Category: Blog - OEM ONLINE

Blog: Peace on Earth

12/1/2015

The first Christmas wasn’t about red cups or decorations, it was an answered prayer. For the first time in hundreds of years, God interacted with His people, the Israelites, in the midst of the military occupation of the Roman Empire. The Israelites were praying and pleading for God to send His messiah, the anointed one, to restore the Kingdom of Israel and free them. In the spirit of Advent1, they awaited the arrival of a revolutionary king to overthrow their oppressors. Their prayers were of a people feeling lost, beaten, and facing the temptation to just accept the status quo. It’d be something like the old song, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Emmanuel, “God is among us,” a prayer in a name; as if saying “God be here, God be with us.” And in Jesus, God answers those prayers, and enters into His broken but beautiful creation, to be amongst his people.

Blog: Portraits of Christ: John’s Gospel, part 3

11/22/2015

John further emphasizes the deity of Christ by showing his divine authority and his transcendence, that is, how he is above all and superior to all. In chapter 1, Jesus himself is presented as the Word, and as God himself. Jesus is thus greater than scripture itself (at this time, the Old Testament), for the scripture is not God, but a testimony about God and a revelation of God. Jesus is the perfect revelation of God to us. (As Martin Luther said, the Church is under the authority of scripture, but ultimately the Church and scripture are under the supreme authority of Christ.)

Blog: Portraits of Christ: John’s Gospel, part 2

11/16/2015

In John’s Gospel we have an emphasis on Jesus that is unique compared to the other gospels. John not only emphasizes his deity, but his mysteriousness. The reader is left with an impression of Jesus as a mystical teacher, in the sense that his words and actions are not only those of a profound religious teacher, but of one who is other-worldly. So often in this gospel we read of Jesus making statements that the crowds, the religious teachers, and even his own disciples sometimes could not fathom.

Blog: Holes

11/2/2015

Andrew Byers, writer for InterVarsity Press, says life can bring us to the point where we need to shout, and thankfully that we have a God who is big enough and loves us enough to let us shout, even when and especially when we shout at Him. As a Korean American Adoptee, there was a time when I was struggling with my identity and felt lost to the point that I cursed at the hand I had been dealt.

Blog: Portraits of Christ: John’s Gospel

10/20/2015

John’s Gospel opens with a fascinating prose prologue in chapter 1 that essentially summarizes the themes of the entire book. It introduces Jesus in a manner that emphasizes his deity, then John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus’ ministry, and finally, the spiritual essence of Jesus’ public ministry and outreach, and his ultimate rejection.

Blog: Portraits of Christ: Mark’s Gospel - Behold the Man

10/13/2015

Imagine that you are a Gentile, such as a Roman or Greek, and put yourself into a first-century pagan mindset. What would you think if you heard of a man who went around healing people? You would probably think that he was a god. What if you heard of a man driving out evil spirits and granting divine forgiveness of people’s sins? You would think he was some kind of god. If you heard of a man raising someone from the dead, you would surely think of him as a god. What if you heard of a man miraculously feeding a crowd, and controlling the weather by commanding a storm to stop? You would think he was a god.

Blog: Portraits of Christ: Luke’s Gospel, part 3

10/5/2015

What does it mean to you that Jesus was a man? We hear a lot about him being God (and later blog posts in this series will address that), but we don’t hear as much about his human side. Luke emphasizes this aspect of Jesus, and it’s important for understanding how we relate to him.

Blog: Past Grace

10/1/2015

Everyone has a past. Everyone has had a beginning. We all took those small steps to get to where we are today. Some have taken paths that were more rugged than others. Some have taken paths that have been slightly easier. We have all journeyed down this road called life. Many times there were forks in the road, and decisions had to be made, both good and bad. Some parts we do not want to tread again, some parts we wish we could walk once more.

Blog: Sojourner on Standby

9/21/2015

I recently traveled 69 hours from Seoul to Atlanta. Yes, 69 hours. Instead of taking my usual non-stop flight home, I took 5 flights.

Why? My friend offered me a Delta Buddy Pass that let me fly internationally at a reduced price.
The catch? All standby. No flight or date is guaranteed.

Blog: Small Groups: Friendship, Fellowship, Family

8/30/2015

I've been part of the OEM community for the past 4 years, one month and seven days. But, as many can probably relate to, when I first joined OEM, I found it a bit overwhelming. I enjoyed coming to church, but it was challenging getting to know people beyond a friendly hello and goodbye. That is, until I joined my first small group.

Blog Series: Portraits of Christ: Luke's Gospel, part 2

8/18/2015

Imagine living as a Jewish person in the province of Judea around the time of Jesus. Not only do you live under Roman oppression and taxation, but the Romans have carved out the province from the rest of Palestine so that it has few economic centers or resources, making the area fairly poor.

Blog Series: Portraits of Christ: Luke's Gospel

8/10/2015

Particularly in Luke, we see a Jesus born and raised in the backwaters of insignificant Jewish towns - born in Bethlehem, and growing up in the small farm village of Nazareth. You would think that if God mainly cared for or wanted to influence the powerful and mighty of the world, then Jesus should have been born in Rome, or Athens, or Alexandria, or at least Jerusalem.

Blog Series: New Testament Portraits of Christ

8/4/2015

Who is Jesus to you? Reflect on that for a minute. Your mind will probably first turn to some standard explanations that you learned in church. But do you really understand what that means very deeply? Is it an understanding that really challenges your spiritual life?

Blog: Showers of Blessings

8/4/2015

When I moved to my new (yet quite old) apartment in Seoul, I was super annoyed that my shower didn’t work properly. It oscillated between scalding and freezing at random and often lost pressure multiple times per shower. How could I live like this?!

Blog: Solitude and Prayer

6/22/2015

“Prayer in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine.” – C. S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, “The Efficacy of Prayer”