2010-11-30

Chinese Classics (I-Ching, Dao, Analects etc) and the Bible

The Purpose
Some brothers were concerned about my interests in and my study of the Chinese Classics (Ancient Chinese Classical Literature, now popularly known in China as 国学 National Learning). They were concerned that I may be misled. Chinese has an interesting term for those that are deeply involved in a topic, such as Qi Gong (Breathing and Meditation Exercises), and with a wrong step, could lead into 走火入魔, meaning runaway(out of control) fire and entering or into the devil.

This is precisely the reason that I am studying and writing these posts about Chinese Classics. The purposes are
  • to help the believers to understand the Chinese Classics and the Chinese culture better.
  • to help Chinese Classics readers differentiate the spiritual from the non-spiritual parts.
  • Jesus Christ came to tell and to bring us back to our Heavenly Father God. He did not come to destroy our entire cultures (Every culture has within it the godly and the non-godly parts).
  • Jesus Christ is the answer to what the ancient Chinese sages were looking for.
Chinese Classics Begin with Acknowledgment and Respect for the Creator-God
The oldest and the Classic of the Chinese Classics known as the I-Ching or Yi-Jing begins with the 1st hexagram 乾 as Heaven - the great beginning of Creation and the creative force, and with the 2nd hexagram 坤 as Earth - the created mother Earth providing the environment for the growth all things.

Ancient Chinese believed the visible came from the invisible God. All the varieties of lives and things come from the great single source of God. The ancient Chinese studied the ways of Heaven (God) and Earth and exhorted that man must follow the ways of Heaven and Earth to have harmony - 天地人合一。 It is frequently simplified into 天人合一, unity of Heaven and Man, is the purpose of man. Is not this the purpose of Jesus Christ? Eph 1:10  "as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth"!

Chinese Classics wisdom actually begins with the fear of the Lord, God ( Prov 1:7, Job 28:28, Ps 111:10, Prov 9:10, Pro 15:33 all say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom or knowledge or insight) See Why is the Fear of the Lord the Beginning of Wisdom?. It is the Godly and Biblical kind of wisdom. Chinese wisdom is more godly than those present scientific teachings that do not even acknowledge the existence of God. Science explains how things work but cannot provide the answers to why things work. It has no answer to what is right or wrong, and no answer for life. Science can help prolong physical life but does not give meaning to life.  Ancient Chinese Classic provides the simple answer that man is to have harmony with God and the environment, love people, and leave a legacy for future generations. This is exactly what is expressed in "Ecc 12:13  The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man". In fact, when I first read Ecclesiastes I thought I was reading Chinese Classics. I had to check a few times that I was indeed holding a bible.

What is Missing in the Chinese Classics?
Not knowing about Jesus Christ, the ancient Chinese had to rely on themselves to achieve harmony with Heaven and Earth. It is man's great effort to study the ways of Heaven and Earth and then follow them to achieve maturity and good character virtues. Ancient Chinese teaches self-sacrifice for the benefit of others. It is not self-denial per se like some religions. It is a proactive concern for the people at large. Interestingly, they don't spend much time on sins but more time on the right ways. There is no use telling people what is wrong. It is more important to tell people what are the right ways that people could follow.

Ancient Chinese discovered a God of creation of power and love. A God to be revered. A God whose ways cannot be violated or violated at our own perils. Wise Chinese, sages, try hard to reach up to God and to teach others to do the same. Unfortunately, that is a tough road to travel, and not able to reach God's standards. We can see that those people's character virtues are very often much better than many Christians. Nonetheless, they fail God's standards. (I don't know what will happen to them since they were before Christ's time and had no Gospel preached to them. But if Enoch was taken away by God, we trust God to take care of those people who died without hearing about the Gospel.)

天人合一要靠耶稣
For this present time, we know the open secret of 天人合一, unity between heaven and man. It is through Jesus Christ, the God that became man to bring man to God. Having a rebirth into a new creation of Christ in us will enable us to reach God's standards spiritually and let our soul and body be developed into the mature image of Christ and bring glory to God through our behavior. Rom 12:1-2, 8:29. God is glorified through His body on earth, behaving like His Son Jesus Christ, i.e. that is you and me.

Chinese Wisdom Closer to Biblical Teachings
I would boldly go one step further to say that the Chinese Classics teaching of Harmony, respect for differences, and integrative type of thinking is closer to the Biblical Teaching of God all-embracing love rather than a particular Western type "you must be like me or else" type of teaching.

