Jurong's 'Hachiko' waits at same spot every night for owner -- who never comes

STOMPer Bill has noticed this dog returning to the same spot in Jurong East Avenue 1 at the same time every night, reminding residents of the loyal dog Hachiko. He wonders where the dog's owner has been.

Hachiko was a dog born in Japan, remembered for his outstanding loyalty to his owner. Even after his owner's death, Hachiko continued to wait at the train station for his owner every day without fail, who never returned.

Said the STOMPer:

"A dog that looks like a labrador was heard crying for help on early Thursday morning.

"He stood along the roadside just outside Block 345 Jurong East Avenue 1 and looked around helplessly.

"Where is his owner?

"Is he a stray dog?

"Nobody knows!

"Since then, he has been wandering around the area, coming back to the same spot at almost the same time every night, at around 9-10pm and 4am.

"He does nothing but lie there quietly to wait for his selfish owner.

"His hachiko-like behaviour has touched a lot of people in the neighbourhood.

"We feed and give him fresh water.

"He is getting thinner and dirtier every day.

"It is torturing!

"Just hope someone can help before he is put to sleep!!!"


http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/in_the_heartlands/1128186/singapores_hachiko_moves_residents_but_what_happened.html

Leonard Ravenhill

What God wants is not to fill up empty pews.
He is not concerned about filling empty churches,
He is concerned about filling empty hearts.
And empty lives, and empty eyes that have no vision;
Empty hearts that have no passion,
And empty wills that have no purpose.

Martin Luther

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Weimar Edition, Briefwechsel [Correspondence], vol. 3, pp. 81f.

Joel

A Call to Repentance

13 Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn;
wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come, spend the night in sackcloth,
you who minister before my God;
for the grain offerings and drink offerings
are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Declare a holy fast;
call a sacred assembly.
Summon the elders
and all who live in the land
to the house of the LORD your God,
and cry out to the LORD.

Thomas à Kempis (1380 - 1471)

All men indeed aim at good, and mean something of good in their words and actions; and so, under the appearance of good many are deceived.

Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, Bagster, London p. 223

Funnymentalist

Well one day, our friend Funnymentalist has really hit rock bottom. He thought he had his doctrine all straight, but alas, no go. He is sitting all alone looking confused and despondent, and that is how Paull finds him.

Paul: Young man, what is the trouble?

Funny: Well I have talked to people from Adam to Peter and they all disagree with me, and I have the sneaking suspicion that they are right, and that is the worst part.

Paul: Can I show you a couple of things, my friend?

Funny: OK.....say....why are you so nice to me, anyhow? 

Paul: Well, I'm Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles. I'm YOUR apostle, and I have your doctrine for you.

.................................................AFTER THAT.......

Funny wasn't funny anymore.....he became.....a...Bible Believing Christian.

Bible Believer then thanked Paul for helping him to rightly divide the Scriptures and went on his way rejoicing. (2 Tim. 2:15)

WHAT TO SAY WHEN SOMEONE SAYS, “THE BIBLE HAS ERRORS”

How should we respond? What do you say?

Instead of asking them to name an error, I suggest you name one or two of them. Does your Bible contain errors? Yes. The Bible that most people possess is a translation of the Greek and Hebrew copies of copies of the original documents of Scripture. As you can imagine, errors have crept in over the centuries of copying. Scribes fall asleep, misspell, take their eyes off the manuscript, and so on. I recommend telling people what kind of errors have crept into the Bible. Starting with the New Testament, Dan Wallace, New Testament scholar and founder of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, lists four types of errors in Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning.

TYPES OF ERRORS

1. SPELLING AND NONSENSE ERRORS

These are errors that occur when a scribe wrote a word that makes no sense in its context, usually because they were tired or took their eyes off the page. Some of these errors are quite comical, such as “we were horses among you” (Gk. hippoi, “horses,” instead of ēpioi, “gentle,” or nēpioi, “little children”) in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 in one late manuscript. Obviously, Paul isn’t saying he acted like a horse among them. That would be self-injury! These kinds of errors are easily corrected.

2. MINOR CHANGES

These minor changes are as small as the presence or absence of an article such as “the” or changed word order, which can vary considerably in Greek. Depending on the sentence, Greek grammar allows the sentence to be written up to 18 times, while still saying the same thing! So just because a sentence wasn’t copied in the same order, doesn’t mean that we lost the meaning.

