Walking the Talk

I was very blessed yesterday. My friend cooked and brought me a large pot of rich herbal chicken soup and hand-made noodles (cooked as a pancake and cut into slices to put into the soup). She even brought cut spinach for the noodle soup, parsley and home-made chilli sauce. We had earlier arranged to have lunch together in my house, but she was so thoughtful she brought extra portions for dinner so that my sisters and nephew could sample the tasty noodle soup. Yummy, yummy .....

Indeed, God has been good to me. He has brought me other friends in the past, who blessed me with their cooking. Deep in my memory is the "chap chye" that a friend so graciously and unexpectedly cooked and delivered to my home some years ago when my mom was seriously ill. So, I had 2 dinners taken care of, at a time when I was struggling to put a meal together with hardly any culinary skills or experience. On another occasion, after I had a major surgical operation, another friend went marketing, bought fresh ingredients and came to my house to cook stir-fried beef slices and yu-sheng (fish) slices to help me replenish my blood and aid healing. There was also a friend who cooked and brought me brown rice cooked with dried fruit and nuts as this was healthy food for my weakened body.

I am grateful for the friendship and love of the brothers- and sisters-in-Christ that God has provided me in my times of need. Good and perfect is the gift that comes from our heavenly Father (James 1 : 17).

From the Christian perspective, caring for one another fulfills "the law of Christ" (Galatians 6 : 2). This law is summed up in the single command: "Love your neighbour as yourself" (Galatians 5 : 14, Romans 13 : 10). And it is because of the love that God gives us that Christians have the love to serve one another, to carry each other's burdens, to do good to all people. "We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4 : 19)

Being a Christian is not just going to church, praying and studying the Bible. We need to walk the talk. The first commandment is to love God, the second to love our neighbour. How? Giving someone (like me) a good feed, providing a listening ear, or just being "there" for a friend in need. When Job lost all his children, possessions and health in disaster after disaster, his 3 friends came and just sat with him for 7 days and nights without saying a word to him (Job 2 : 11 - 13).

Doing good comes with faith. Good works is the fruit of faith and it is God who enables us. To quote the Apostle James:

"15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do."

(James 2 : 15 - 17)

May the good Lord help us to persevere in showing our faith by what we do.

Man or Machine?

Last night's TV news featured a Japan-made anime-styled girl robot, with smooth non-metallic complexion, eye-lids that blinked and shoulder length hair that swayed with each stiff movement of the limbs. The robot introduced itself as "cybernetic human HRP-4C" as reported in a Yahoo news story. While this robort can move and talk, it is a far cry from Issac Asimov's Bicentennial Man.

In Asimov's story, written more than 30 years ago in 1976, the Bicentennial Man was transformed over time from a metallic, thinking ("positronic") robot which won its right to freedom (from "slavery") to an organic android (robot with outward appearance of humans and able to "eat and breathe") which eventually attained its ultimate aspiration to be declared legally as a "man". The cost to the robot of attaining "humanity"? An operation to create mortality in a positronic brain which could otherwise last for centuries. In short, the robot chose to let his positronic brain "die" to be human.

Can a robot indeed become a human? Asimov's robot argues that he has "the shape of a human being and organs equivalent to those of a human being"; that his organs are "identical to some of those in a prosthetized human being'; and that he has "contributed artistically, literarily, and scientifically to human culture". If "no number of artifacts in the human body causes it to be cease being a human body", what then is the difference between a prosthetized human being and a robot with the same artifacts?

The Bible states very clearly that God made man in His image. Since God is Spirit, the image does not refer to a body of flesh and bones. Rather, man is created to have a mind, emotions and a will in the image of God.

- Man is given a mind to know God.
- Man is given emotions to love God.
- Man is given a will to choose to obey God.

"26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

(Genesis 1 : 26 - 27)

The psalmist asks, "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8 : 4) Man is the epitome of God's creation, made to rule over all the earth. God makes man a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned with glory and honour (Psalm 8 : 5). God's loving care of man is manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ who descended from his heavenly throne to dwell among man and to die for man, that man may ascend to God's kingdom through faith in Him.