Jojo Agot

The Fiercest Enemies of the Church Are Not Unbelievers

The persecution of the true church, of Christian believers who trace their spiritual descent from Abraham, is not always by the world, who are strangers unrelated to us, but by our half-brothers, religious people, the nominal church. It has always been so. The Lord Jesus was bitterly opposed, rejected, mocked and condemned by His own nation. The fiercest opponents of the apostle Paul, who dogged his footsteps and stirred up strife against him, were the official church, the Jews. The monolithic structure of the medieval papacy persecuted all Protestant minorities with ruthless, unremitting ferocity. And the greatest enemies of the evangelical faith today are not unbelievers, who when they hear the gospel often embrace it, but the church, the establishment, the hierarchy. Isaac is always mocked and persecuted by Ishmael. Continue reading The Fiercest Enemies of the Church Are Not Unbelievers

We Cannot Afford to Not Know Christ

Most of us are constantly faced by the reality that there are many things we cannot afford in this world. We often mightily resist this fact, sometimes even by ‘affording’ what we cannot pay for (i.e. going into debt). There is, however, only one eternally significant thing that we cannot afford: namely, to remain ignorant of our beautiful Saviour. We must know Christ, the Son of the living God.

Fortunately for Christians, Jesus has taken the initiative by praying to his Father that we might know him. If we belong to him, we must out of necessity be those who will know him: ‘I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me’ (John 10:14).

~Mark Jones, Knowing Christ

Anti-Intellectual Obscurantism

Etienne Gilson on St. Francis of Assisi:

It is clear that he never condemned learning for itself, but that he had no desire to see it developed in his Order. In his eyes it was not in itself an evil, but its pursuit appeared to him unnecessary and dangerous. Unnecessary since a man may save his soul and win others to save theirs without it; dangerous, because it is an endless source of pride.

~Carl Trueman, The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind

The AlDub Twitter Explosion and Why It Matters To Us

As of this writing, the AlDub Twitter stats already reached a whopping 23.7 million. That’s incredible for a noontime TV show in this corner of the globe. One should never underestimate the power of the collective falling in love of an entire nation. Let the haters hate. Let the bashers bash. Maine Mendoza and Alden Richards captured the imagination of millions of people in a way that has never been done before.

At the height of the online buzz today, internet memes started popping up, the most hilarious I saw is the famous comic strip where Batman smacked Robin in the face . The caption reads: “Puro ka AlDub at Pastillas, pero di mo alam na lumpo si Apolinario Mabini.”

This meme is funny if you saw the Facebook screenshot that came out this week where a Facebook user, on his way out of the theater, overheard a young couple wondering why in the Heneral Luna movie, Apolinario Mabini didn’t even bother standing up in the midst of a chaotic cabinet meeting. The couple may have missed the part in their history class where it was mentioned that Mabini was a paralytic.

As of this writing, that Batman meme got more than 38,000 likes, 21,000 shares, and more than 700 comments with subcomments, all decrying the fact that young people today are more interested in ‘kilig’ than in knowing the facts of history. In the less polite comments section, people cursed the public school system, the teachers, the parents, and the students for the collective ignorance of our generation.

It is hard to make sense what this all means for us as a nation. Our ignorance of history came to the fore when the movie Heneral Luna came out. I am certain that thousands of people went from the movie straight to the internet to find out who really killed General Luna and if Aguinaldo was culpable for his assassination. On the other hand, our propensity for ‘superkilig’ entertainment has reached a record breaking scale. I heard that the most tweeted event in 2015 was the Super Bowl XLIX, with 25.1 million tweets sent. That’s a sporting event with many players and big time celebrities put together in one show, not a blushing couple dating for the first time on live TV.

I’m sure those who decry the historical ignorance of our young people make a very valid point. If we as a people don’t even know where we came from, then I fear for the future of this nation. But do we really have to choose between history and entertainment? One look at that question and we all know it’s a false dichotomy. Knowing the facts of Heneral Luna doesn’t necessarily mean a person is smart, the same way that falling head over heels with AlDub doesn’t mean a person is less smart. We are far more complex than the caricatures we throw at each other. Why do we always think that we have to choose one at the expense of the other anyway? Why don’t we just get good grades, get our histories right, and love simple entertainment at the same time? These things are not mutually exclusive.

The reason why I say that is because more than the wild popularity of the AlDub love team, there is something in it that I’m sure we could all appreciate. The fame of the AlDub tandem fires up the ‘kilig’ in our imaginations because it is clean, innocent, and unpretentious. People are not afraid to publicly admit that they like it because it really is likable. AlDub reminds us that we are not a complicated people. We don’t need vulgar entertainment in order to be happy. We don’t need bitter rivalries, third parties, extramarital affairs, and bloody confrontations complete with extended “iyakan, sigawan, sampalan” sequences to be truly entertained. Deep within us, we only desire to find love in that one person we believe God prepared for us. We need simple pleasures. One person is enough.

I wish more compelling historical movies will be made, if only to cure our collective ignorance as a society. I hope the screen innocence of the AlDub love team won’t be spoiled by the usual intrigues and controversies of the local entertainment culture. But that is hardly the point here. We know that Mendoza and Richards will be offered movie deals, more commercials, and probably concerts. We know that in time the magic will fade. This is TV, folks, deal with it.

The point is that our entertainment gatekeepers now know that we don’t have to follow the over-sexualized entertainment trend of the West. Our movies and TV shows don’t have to be shocking, dark, and sexually driven. We don’t have to show skin and go for unnatural relationships to sell movie tickets. We only need to take what is already good and commendable and clean in our culture and run with it. This is the simple beauty of the Filipino heart. We are a religious, family loving people. We need movies and TV shows we can watch with our buddies, mothers, younger sisters, grandma, and girlfriend. AlDub gave us that so we went to the internet and gave Eat Bulaga a collective thumbs up via a Twitter hashtag party. Let the movie and TV producers hear that great chorus of 23.7 million voices today.

Wilberforce on the Slave Trade in Britain

October 28, 1787

Wilberforce realized the need “for some reformer of the nation’s morals, who should raise his voice in the high places of the land and do within the church and nearer the throne what Wesley had accomplished in the meeting and among the multitude.”

“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would; I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”

Source: Christopher Hancock, The Shrimp Who Stopped Slavery in Christian History Magazine— Issue 53: William Wilberforce: Fighting the Slave Trade.

Why Some People Don’t Get Healed

As a pastor, this has always baffled me. I have had my fair share of praying for the sick when the patient instantaneously recovered. One particular incident that stood out in my memory happened years ago when I visited a home in the interior part of Samar. A young boy got so sick that he has been refusing food for days. When I arrived at their home, it was like a cloud of death was hovering over the entire household. Without much words, I went under the mosquito net where the child was lying, took the child in my arms, put my palms on both sides of his head, prayed a prayer of supplication, and commanded the sickness to leave him in the name of Jesus. I could literally feel the boy’s temperature going down while I was praying. When we said our Amens, the child asked for food. He lived.

I wish all my prayers are like that. I wish I could say that every single one person I prayed for received instant healing. They didn’t. Some are healed gradually. Some don’t recover at all. Continue reading Why Some People Don’t Get Healed