As an example, Paul did not tell the slaves to break free from their master once they were saved. Slavery is a human-made system. With a good master, slavery is good. The master is responsible for the life of the slave, including finding a wife and taking care of his children. With a bad master, slavery is bad. God's words work well under the slavery or non-slavery system. It is the human misinterpretation and misapplication of the Bible that creates problems. Paul told those who were saved to remain as they were. It is of the heart and not of the jobs. Nevertheless, if the slave can be free, then do it. The freed slave has the responsibility of making a living by himself. Some may not be able to do it!

Warnings
The Ancient Chinese Classical Literature has been extended and modified by the various religions that came after them. We can see the original Zhou Yi 周易 I-Ching has become a fortune-telling book. The Dao De Jing of Lao Zi has been named a bible of some religions and with a different interpretation. The teachings of Confucius and Confucius have been deified to become a religion and a god for worship. Hence, in the study of Chinese Classics, we need to differentiate the original source from the other spiritualized sources and distorted content.

Isn't the Bible Good Enough? Why should I bother?
The Bible is good enough for salvation and development and everything. However, to bring the gospel to a culture, we need to understand the culture and connect to the culture. We need to tell and show them that Jesus is the answer to their pursuits. To reach out to the Chinese with their cultural roots (there are Chinese that have taken other cultures), perhaps we should know about their ancient classical literature to reach out to them. Show me you know me so that perhaps I can give you an ear to hear what you want to say. Of course, that is not the only way to reach out to a particular culture. There are other ways like miracles and healing of the sick that draw people to God quickly without understanding the culture. But for the longer-term growth of the converted believers, some cultural understanding is needed.

Update 5 July 2014
Ancient Chinese Wisdom and Philosophies, called Sinology, are like the Old Testament of the Bible or the Tanakh of the Jews. They are books of wisdom to teach how to live rightly with God, nature, and men. The good news of the gospel is Jesus Christ, who gives us a new transformed life to live out the teachings. Right living comes from within and not by possessions of things nor by forced by external laws. 内圣外王, inside-saint then rule outside as a king, is the teaching of Zhuang Zi and Confucius.

Update 16 Jan 2017 - God is known from His Creation
Romans 1v20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Psalm 19 New Living Translation (NLT)
1 The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.
2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.
3 They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard.
4 Yet their message has gone throughout the earth and their words to all the world.

For related posts see Chinese Classics & The Bible Index Page
For more on Chinese Classics and I-Ching see Ancient Chinese Wisdom

2010-11-29

Similar Verses in Bible and Chinese Classics 6 On Wealth from Righteousness

In the Classics of Chinese of Classics I-Ching, there is a commentary 《文言》 on the first 乾卦 Heaven Hexagram that reads: 


《文言》曰:元者,善之长也。亨者,嘉之会也。利者,义之和也。贞者,事之干也。君子体仁足以长人,嘉会足以合礼,利物足以和义,贞固足以干事。君子行此四德者,故曰:“乾:元、亨、利、贞。”

I could not find the English translation with Google search. So let me translate this into English. The whole sentence is very meaningful, but let me just pick up the key phrase that is similar to the Biblical text first. It is the highlighted part of "利者,义之和也", which means, 'benefits and profits come from harmonizing with righteousness' or "business value creation comes from righteous pursuit". In other words, if we want money and wealth, we must pursue righteousness first.

This is exactly what Jesus said in Mat 6:33 "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

If you are wondering whether this applies to the present time (as a believer, we believe that God's word hold true all the time and it is the modern man that are discovering its truth), see Guy Kawasaki's Arts of the Start video (skip to 5thmin),  in which he said, "to start a business is to create meaning", and "that includes increase the quality of life, right a wrong, and prevent the end of something good".  The new business books that came out recently and are coming continue to stress on the return to fundamental values and virtues of righteousness. e.g.  How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business, Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism and many others.

Full Translation

The Great Beginning 元者 is the head of goodness. The Smooth harmonious Flow is the meeting of beauty. The benefits(profits) is the harmony with righteousness. The Purity (Focused Perseverance or Discipline) is the pillar of work. Wise men exercise love to build and lead people. Beauty comes from synchronizing with good manners (rules for proper conduct and communication). Benefiting others and things satisfy righteousness. Perseverance in purity enables one to do things. Wise men follow these four character virtues - goodness, harmony (smooth flow), value creation (benefiting others) and focused purity (defect free).

It is rather difficult to find the English words for the Chinese words and I struggle with the literal and dynamic translations. I hope you can get the meaning and enjoy the richness of the Chinese Classics. As I shared before that reading the Classics help me to appreciate the Bible better. Exposition on the Biblical text with a Chinese mindset will likely shed new lights for our understanding of the Bible and enjoy the beauty of Jesus Christ our Lord.

