One Big Classroom—Discerning the Heart of Jesus Together

“For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.” (Pr 2:6)

Looking back over the past six years of my presidency, besides shouldering heavy administrative duties, one important aspect of my work that I have never forsaken is research and writing. As a theological educator, I like doing research and writing. Through the study of various academic fields, I can discern the heart of Jesus Christ and then put this into practice through teaching, living, and bearing witness according to Jesus’ heart. Moreover, I can joyfully work with God and thereby meet difficulties and challenges in my life and ministry with greater ease. This ability to “discern the heart of Jesus” is theologia, which helps us understand the thoughts, feelings, and practices of Jesus and adopt them as our own thoughts, feelings, and practices. Over the past few years, I have taken the opportunity to explore such issues as hospitality, preaching, mission, and pastoral care along with our teachers and students to learn from our mentor Jesus Christ as to how we can make HKBTS a disciple community that is humble, eager to learn, and willing to integrate theological knowledge into life practice. And together we turn to Jesus who is our mentor, to discern Jesus’ heart, to become a community under God, and to be willing to integrate theological knowledge into everyday practices.

Learning Hospitality: The Manifestation of a Seminary with Spirituality

Hospitality is something that a preacher should practice and it is also the manifestation of unity. In the Opening Convocation of the 2009-2010 school year, I gave a sermon entitled, “The Unity of Hospitality,” pointing out that philoxenia means hospitality, referring not only to a love toward strangers but also the passion for practicing friendliness as expressed by both the host and the guest. God is present in the communion of such a display of hospitality and He cheers us on in our midst as we experience the sweetness of unity.

I envisioned that teachers and students in HKBTS could learn together to practice hospitality with love in their daily lives. Even though we have different personalities, temperaments, backgrounds and experiences, we are, however, willing to focus on our mutual understanding and divine calling by treating one another with hospitality. Acting in such a way, we can be a spiritual community with unity and love, being able to serve God together in this world that has been torn apart.

Learning Preaching: The Spirituality of Preaching about Life

“Preaching” is an extremely important vocation for a preacher because we have to faithfully and humbly proclaim the gospel message as we proclaim nothing except Jesus Christ and his crucifixion, without having to dress it up in euphemistic, decorative language. In the Opening Convocation of the 2010-2011 school year, I spoke on the topic, “Foolishness: The Preaching of Life,” in which I exhorted teachers and students to live out a life worthy of the gospel of the cross and to go back to the core calling of a preacher: Not to pursue the wisdom and common practice of the world, but to whole-heartedly trust in the Spirit of God and preach the “foolishness” of the gospel of the cross. When we do our preaching faithfully, we will not fall into the shackles of trivial interpersonal relationships. We do not seek to make others “feel good” but hope to invite them to enter into a change of life. This is the spirituality of the preaching of life.

I encouraged students to offer a beautiful service each and every time they preach. Using a culinary metaphor, my hope is this: Even if students have not yet reached the level of a five-star chef, they can still cook nutritious family dishes. As HKBTS seeks to train preachers who can walk the talk and walk the walk, I encouraged our students to be prepared to practice the preaching of life in their future ministry posts, to be an “evangelist” who passes on the word of God faithfully, to be a “shepherd” who listens to and cares for the sheep, and to be a “prophet” who dares to speak the truth and to uphold the truth via their actions.

Beginning in the 2009-2010 school year, the Seminary restored the practice of “Graduate’s Preaching” in order to provide preaching opportunities and training for our graduating students. Our teachers also focused on preaching by word and by deed as they diligently preached their messages during morning chapel services, preaching Sunday sermons, spiritual enrichment meetings, and revival meetings. Besides holding the expository preaching week together with preaching-related seminars and topical lectures, we held the Diamond Jubilee Belote Lectures in August 2011. We were honored to have Professor Thomas Long, an outstanding leader in Biblical Homiletic, come to explain and demonstrate the preaching process—from preparation to actual preaching. The Lectures were inspiring and generated vigorous discussion among the attendees.

Learning Missions: Theologia That Crosses over to the Church and the World

“Missions” is an integral practice of a disciple community that is determined to face the church and face the world. In the Opening Convocation of the school year 2011-2012, I spoke on the topic, “The Missional Mission of a Disciple Community,” and I emphasized the missional aspect of theological education: A disciple community does not pursue a colony-like life but one which is ever-extending; our theology is not a private, personal matter but a public, communal one; as a disciple community having received the missionary call, we need to proclaim God’s authority and trust that God will lead us into His kingdom.

A preacher nurtured by HKBTS may not be a missionary, but every one of them will have a heart for missions and a full understanding that missions is the essential nature of a church. In fact, “hospitality” is also an aspect of missions. Not only do we practice hospitality within the disciple community, we also know that our vocational call is to give cordial hospitality to strangers by actively sharing with them the great love and grace of Christ. Jesus once taught his disciples, saying “I was a stranger and you invited me in … I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Mt 25: 35, 40) From this we can see that to be hospitable to the strangers is to put into practice the Christian integral mission. To give a cordial hospitality is to open the church’s doors and receive strangers, welcome them into God’s family, care for their needs, and in some cases, share their pain.

