EXPLORE Week 6: The Death of Jesus – Matthew Chapter 27: 32-56

Questions and thoughts
- Exclusivity: Why do you exclude other religions and only embrace Christianity?
- Why do Christians celebrate the death of the founder?
- (27: 48) There was only one who believed in Jesus because he gave Jesus Vinegar?
- (27: 50) What is the meaning of ‘he gave up his spirit’?
- What is inside the Holy of Holies?
- My question: (27: 52) This raised of the holy people from death was not appearing in other books of Gospel. I don’t understand and this was the first time I took note on this passage.

- Empirical evidences of other religious texts and true personal experiences from other religions vs Bible
- Believe in this passage, so what? What happen next? What’s the next step? What changes could occur? What the difference between the non-Christian of yesterday and the Christian of today?
- Other religions do provide changes to its believers as well.
- Inner or self-control vs other forces from outside. We need to solve our own problems by ourselves. For example when you have hatred in your heart that could lead you to kill someone, you are the one who is in control to remove the hatred in you and not to kill a person. You are responsible for your own actions.

Insights
- The Jewish day starts at 6 a.m. Therefore, I assume sixth hour is 12 noon, and ninth hour is 3 p.m.
- (27: 48) The Greek word is oxos, which was a cheap, sour wine containing a high percentage of water and a low percentage of alcohol. It was a common drink laborers and soldiers used to quench their thirst. (source: http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/sg2397.htm)
- Longest eclipse was about 7.5 minutes (27: 45)
- ‘…from top to bottom’ (27: 51) shows that this was not the act of man.
- The change that happens to a Christian is God is the relationship with God. Christians are now having the father-and-son relationship with God. That’s why we could call God our heavenly father. Christians are the children of God. Furthermore, God will also remove our inner guiltiness resulted from our sins and help us to resist sinful life as before.

EXPLORE Week 5: The Coming of Jesus – Matthew Chapter 1: 18-25 and 4: 12-17

Questions and thoughts
- Why God created the earth?
- God shows different persons/forms in different circumstances?
- How could we prove Mary was a virgin and the baby was conceived through the Holy Spirit?
- What is the source of a Christian faith in term of believing that Mary is a virgin?
- What is the kingdom of heaven?

Insights
- ‘Jesus’ means the LORD saves
- Matthew 4: 23 was according to Isaiah 7: 14

Town Hall, Oxford

EXPLORE Week 4: The Promise of a King – Isaiah Chapter 9: 2-3, 6-7 and 53:2-6, 11-12

Questions and thoughts

- Why are these verses (9: 6-7) referring to Jesus?
- What is the meaning of this sentence – ‘and the government will be on his shoulders’?
- Who was the government or empire at that time?
- Why the word ‘LORD’ is all in capital letters (9: 7, 53: 6)?

Insights
- It was during the Neo-Assyrian period (BC900-BC612)
- Philippians 2: 6-11 compare with the passage above
- ‘LORD’ represents ‘Yahweh’ in Hebrew. ‘Lord’ represents ‘adonai’ (in Hebrew). ‘Sovereign LORD’ represents ‘Adonai Yahweh’ or ‘Lord/Master Yahweh’.
(Source: http://www.eliyah.com/compref.html)

Source: http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Church/Research%20History%20and%20Great%20Links/timleine_of_the_old_testament_chart.htm

圣经历史年代表
BC 2000年 族长时期-亚伯拉罕、以撒、雅各、约瑟
BC1700年 约瑟的家属进入埃及
BC1260年 摩西带领以色列人出埃及
BC1220年 约书亚带领百姓进入迦南地
BC1210年 士师时代的开始
BC1020年 君王政体的开始
BC 935年 所罗门死后，国家分裂成南、北两国
北国-以色列（首都：撒玛利亚）
南国-犹大（首都：耶路撒冷）
BC 722年 亚述（首都：尼尼薇）攻陷撒玛利亚
BC 587年 巴比伦（首都：巴比伦）攻陷耶路撒冷
圣殿被毁
被掳到巴比伦
BC 539年 波斯时代
犹太人回到耶路撒冷
BC 515年 重建圣殿竣工/完成
BC 333年 希腊时代-亚历山大大帝
BC 198年 西流基时代
BC 167年 哈斯摩年时期-犹太人叛变
BC 63年 罗马攻占耶路撒冷 – 罗马时代
BC 37年 希律大帝指派分封王管理巴勒斯坦
BC 4年 耶稣诞生

EXPLORE Week 3: The Rescue – Exodus Chapter 14: 1-31

Questions and thoughts
- Why did God harden the heart of Pharaoh?
- In verses 17 and 18, why did God gain glory through Pharaoh instead of the Israelites?
- Why did God let the Egyptians died in the sea, if everybody is the same or equal in God’s eyes? The armies were just following Pharaoh’s instructions.
- How can the God who is full of lover use His power to punish the innocent people just to gain glory for Himself?
- Every man is crated by God. If Pharaoh or men were not good, then God is not good too because they were created by the image of God too.
- How could men choose to do evil instead of good things?
- God is the creator of everything. Why did God create the evil serpent and even humans created by Him can become or can act evilly? Does this show that Go can become evil too?
- Must we believe in God in order to go to heaven and otherwise we will go hell?
- Where does the evil spirit come from?
- How did the division of sea into two happen?

Insights
- Pharaoh was not innocent from his action and treatments of the slavery of Israelites.
- God is the one who defines good and bad ever since the creation of the world in Genesis. So eating the fruit was not merely eating the fruit but it was more than that because they chose to do the bad which was already defined by God.
- God gave us freewill to decide. If not we will be like robots. If no this kind of freedom we cannot love. This is because God looks for genuine relationship with human.
- Pharaoh also hardened his own heart (Exodus 8: 15, 8: 32). This shows that Pharaoh was having freewill to decide and act.
- What we have in Exodus is this: God says at the beginning that he will harden Pharaoh's heart (Ex 4:21, 7:4-5). The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is then described in several different ways:
Pharaoh's heart became hard (Ex 7:13, 23)
Pharaoh hardened his heart (Ex 8:15, 32)
God hardened Pharaoh's heart (Ex 9:7, 10:20)


Souce of map: http://www.bible.ca/archeology/maps-bible-archeology-exodus-route.jpg