山道期刊

A Love That Is Grounded in Faith and Hope Is a Love That Never Ends—Rethinking 1 Corinthians 13

Alexander MAK

Faith, hope and love are often seen as three important pillars of Christian faith and spirituality. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul argues for the importance of love, but he does so by relating love to faith and hope. However, the connection love has with faith and hope in 1 Corinthians 13 is often neglected by New Testament scholars. This paper argues that a proper understanding of this connection is able to provide a better understanding of the nature of the love that Paul is teaching in 1 Corinthians 13. It does so by giving a detailed exegesis of verses 4-7 and by explaining verses 6-7 in light of 1:7-9.

1 Corinthians 13 shows that a Christian’s ability to love his brother does not ultimately stem from himself. Rather, it is soteriological and eschatological in nature in the sense that it is based on faith and hope in the salvific work of Christ for the whole Christian community. We are able to love and continue to love our brothers because God is faithful. In Christ God will sustain all believers – including those whom we have difficulties loving – to the end, making them blameless in the day of Christ (1:7-9).

Spiritual Role of the Jerusalem Temple in History and Tradition

WONG Fook Kong

This article investigates the spiritual role of the Jerusalem temple from the perspective of creation and temple building. On the one hand, the creation story in Genesis does not mention divine temple building activity like some other ancient Near Eastern creation stories. On the other hand, the importance of the Jerusalem temple for Jewish spirituality is undeniable. Thus the question of whether or to what extent it was important during the period of its existence arises. It is the thesis of this paper that while the Jerusalem temple has always been important, it was more important in traditions than in the history of its existence. As early as the period of the Pentateuch and some of the psalms, there arose a notion of the temple that went beyond that of a local shrine in Jerusalem. This probably corresponded to a more universal concept of YHWH than that of a local god. As YHWH was understood as the God of the world, the world became his temple. From this perspective the creation story in Genesis does not lack temple building activity; creation itself was the temple. It is this cosmic vision of the temple that became important in Jewish spirituality, especially after the destruction of the Second Temple.

The Spiritual Message and Significance of the Vita Antonii

Nathan K. NG

Vita Antonii is a classic on ancient monasticism. This article first evaluates the purpose of the hagiography and shows that it was intended to be a monastic guide in narrative form, so that monks might learn how to walk in the ascetic way by imitating the hermit Antony. Second, its spiritual messages are explored. Following the Alexandrian concept of spiritual journey, the whole hagiography was constructed in an earth-to-heaven framework. Through daily ascetic discipline, Antony gradually ascended from earth to heaven and became a perfect monk. In this vertical ascending model, the author Athanasius presented the devil and his demons as being in control of the air and trying to prevent people from ascending. In spite of such hindering, because of the salvation of Christ, men could still ascend into heaven through ascetic disciplines. Here, what Christians should do was to contemplate on God with a pure soul through virtuous life. Vita Antonii was successful because it has suitable messages to different groups of contemporary readers: pagans, laymen and monks.

Spiritualitas—Another Reformation of Martin Luther

Pilgrim W. K. LO

A new movement of spirituality during the late 80’s of the last century in Hong Kong expresses interest in contemporaries like Richard Foster, Mother Teresa and Henri Nouwen. With respect to spirituality Protestant Christians are no longer under the influence of the great Chinese spiritual leaders of the middle-20th Century, such as Watchman Nee and Wang Mingdao; instead, they turn to the Western Church for the heritage of Christian spirituality.

Christian spirituality has a very rich heritage through the millennia and the Chinese Christian Church should learn from it regardless of denominational differences; however, it is unwise to follow any denomination or tradition blindly. Martin Luther’s reformation of spiritual formation provides a good example. As a monk of the Augustinian friary he dedicated himself to monastic life, devoting himself to fasting, confession, prayer, and pilgrimage, just as the Roman Church taught with regard to sanctification. He was once a follower of Dionysius the Areopagite, practicing the spiritual exercises of monastic mysticism. But after he had discovered the theology of the cross and the Gospel of justification by faith in the letters of Paul, he contributed to the reformation of the Church not only by correcting the wrong teaching of the scholasticism, but by correcting the practice of spiritual exercise too. He transformed lectio, meditatio, oratio and contemplatio of the LectioDivina to oratio, meditatio and tentatio for studying theology as the correct way of understanding and communicating with God. Moreover, he criticized the ImitatioChristi of the late medieval spiritual formation, for in his view Imitatio Christi was wrongly understood as imitatio operis; consequently, he advocated ConformitasChristi. This was because ConformitasChristi emphasizes imitatiomentis, namely to have the spirit of Christ which is the essence of ConformitasChristi and the foundation of imitatiooperis. With respect to the concern for spirituality of Protestant Christians in Hong Kong, Luther’s theological understanding and reform of spirituality are worth learning.

Wu Leichuan’s Confucian-Christian Spirituality

Kwong-pui CHAN

This article examines the spirituality of Wu Leichuan, a famous Confucian Christian in the 30’s to 40’s of the twentieth century. There are three aspects of Wu’s spirituality. Firstly, Wu emphasizes Jesus as the paradigm of Christian spiritual growth. Secondly, Wu emphasizes the integration of Christianity and Confucianism. He constructs his understanding of indigenous Christian spirituality, which is based on the “Five Steps to Perfection” of the Great Learning (Da Xue). Thirdly, the goal of Christian spiritual perfection is “the integration of knowing and doing” (zhi xing he yi ) for witnessing the love of God to all people and for fulfilling their human nature.

The German Loci (1556) by Melanchthon as an Attempt at the Indigenization of the Protestant Theological Instruction

Mateusz OSEKA

The present article examines an attempt at indigenization made by Melanchthon in the German Loci of 1556. It shows the relevance of the Loci for Protestant theological instruction in the 16th century and describes topical solutions applied therein as well as their philosophical and doctrinal foundations.

A Preliminary Assessment of the Recent Chinese Translations of the New Testament—Taking Verses from Hebrews as Examples

LI Chun

This paper analyzes certain verses in the Book of Hebrews in four different Chinese translations. It begins by comparing three recent translations with the Chinese Union Version. The differences are divided into three categories: (1) those not involving changes in meaning, (2) those having different meanings but still compatible with other translations, and (3) those having seemingly contradicting meanings when compared with the other translations. The comparisons show the characteristics of contemporary Chinese used by new translations. Contradicting translations may point to the needs of taking context into account when translating and stating translation principles in detail.