“Can’t hurry” – A reflection from Ecclesiastes
For this Saturday’s Good Read, we would like to share a poetic reflection from an EAST Resident Faculty, Dr Lau Ying Kheng, which is based on Ecclesiates chapter 3.
1 To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven;
2 A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
3 A time to kill, And a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-3, KJV)
Read the poem, “Can’t Hurry,” below.
Pray for the Church in Malaysia
Design: Wong Ee Yuing
Dr Alex Tang, a church elder and an EAST adjunct faculty, recently wrote of how the church in Malaysia has responded to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and made a call to prayer as Malaysia faces another wave of the pandemic.
In it, he noted how the past year has been “the great reset” for Malaysian Christians: churches going digital, a revitalised body life centred around small groups, Christians seeking to know the Scripture and Christian theology more, “flourishing partnerships” among churches, innovative ministries to the needy affected by the pandemic, and a deeper dependence on God. With that as a backdrop, Dr Alex urged continuing prayers for the Malaysian Church as they now face an unprecedented State of Emergency declared by the Malaysian government valid until August 2021 due to the renewed intensity of the pandemic.
ABCs of Handling Zoom Fatigue (Part 4)
Here are more Zoom Relief Tips:
Audio – make sure you have good and clear sound.
Background – check your screen background. Keep it simple and pleasing to the eyes.
Connect – call up someone to chat, meet over cake & coffee, and cut down on back to back online meetings.
For more of our previous Zoom Relief Tips, click these links: Part 3, Part 2 and Part 1.
ABCs of Handling Zoom Fatigue (Part 3)
Above is part three of our “Zoom Relief Tips” collated by Dr Lau Ying Kheng. There are three parts to these tips:
A – Ask how everyone is doing before you begin a Zoom session.
B – Build in screen breaks intentionally. (Take screen breaks every 30 minutes – even for 3 minutes.)
C – Cultivate healthy habits.
To review part 4 of the Zoom Relief Tips go here! For part 1 of more tips, go here!
Book Review: Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes
Honor and Shame in Paul’s Message and Mission
Review: Wu, Jackson. 2019. Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul’s Message and Mission. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic Press.
Eastern culture is a high context culture. What this usually means is that Eastern culture is very relational and communal, often described by the honor-shame framework. Within this framework, people in the East interacts with one another through the context of ‘face’ which is reciprocal and debt relationships within a power structure of hierarchy, loyalty, sacrifice, ascribed and achieved honor, and shame. This is often contrasted to the Western guilt-innocence framework. Jackson Wu (not his real name), a Westerner who have lived two decades in East Asia, examined Paul’s message and mission in Romans through the Eastern honor-shame framework. Jackson seek to find “[h]ow did Paul’s theology serve the purpose of his mission within an honor-shame context?” (p.3).
EAST Library Catalogue
EAST Populi
National Library Board eResources
The Digital Theological Library
