Sunday, January 17, 2021
So I just checked our schedule for the whole year and guess what, we still have a couple of weeks left... to spare! :)
I know you will be sad (hopefully) but there won't be a new post (or any small talk for that matter) this week so please try to finish Chapter 3 below if you still haven't gotten the chance.
For each Kahoot, I try to find an inspirational song and place it in the background for you to enjoy but I just noticed that your browser's settings may not allow it to play automatically so here is the link if it didn't play on your phone or your computer.
Last quick note and I hope it's a pleasant one, there won't be any midterm or final exams to study or take in this class so... hopefully that gives you some peace of mind and free time because... I'm desperate for more!
You heard it, "Don't grow up, it's a trap!" ;)

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Chapter 3 - Old Testament
Hi các em, before we dive into the chapter, here are the slides that outline the main points which we will talk about tomorrow right now. :)
A quick recap for all of us, we Catholics use 46 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament which makes a total of 73 books (the fancy word for this set of writings is "canon"). The books from the Old Testament talk about what happened before Jesus' birth and the books from the New Testament talk about what's after. The Bible begins with the first book in the Old Testament called the Book of Genesis or sách Sáng Thế in Vietnamese.
So right from the beginning of the chapter, we were introduced to these terms called literalists and contextualists. Literalists are people who only interpret the Bible using the text alone and believe the Bible "means exactly what it says" (hint: it's not). Contextualists on the other hand, are readers who use both the text and the context (hence the name) to understand... the text.
So, what is a context? From Oxford Languages, it is "the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea." Put in other words, we must take into account (consider) the historical or cultural context in which a certain story or passage was written (CCC 109-114). This simply means, not every story in the Bible is a true story.
You might find it's hard to believe or accept but it is what it is. Sometimes stories are just stories (novel/fiction/unreal) and movies are just movies. However, they're also often made or written to describe a similar event or to convey (carry/send/deliver) a message, and this message is what we should have our focus on when we read or listen to the Bible.
Real life tip, let's teach ourselves and/or our future kids to appreciate the sincerity or the heart of a giver/donor/helper rather than the economic value of their presents, goods or services. I as a teacher will also appreciate and value your true efforts rather than your grades or test results so just make sure to always give God your best shot and leave the rest to him. :)
Now let's take a closer look at the famous creation story where God created everything in 6 days and he rested on the 7th day. The context in this story is most ancients could not read or write and they learned by listening. For this reason, it is believed that the story was written in a simple and poetic style (like what we find in children's books) so that the people at that time could easily understand and remember.
Same thing happened to the generations of our grand- and great grandparents who did not have the chance to go to school or learn how to read and write. They keep their faith alive simply by praying over and over again the prayers or "kinh" that they had listened to and had remembered. What we can take from this is to respect and honor their style of living the faith whenever we can, and be grateful because I can write and you can read this.
According to our book, the creation story teaches us 4 "religious truths" which are God is one (since ancient people worshiped many different gods), God planned creation (God created the world by plan, not by chance), God created everything good (evils are not from God), and God made the Sabbath (or the 7th day) holy (which translates to: save Sundays to worship and give thanks whenever possible).
One thing I'd like to emphasize from these truths is that, whether we believe in science or faith (or both), if we give it a fair thought, everything must be created by someone. Sure, one could say that that someone could be the Big Bang theory or many other theories but I am going to rest my faith on God. Why? Because God is good, and good is what I'm trying to become. :)
Sadly, all of us have to grow up and go through that pain (remember the past chapters?) where we have to decide on what to believe so I do hope that you would make the right call. Personally, I wouldn't want to go through this life believing that my life happens by chance from a random explosion and/or meaningless. I also know that faith cannot be forced but I think it is better for us to believe in something rather than nothing so... believe in something. ;)
If you think about this, we and the world have been living on this 7-day plan of God or 7 days in a week for at least 2000 years now so if that's not something good and old enough to believe in, I don't know what is. :)
To sum up, the creation story that we just talked about is from the Book of Genesis. It is like Jesus’ parables (might be unreal but the message is what important). The story does not contain scientific facts but only religious truths. There is another creation story which begins on the second chapter of the same book in which it illustrates how God created man, gave him life-giving breath, and then made woman from the side of the man.
There might be other creation stories but only these 2 were recorded. The second story is what's often read in a wedding mass because it portraits an intimate relationship between God and his people and second, it promotes the equality of man and woman. So lessons are, keep a close relationship with God wherever we are, and treat everyone no matter what sex they call themselves (LGBTQ+) the way we want to be treated. :)
Moving on into the chapter, we come to a part called De-creation where we're right on the spotlight, and we're the bad guys. In this scene, we destroy the physical world that God created by threatening our environment via waste producing, tree cutting, climate changing or global warming. We also spiritually destroy the most important creature that God created which is ourselves when we commit sins.
Now sin is a sensitive topic that no one wants to talk about or even worse, accept that they sin. We Catholics must be honest to ourselves and be humble to see that we are all sinners and need help from God to make it go away. After all:
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. ~ Oscar Wilde
One thing to take away while we're on the topic of sin is that, sin is not just doing bad, but also not doing good as well. This is called sin of omission, or not doing what we're supposed to do. This is very important because most of us don't even realize or recognize this sin to know and accept that we're committing it. So, what exactly is this sin of omission? I call it sin of duty and obligation.
Remember how we're always called to not living this life for ourselves or for our families only but to live and to "die" for others as well? That is our "duty and obligation" assignment as a Catholic so as long as we have "L-O-V-E" as our goal or our life slogan, and we're gonna make it happen wherever we go and to everyone we meet, only then that I think we have fulfilled our jobs. :)
It isn't the thing you do, dear, it's the thing you leave undone that gives you a bit of heartache at the setting of the sun. The tender word forgotten, the letter you did not write, the flowers you did not send, dear, are your haunting ghosts at night. ~ Unknown
So, what's next now that we know we are the bad guys? Well just hold tight because God has a plan to save us and the plan details fall into the last act of our stage play called Re-creation. The act started when God made a covenant with Abram and changed his name to Abraham, then God made a second covenant with Israel and made them his chosen people, and finally God made the last covenant with David who from his dynasty comes Jesus, the Son of God and our Savior.
That was quite an act there but all of these happened in the Old Testament which is Chapter 3's focus. Next week we will touch on the 2nd "season" of the Bible "series" which aims at the New Testament but for now, let's hope that thầy Trung can post it sooner because things are getting pretty busy for me again, and I’m really sorry about that. :(
Nevertheless, one thing I failed to mention at the beginning is that, Bible (unfortunately) is believed to be responsible for more atheism than any book ever written so it's important for us to... well, go to mass as often as we can so we can listen to the right teachings and guidance. We should also keep our mind be focusing on what Bible is really about, and that our lives today and every other day should be built on this foundation which is, LOVE. :)