In this way, the Seminary’s teachers and students learn to cordially receive the “least” of those strangers by actively visiting the homeless, at-risk youth, new immigrants, and prison inmates, and by testifying to them about the vitality and joy of the gospel. Strangers live not only in Hong Kong, but in Mainland China, Asia, and different corners of the world. Our teachers and students go to different mission fields to provide hospitality and to communities in those areas by acting as witnesses of the love of Christ. When hospitality becomes a life habit of the HKBTS disciple community, people will recognize that we are Christ’s disciples.

Learning Pastoral Care: Pastoral Theology from Hospitality to Forgiveness

“Pastoral theology” is what a preacher, after having experienced God’s hospitality and God’s infinite, unconditional forgiveness, earnestly experiences along with God’s mysterious grace together with different people. In the Opening Convocation of the school year 2013-2014, I spoke on the topic, “A Forgiving Community,” and led our teachers and students to think together about the question of choosing between our priorities of “forgiveness” and “righteousness.” Chapter 18 of the Gospel of Matthew records that Jesus teaches his disciples to forgive his people in God’s kingdom seventy-seven times. Jesus himself has left behind a model in which he sincerely makes friends with the gentiles and tax-collectors even before they responded to his friendliness. We can see that magnanimous forgiveness must come before a gradual change in the life of any wrong-doer. Magnanimous forgiveness can bring about real life transformations in righteousness and relationships. It can also bring about a change in men’s hearts and create a community of peace.

Hospitality with a heart of forgiveness is a complete hospitality. Over the past five years or more, practicing a kind of complete hospitality has been the Seminary’s common goal: We seek to be a hospitable community built around a heart of forgiveness. Our vocational calling requires not only to provide cordial hospitality for our co-walkers, but we must also provide hospitality to strangers and even those who have harmed us. We must learn to nurture the hospitality of seventy-seven times since we firmly believe that hospitality with a heart of forgiveness can bring about far reaching changes, bringing unity and solidarity to the Seminary, and bringing unity and solidarity to our churches.

Apart from having a heart of forgiveness, to be a preacher is to be a care-giver who needs to also have an “understanding” of empathy, which allows him to enter into the experiential world of others. Empathy requires that we temporarily let go of our own way of thinking and sincerely enter into another person’s worldview. This does not mean that we lose sight of ourselves but that we can step out of the serenity of our own lives and enter into the chaos of others’ lives, allowing us to cognitively learn and passionately understand their worlds. Then, we need to leave their worlds in order to communicate back to them what we have interpreted and try to reframe their problems and thus change the meaning of the event. Such empathy must be exercised and nurtured in order to enable it to become the second nature of the care-giver.

Prayer is an essential practice of pastoral care that is needed to establish a fellowship (koinonia) between man and God or a person with another person. In light of the gospel, our prayer is wholeheartedly God-centered and seeks to bring man’s needs before God. This is an important part of our divine duty. Being linked to prayer, ethical thinking must also comprise theological wisdom, embrace the heart of Jesus Christ, and be able to master and understand the sequence of ideas. Behind all kinds of thinking, the most important element is still prayer. Prayer helps us to discern God’s heart so as to make the most suitable choice of plans. Soon, from March 10 to 12, we will host the Belote Lectures on the theme “Being with God.” Professor Samuel Wells, a world renowned British theologian with rich pastoral experience, will be invited to be the speaker who will help enrich our understanding of Prayer.

A Big Classroom — Discerning the Heart of Jesus Together

The road that we have walked over the past five years or more gives witness to how God has led us to grow and to advance, from “hospitality” to “preaching” and “missions”, heading toward “pastoral care.” During this time, I thank God for guiding me to integrate what I have learned and thought into my leadership and services in the Seminary’s ministry. I also thank Him for preparing a team of good teachers to co-walk with me. In 2009, the teacher team launched a new “synergy” stage. Their mutual consensus is: Each teacher not only makes contribution in his own special research area, he also covers areas beyond his own specialty and moves toward the creation of cross-disciplinary study and dialogue. This cross-disciplinary integration practice not only can eliminate the compartmentalization present in theological teaching but can also produce a tremendous surge in the synergy of the teacher team to drive the Seminary forward. In this way, theological education can help future ministers and pastors understand the culture and situation of society so that the church can both meet the needs and challenges of society and more effectively shoulder its calling during challenging times.

HKBTS has many classrooms, which can be combined into one large classroom. I thank God for establishing our teacher team to enable us to have synergy and also co-walk with me in an effort to mold the Seminary into a pluralistic and yet unified disciple community. In this big HKBTS classroom, teachers and students think together, learn to read and study together, and train in order to gain wisdom for the discernment of “Jesus’ heart.” This road of learning will continuously extend further. God, who is the source of wisdom, is pleased to give knowledge and understanding to those who fear the Lord.

Feb 2015