

  • 24 Mar 2024
  • Recording
  • Presentation

  • How has the church come to believe what belongs in the Bible and what does not belong? The church has historically believed that a specific set of writings – called the Canon of Scripture – composes of the Old and New Testaments. This is the list of divinely inspired and authritative writings which are regarded as the Word of God was developed in the early church.

    The canon of the Protestant Church differes from that of the Roman Catholic Church.

    In this class, we will discuss the canonization process and the main differences between the Protestants and Roman Catholic scriptures.

The Gospel: The Call for a Response

  • 5 Nov 2023
  • Recording
  • Presentation

  • The Christian gospel always calls for and expects a response from those who hear it. Thus, Jesus himself preached, “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark1:15). Paul declared to everyone to whom he preached, “Turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21). Through faith, sinners receive Jesus’ sacrificial death for the forgiveness of our sins.

    In this session, we will talk about:

    1. what it means to have faith in Jesus;
    2. how God preserves our faith; and
    3. how to persevere in view of personal tragedy and loss.

THE GOSPEL IN THE REFORMED FAITH

  • 1 Oct 2023
  • Recording
  • Presentation

  • Most, if not all, Christians agree that the gospel—the good news—is centred on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:3). However, not all Christians agree on the finer nuances of Christian theology.

    In this lesson, we will explore the Reformed(Presbyterian) perspective on the gospel as it relates to

    1. God’s Law,
    2. God’sunconditional election of believers, and
    3. their implications for life and ministry.

The Gospel in terms of Christian Discipleship

  • 6 Aug 2023
  • Recording
  • Presentation

  • An important question among Evangelical churches concern discipleship and its relationship to faith. For Jesus, to follow him in discipleship means total commitment and giving him first place in one’s life. That is, one cannot follow Jesus without setting the right priorities in life. Jesus rejects making a distinction between saving faith and discipleship as an optional step.

    This talk aims at two learning outcomes.

    1. To show how the gospel rightly works out in the massive transformation of attitudes, morals, and relationships.
    2. To clarify the relationship between justification and sanctification.

    John Calvin insists that justification is by faith alone, but genuine faith is never alone.

The Gospel According to the Apostle Paul

  • 2 Jul 2023
  • Recording
  • Presentation

  • When exploring the apostle Paul’s understanding of the “gospel,” we clearly see development of theology within the Bible storyline. The gospel Paul preached was this: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve” (1 Cor 15:3-5).

    While Jesus focused the gospel on the Kingdom of God, Paul recognized that Jesus’ resurrection was critical to the good news of salvation. Paul emphasized the cross as the very centre of the gospel message. This has important theological and historical implications.

    In our lesson, we will examine the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection and what that means for us personally and our proclamation of the gospel.