DaoDeJing 81 of Lao Zi:
The last two verses of the Tao Bible (DaoDeJing) written by Lao Zi are:
圣人不积,既以为人己愈有,既以与人己愈多。
The saints accumulate not. He that serve others possesses more. He that gives to others gain more.
天之道,利而不害;
The laws of heaven bring benefits without any harm.
圣人之道,为而不争。」
The laws of the saints are serving without competing.

Previous: Similar Verses in Bible and Chinese Classics 5 On Christian Virtues
Next: Similar Verses in BIble and Chinese Classics 7 on Mouth and Heart

2010-11-11

History of Relationship - From God and Man to Father and Sons

The Creator God
It is not too difficult for man to know a Creator God. From the created world around us, we can roughly make a good guess of what the Creator is like. We can say that the Creator God is extremely wise and extremely powerful. But a key question to probe further is to ask "Is this Creator still interested in me?". There are people who believed that God after his creation leave the created things to work out for themselves. The Creator just left the scene after the creation and men are left to live or die on their own.  In time of tragedies, it does seem that our God has left and has no further interest in us.

God as Father!
Then, Jesus came into the scene to tell us that God is still interested in us. In fact, God loves us enough to give us His Son Jesus to die for us so that we can have the Zoe God's kind of life and to be with God forever. Jesus reveal to us that God is not just the Creator but that God is the Father to us. God as our Father is shocking concept. Not sure which religion, except Christianity, proclaim a God as our Father.

History of Relationship between God and Man
It is interesting to me to see how the relationship between God and man changes with time. Adam was the first man created by God from the earth and breath of God in the image of God. In only one place, Luke 3:38, Adam was recorded as a son of God. The son-ship is a loose term used to describe that Adam was just created by God. The true son-ship should be a pro-creation, a giving birth, of the same blood. Even so, Adam and God enjoyed a very close fellowship. Adam addressed God as 'you' and not as Lord or God, at least before the fall. It was not recorded whether Adam sacrifice to God but we know Adam's sons, Cain and Abel did make offering to God and hence acknowledging God as the higher One, the Creator. Noah addressed God as Lord. So did Abraham. Many descriptive names of God were used but they are more describing the characteristics of God - such as 

God as El in :
  • El Shaddai: God Almighty
  • El Elyon:  Most High God
  • El Olam: The Everlasting God. 
Moses received the Name of God as YahWeh (or Jehovah in some translations) and frequently translated as Lord, 
  • Yahweh Jireh The Lord will provide.
  • Yahweh Nissi: The Lord is my Banner of Victory
  • Yahweh Shalom: Lord of  Peace.  
  • Yahweh Sabbaoth:  Lord of Hosts of Army
  • Yahweh Maccaddeshcem: The Lord that Sanctifies.
  • Yahweh Ro’i:  The Lord my Shepherd. (By David in Ps 23) - This is closest to Father.
  • Yahweh Tsidkenu:  The Lord our Righteousness.
  • Yahweh Shammah: The Lord is presence
  • Adonai: God as the Master, or Owner.
Believers are True Children (Sons of God)
Believers that believed and received Jesus as the Son of God are born again by the Holy Spirit as children of God. (1John 3:1) Behold, how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!

Believers are not like Adam. They are born of the Spirit of God and are of and is God's. John 3:5,6,8. 

God as our Father is something we must remember. Jesus taught us to pray by beginning with Our Father ... Hence, we when come to God, we must know that we come in the role of sons and daughters of God. We are not just man, or servant. 

Father Loves to...
Father delights in His children irrespective of their performances. 
He is sadden by our sins and our suffering. 
He waits for us with open arms to receive us back to him. 
He provides for us. He guides us. He protects us. 
He watches lovingly over us. 
He desires that we become like him - creating and contributing to all.
He dances over us (as some song writer wrote).

Children Come...
Come to God with God as the Father mindset that we can be truly honest and transparent with Him. 
We can truly enjoy Him without fear or guilt conscious. 
Come to Him to experience His presence and love. 
Pour out our hearts, our fears, bitterness, discouragements, shames, to Him. 
Share our joy and victories, events and humor with Him.
God is most glorified when we are most satisfied with Him said John Piper. 

God is most satisfied when we are most glorified with Him - when we exhibits the character of His Son Jesus. This is only possible when we spend much time with our Father through Jesus in us. Let the Jesus in us grow to occupy all our being that we think, feel, talk and behave like Jesus.