He Who Does Good is of God?

“I wrote to the assembly, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, doesn’t accept what we say. Therefore if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words. Not content with this, neither does he himself receive the brothers, and those who would, he forbids and throws out of the assembly. Beloved, don’t imitate that which is evil, but that which is good. He who does good is of God. He who does evil hasn’t seen God. Demetrius has the testimony of all, and of the truth itself; yes, we also testify, and you know that our testimony is true.” (3 John‬ ‭1:9-12‬ ‭WEB‬‬)

In the apostle John’s letter to Gaius and the church, he told them that a person who does good is of God, while one who does evil has not seen God.

Is this teaching good works as a proof of salvation?

Well, if we read in the context of the passage, John was referring to Diotrephes who was hindering Christians in particular. Diotrephes rejected the apostles’ authority, slandered them, and he cast out from the church whoever showed support or hospitality to the missionaries that were sent by the apostles. Diotrephes enjoyed the glory of being “first among them” as a leader but he was not interested in the truth of the Gospel.

John was calling the authenticity of Diotrephes’ faith into question, doubting that the man was saved.

It is apparent that Diotrephes “has not seen God”—he did not have a personal revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and did not love Christians because he was likely not a true one. He just wanted to be a leader over a group of people, to enjoy the thrill of calling the shots and feeling a vain sense of importance.

When John talked about “he who does good is of God”, we see the context clearly that John meant doing good to Christians, acting according to God’s will and ways.

When an unbeliever does something good like giving to charity through his pagan temple or speaking encouraging words to cheer up a depressed friend, that is not the kind of “good” that John is referring to. If that were so, then every unbeliever who regularly does something good could be called “of God”.

No, the one who does good by believing and proclaiming the Spirit-inspired words of the apostles (the New Testament is mostly written by the apostles), who welcomes and loves fellow Christian brethren, demonstrates that he is a true believer. Not just any general acts of good, but love towards God (Yahweh) and fellow Christians who the apostle Paul calls “the household of the faith”.

“So then, as we have opportunity, let’s do what is good toward all men, and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith.” (Galatians‬ ‭6:10‬ ‭WEB‬‬)

In a subsequent chapter in the same letter, John wrote something that clearly shows that he meant doing good in the sense of doing good (showing love) to fellow Christians:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love...If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.” (1 John‬ ‭4:7-8, 20-21‬ ‭WEB‬‬)

Firstly, John addressed the audience as “beloved”, showing us that he was speaking to Christians, not just all people in general. God’s will is for Christians to have brotherly love for one another, to treat each other as family, even though we may not be biologically related by blood, but we are of the same family in the Holy Spirit.

John then proceeded to explain how to recognize a false believer: a person who uses the mouth to claim that he loves God, but with his actions shows that he hates Christians and even persecutes them. Such a person is obviously just lying and is not really born-again.

In contrast to Diotrephes, John commends Demetrius for being a true Christian who walks in the truth of the Gospel. He has this testimony from the apostles and from the church. May we be like Demetrius, whose faith can be clearly seen, such that the way we live brings glory to God!

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【台美日共同守護印太安全】
　　
美國、日本、台灣三國智庫共同主辦「2020台美日三邊印太安全對話」，包括蔡英文總統、美國前國務院助卿坎博(Kurt Campbell)、前國防部印太安全助理部長薛瑞福(Randall Schriver)、日本前駐美大使佐佐木賢一郎等重要人士都與會。
　　
我也參與三國國會議員的對談，與羅致政委員、陳以信委員、美國聯邦眾議員貝拉(Ami Bera)以及日本眾議員鈴木馨祐，交流2020後的印太及台海情勢與願景。
　　
結果準備厚厚一疊的英文講稿幾乎沒派上用場，講太HIGH不小心就脫稿演出....。無論如何還是提供原本的講稿跟大家參詳，一起來練習英文吧：
　　
　　　　
2020 Taiwan-US-Japan Trilateral Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue

Hello moderator, fellow panelists, I am Taiwan legislator Freddy Lim.

This year, due to the pandemic, we can only conduct this panel online. I’m still very glad to be invited to attend this event and exchange ideas with these great panelists. Here I want to share my views on today’s main topic: “Challenges and Opportunities in the Indo-Pacific Region and the Taiwan Strait in 2020 & Beyond”.