3. MEANINGFUL BUT NOT PLAUSIBLE

These errors have meaning but aren’t a plausible reflection of the original text. For example, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, instead of “the gospel of God” (the reading of almost all the manuscripts), a late medieval copy has “the gospel of Christ.” There is a meaning difference between God and Christ, but the overall manuscript evidence points clearly in one direction, making the error plain and not plausibly part of the original.

4. MEANINGFUL AND PLAUSIBLE

These are errors that have meaning and that the alternate reading is plausible as a reflection of the original wording. These types of errors account for less than 1% of all variants and typically involve a single word or phrase. The biggest of these types of errors is the ending of the Gospel of Mark, which most contemporary scholars do not regard as original. Our translations even footnote that!

IS THE BIBLE RELIABLE?

So, is the Bible reliable? Well, the reliability of our English translations depends largely upon the quality of the manuscripts they were translated from. The quality depends, in part, on how recent the manuscripts are. Scholars like Bart Ehrman have asserted that we don’t have manuscripts that are early enough. However, the manuscript evidence is quite impressive:

There are as many as 18 second-century manuscripts. If the Gospels were completed between AD 50–100, then this means that these early copies are within 100 years. Just recently, Dan Wallace announced that a new fragment from the Gospel of Mark was discovered dating back to the first century AD, placing it well within 50 years of the originals, a first of its kind. When these early manuscripts are all put together, more than 43% of the New Testament is accounted for from copies no later than the second century.

Manuscripts that date before AD 400 number 99, including one complete New Testament called Codex Sinaiticus. So the gap between the original, inerrant autographs and the earliest manuscripts is pretty slim. This comes into focus when the Bible is compared to other classical works that, in general, are not doubted for their reliability. In this chart of comparison with other ancient literature, you can see that the New Testament has far more copies than any other work, numbering 5,700 (Greek) in comparison to the over 200 of Suetonius. If we take all manuscripts into account (handwritten prior to printing press), we have 20,000 copies of the New Testament. There are only 200 copies of the earliest Greek work.

This means if we are going to be skeptical about the Bible, then we need to be thousands of times more skeptical about the works of Greco-Roman history. Or put another way, we can be a thousand times more confident about the reliability of the Bible. It is far and away the most reliable ancient document.

WHAT TO SAY WHEN SOMEONE SAYS “THE BIBLE HAS ERRORS”

So, when someone asserts that the Bible has errors, we can reply by saying: 

Yes, our Bible translations do have errors—let me tell you about them. But as you can see, less than 1% of them are meaningful and those errors don’t affect the major teachings of the Christian faith. In fact, there are a thousand times more manuscripts of the Bible than the most documented Greco-Roman historian by Suetonius. So, if we’re going to be skeptical about ancient books, we should be a thousand times more skeptical of the Greco-Roman histories. The Bible is, in fact, incredibly reliable.

Contrary to popular assertion, that as time rolls on we get further and further away from the original with each new discovery, we actually get closer and closer to the original text. As Wallace puts it, we have “an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the biblical documents.” Therefore, we can be confident that what we read in our modern translations of the the ancient texts is approximately 99% accurate. It is very reliable.

http://theresurgence.com/2012/05/28/what-to-say-when-someone-says-the-bible-has-errors

Funny #1

Some days, the Fundamentalist will come and talk to you and he then will read a passage from the King James Bible, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, (2 Corinthian 6:17)....Come out from World Council of Churches, come out from WCC, come out from Charismatic and Pentacostal Churches, come out from Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, they are the unclean things, because they are forming ecumenical movement with the Roman Catholics, etc...they are the harlots in the end times."

How do you dig a deeper hole for yourself after you've shot yourself in the foot? These are the funnymentalists! Beware!

Funny #2

After sometimes, you believed in their so called "truth", and you came out from WCC, out of Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist...., and so you followed the fundamentalists. After some time, one of them, stood up, and preached a five points sermon, 1. We are the best Christians. 2. We are the end time prophets. 3. We are the fundamentalists and reformed. 4. We are holding forth the Word. 5. We are preaching the whole counsel of the Gospel. 

In the beginning you are happy. This is the silliest thing to say after you've shot yourself in the foot and dug your own grave...........I am happy!

Funny #3

Then you joined their militant movements, such as 21th Century Reformation, King James Bible the Best movement, anti-NIV, anti-NKJV movement, Creationism, no tongues no miracles movement, anti-Billy Graham movement, anti-Charismatic movement, anti-Gay movement, you joined all those fundamentalism movements. Sooner and later, you will find out, they like to criticize people, they like to attack the enemies strongholds, they are trained to become the militant Christians!