First I want to start with the conventional positioning of Taiwan under the established international order.

After WWII, the international order led by the allies dragged Taiwan into China’s civil war. Since then, Taiwan's been struggling with the “One China” dispute, unable to gain independence and world recognition like many other colonies.

Even though Taiwanese people have built an independent and democratic country after half a century of hard work, now we enjoy freedom and human rights, the international community still isolates Taiwan. One of the main reasons is obviously China.

The established international community viewed China as a huge economic opportunity, a partner that would eventually carry out political reforms and be integrated into modern international order. Under this conventional thinking, the international community is willing to help China ease and suppress many of its unpleasant problems, including the thorny "Democratic Taiwan."

This has reduced Taiwan to merely China’s “Taiwan Problem”. We’re even slandered as the “troublemaker” of the Taiwan Strait; As a result, the respect that Taiwan deserves continues to be shelved, and the active role we can play, the contributions we can make in the international community are also ignored.

However, this established international structure is now changing.

After decades of appeasement policy, and acquiring WTO membership in 2001, China’s various structural changes that the world anticipated have never taken place. On the contrary, China’s been using organized measures, such as bribing, infiltration, and hybrid-warfare, to undermine international norms. It’s worked hard to manipulate and control international organizations, in order to project its influence onto the world. These actions have been even more distinct after Xi Jinping became President of China in 2012.

Internationally, China implemented debt-trap diplomacy on many countries through the Belt and Road Initiative. It established Confucius Institutes around the world, which are basically intelligence operations in the name of culture. Chinese tech giant, Huawei also aids China’s international surveillance. Not to mention China’s relentless expansion in the South China Sea, building military bases, creating man-made islands. This year, it’s even more serious. We witnessed the long time Chinese infiltration into UN organizations. The favoritism towards China helped its cover-up, which led to the dysfunction of WHO, ultimately causing the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Domestically, the Chinese government not only failed to implement any political reforms, but it also created the “Social Credit” system with advanced technology, to surveil and control its own people; In addition, the Chinese government built the notorious “Reeducation Camps” - concentration camps in reality, in Tibet, Xingjian, where human rights conditions were already in a bad shape. Even the Hong Kong people, who were supposed to be protected by the promise of “One Country, Two Systems”, their freedom and human rights were completely destroyed by the Chinese government.

These compelling examples show that there is some serious fallacy in the conventional way of viewing China. All facts point to this: Taiwan is not the problem. China is the problem. China is the troublemaker of the Taiwan Strait. It’s the troublemaker of the Indo-Pacific region. It’s even the troublemaker of the entire world.

Under decades of collective misjudgement, China was allowed to become the most terrifying, largest digital authoritarian government in human history. It’s a new form of dictatorship. As a response, many countries have vastly changed their China policy in recent years, thus the change of international structure.

This brings me to my next point: Give Taiwan the status it deserves. Let us contribute to the international society.

In a new international structure, Taiwan shouldn’t be categorized as “China’s Taiwan Problem”. Instead, we should be one of the key countries for international cooperation, responding to the new type of dictatorship.

Taiwan has faced authoritarian China on the front line for decades. Many countries are now facing the problem of China's infiltration under its United Front programs. Taiwan started dealing with the same problems 10 to 20 years ago. We have gained a lot of experience to contribute to the international community.

Taking the COVID pandemic as an example, Taiwan has studied and analyzed the actual situation and the information provided by the Chinese government with a serious and high-vigilance attitude. Based on our experience and lessons learned from the China SARS epidemic in 2001, we decisively formed a series of epidemic preventive measures. We have handled the crisis with the principle of openness and transparency. Our people have been self-disciplined and willing to cooperate. All of this demonstrates the high level of democracy in Taiwan’s society.

After the domestic epidemic was brought under control, Taiwan has continued to share our epidemic prevention supplies and the experiences on forming epidemic prevention policies with the world.

Although Taiwan was suppressed, even excluded by China in various international organizations in the past, we’ve been doing our best to comply with the norms & regulations of international organizations. We always actively contribute every time we have the opportunity. What I want to say is, all of this proves Taiwan could be a reliable partner in the international community. We are capable of working with other countries to solve major problems. We deserve our seats and participation in international organizations.

Regarding the impact of U.S. change of administration.