DEEP thought of the day.............This next funny must surely win the award for Most Tragically Hilarious Statement By A Theologians. "KJV is perfect!"

Funny #4

Suddenly, one day, bang! A big quarrel broke out among these fundamentalists, they tear each other apart, they sued one another in the high court. Now, they do not see each other eyes to eyes anymore. They called names, they rebuked each other. Now, churches split. They cried, they shouted and banged the tables, they searched the whole Bible, and a party says the Bible translations, the Greek and Hebrew Texts have scribal errors, another party says we have the perfect Bible, the Greek and Hebrew Texts are perfect without error, so they quarrel days and nights. People confused and scattered here and there, still they said, KJV the best. Some say “not sure, I have to check, what is this Verbal Plenary Preservation?”

That's because we pick and choose. Ok now I understand.

Funny #5

In the end, you are shocked, tired, frustrated, confused, these fundamentalists called you out of World Council of Churches, WCC, out of Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, Charismatic churches, ....then...to drag you into fights. Funny isn't it? They will fight verbally, spiritually, militantly, these funnymentalists like to fight, they are born and living for debates and quarrels, they cannot live without debates and quarrels, they are militant ascribed themselves, they made you the gun powder, to shoot the other side, Christians became enemies! Neighbor became enemies! Brothers became enemies, pastors became bullies. Fundamentalist like to make enemies, no peace, no grace, no hope, no way! They are so daring to say, "We are preaching Christ, not ourselves!" They do not care weather you have food to eat or not, they do not care if you have good sleep or not. They can quote thousands of Bible verses to support their fighting. Cold blood! Now you know the true color of fundamentalism, if you like it, you stay, if you don't, you have to leave this fundamental circle.   

And the final words of the day............

HaHaHaHaHaHaHa, funnymentalist is really funny anyway!! Many jokers!!

Even Birds also know

Even Birds also know to stand together, unite and share! Even animal sometimes cleverer than theologians!

Proverbs 20:3 and Far Eastern Bible College

Proverb 20:3 "It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife,

but every fool is quick to quarrel."

Foolish Bible teachers in Far Eastern Bible College, Singapore, like to provoke his college students to quarrel about Bible versions. 

These foolish Bible teachers like to provoke people to quarrel, they like to indulge in quarrelsome issues like: which Hebrew text is perfect and better, which Greek text is perfect and better. Foolish and wasting time!

 To me, these Bible teachers who are holding PhD and ThD, are wanton and foolish, without wisdom from above!

Do not register and study in Far Eastern Bible College in Singapore!

Stay away from Far Eastern Bible College in Singapore, this is my advice!

Galatians 4:16

Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

Here, Paul was saying, "Does telling you the truth offend you and make me your enemy?" The truth isn't always welcome, but it truly is love to tell others the truth regardless of whether they welcome it or not (Le 19:17).

If a bridge had washed out on a dark, rainy night, would it be love to flag down other drivers and stop them from driving to their deaths? Sure, it would. At first, though, some of those drivers might not welcome your attempts to stop them. They might think you were trying to harm or rob them. But if you truly loved others more than yourself, you would stop them regardless of what they thought.

Likewise, those who don't know the Lord may misinterpret our attempts to share the Gospel with them, but if we truly love others more than ourselves, we will persist despite their objections.

Do not play play, don't try to be funny!

Do not play play with Dr Jeffrey Khoo, Dr Quek Suan Yew and Dr Das Koshy in Far Eastern Bible College in Singapore, these are self proclaimed false theologians and Bible lecturers. I called them the three baba and nyonya theologians, do not "main main" or "play play," or try to be funny with them, they have no mercy with their students, they use all kinds of means to force their students to accept theirs false teaching such as the Verbal Plenary Preservation, they are teaching the Greek and Hebrew texts underlying the King James Bible are perfect without any scribal error, if you do not accept their false teachings, watch out on the graduation day, they will not let you wear the graduation gowns, they  may ask you to stop in the middle of school term, they have no mercy with fellow pastors, they bully those who have different thinking, their friends can turn into enemies because of a few bible verses, when you do not agree with their personal opinions, they have no mercy on you, they will call you names, something like neo-evangelical, modernist....they have no mercy, they have academic string of degrees, they have big houses, big "churches," they have big vans, they have every thing a young man can have, but they have no mercy and no love, do not play play with them, especially theirs Verbal Plenary Preservation.....But I like to play with their names in blog spaces, to turn over them! Around, around and round, until they are fainted!

"Even if the heretics and false teachers can gain the whole world, they are standing at the losing side!"