Now the U. S. presidential election is over and the administration is currently under transition. Many countries, including Taiwan, are concerned about whether the new U.S. government will change its course on foreign policy, especially its China policy. However, the "Rebalance (of Asia-Pacific Region)" proposed by the Obama administration in 2011, was in fact already a strategic adjustment in response to the rise of China and possible subsequent expansion.

The Trump administration further proposed the Indo-Pacific strategy in 2017 to promote and uphold international law and regulations, aiming to ensure every country has the liberty to be free from oppression and coercion. I believe that both parties in the U.S. understand the root cause of the Indo-Pacific regional problem comes from the Chinese government. Even for the Biden administration, it will have to provide practical responses. Facing the new structure, they can’t just go back to the traditional thinking of the last century.

As for Taiwan, the pro-Taiwan acts in the U.S., such as the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018, Taiwan Travel Act, Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement, were passed with strong consensus between the Republicans and the Democrats. I believe Taiwan could be a key partner to the international community and play an active role in the free world. This isn’t just the consensus of the two parties in the U.S., but will be the consensus of all democratic countries.

In a progressive aspect, the International community can benefit from a wider recognition of Taiwan.

In recent years, the performance of Taiwanese society in terms of epidemic prevention performance, human rights, gender equality, marriage equality, and open government are actually in line with many progressive ideas and visions. The ideas and visions that many democratic countries have long supported. Therefore, I’m quite optimistic that, after 2020, Taiwan can make even greater progress, on multiple levels and in broader aspects, contributing to the international community.

Finally, I want to emphasize again that to truly resolve regional problems, we need dynamic multilateral cooperation. But this must not be a return to the conventional thinking of the past century, which was "expecting" China to abide by the international order. The outdated thinking had been proved to be a failure. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a series of Chinese infiltration and aggression after its rise in recent years, which became one of the most difficult issues in the world. I believe after 2020, U.S., Japan, and Taiwan can establish a new model of international cooperation through deeper collaboration and communication. And hopefully, this model will maximize the security of the Indo-Pacific region and promote peace, stability and development in the region.

This concludes my speech, thank you all for listening.
Lastly, I’d like to express my gratitude to the moderators, my fellow panelists, and the organizers of this event.
I wish everyone peace and good health. Thank you.

#Opinion by Martin Lee 李柱銘｜"So, one should be honored and should not feel slandered when being called a CCP member. If it is a matter of course that CCP members govern Hong Kong, why should underground party members based in Hong Kong hide their identity? "

Read more: https://bit.ly/365otvV

"故如今被他人稱為中共黨員，非但不屬誹謗，更應當是光榮。如果黨人治港為理所當然，香港的地下黨員為何仍要隱藏身份？"
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港男跪地 挨港女女友巴掌 唔通又係宣傳片!?
在真相公開之前, 大家都有選擇立場的權利。
「鏡頭前的」可能不是全部，但動手的一方就一定有錯。
歡迎大家客觀討論
[ 多謝大家更正! ] : 情侶旁邊的是女友的表妹

阿聲熱血的男人版: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa64nuM-3NM&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIl0a7BIj-uwFUkmzgblgkA

從不喜歡港女打我MV版: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_AyD3sfPpo

窮飛龍七種化解14巴港女版: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsuK3QfR890

原片(含暴力鏡口)
[奴隸獸]傻的嗎港男跪地 挨港女「女友」巴掌:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK1aZD7o9yE

外國版本: (Eng Subtitles)A guy kneeled to and slapped by a girl in Hong Kong
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxxQgxssXY

Follow 波子IG : http://instagram.com/smilingboris#
Facebook 微笑小品專頁: https://www.facebook.com/pages/%E7%AC%91%E6%B3%A2%E5%AD%90%E9%A0%BB%E9%81%93/283458115118597

What happened in the incident :
That girl(his GF)was accusing her boyfriend of inviting another woman(her cousin standing next to them) to his home. However, the boy kneeling down in front of them explained many times that he didn't do anything and her cousin had already told her about it, and his GF allowed. However, his GF ignored that and kept asking"How could you invite another woman to his home", and started slapping his face and grabbing his hair. The man turns to his girlfriend's cousin, and asks her why she has slandered him, but her cousin just stood still and do nothing.Spectators can be heard criticizing the young woman, as well as the young man for accepting the verbal and physical abuse. Finally, his GF was eventually arrested after police arrived.