2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 The Message

Chapter 1

“I don’t understand, but I thank You. I don’t understand, but I know You are good. I don’t understand, but I know You are taking this away because You have something better (p. 21).”

“Don’t let impatience get the upper hand. Be her friend, but don’t communicate your interest until you’re ready to start a relationship that has a clear purpose and direction. You don’t want to play with her heart (p. 22).”

I needed to be a man– a non-commital testing of the waters wouldn’t be fair to her (p. 22).

Was I prepared spiritually and emotionally for marriage? Could I provide for a wife and family? Was this God’s time for me to pursuit a relationship? (p. 22)

Chapter 2 Rediscovering Courtship   A Return to Purposeful Romance

[C]ourtship, a new season of friendship[:] The purpose of this time would be to deepen our relationship so that we could prayerfully and purposefully explore the possibility of marriage (p. 24).

Ultimately, it wasn’t the word itself that mattered. What did matter… was that our relationship have a clearly defined direction. I didn’t want to play games with her. Although I wanted us to start going on dates, I wasn’t interested in dating for the sake of dating. I wanted more than anything else to please God and find out if marriage was His plan for us. And I wanted this process to be one we could look back on with fondness and without regret— whether or not we married each other (p. 25).

How do you get close enough to someone to make a decision about marriage without stealing the privileges of marriage? How do you find the love of your life without leaving a trail of broken hearts and broken promises behind you on the way to the altar? (p. 26)

Throughout history, communities and couples knew that meaningful intimacy shouldn’t outpace commitment (p. 26).

In God’s plan, the personal benefits of an intimate relationship— emotional or sexual— are always inseparably linked to a commitment to the other person’s long-term good inside the covenant of marriage. To put it simply, the joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment. Courtship is simply a relationship guided by this principle (p. 26).

Relationships on Purpose: The key was that everything we did in our relationship was for the very clearly stated purpose of finding out if God would have us marry (p. 27).

Courtship is “doing a relationship on purpose (p. 27).

Some people asked why I bothered to initiate a defined season of courtship with [her]. Why not just ask her out and see where it went? I did it because I didn’t want another undefined relationship. Too many times in the past I had separated the pursuit of intimacy from the responsibility of commitment.  I had learned that this was neither a wise nor caring way to treat a girl (p. 28).

From the start, our pursuit of intimacy was paired with an openness to commitment. The difference was that now our activities and time we spent together had a purpose beyond mere recreation, and that purpose was clearly defined… We were walking toward the commitment of marriage, not simply seeing how romantically involved we could become for the sake of good time… [W]e weren’t simply trying to get swept up in our emotions. Instead we were letting our feelings grow naturally out of our deepening respect, friendship and commitment to one another. Setting clear course for a defined season of courtship helped us keep from rushing into involvement with our hearts and bodies before we had time to get to know each other’s mind and character (p. 28).

We should’t make courtship a bigger deal than it really is. It’s a time for the couple to get to know each other without outside pressure or overly high expectations (p. 29).

The only pressure a couple should feel when they begin a courtship is the good pressure God’s Word places on them to honor Him and treat each other with purity and integrity. It is this desire that can keep us from making courtship just dating with a different name (p. 29).

So even though a courtship shouldn’t be too serious, too soon, it shouldn’t be embarked on lightly either. In one sense, courtship is a commitment— It’s a promise not to play game with anotherperson’s heart. In that sense it’s serious. It’s a willingness to honestly explore the merits of a lifelong commitment (p. 29).

The point of the relationship will be to consider marriage (p. 29).

The teacher smiles. “Don’t worry about the other students,” he says. “I’ve carefully chosen brushes and paints for each of you. Trust me, you have what you need to complete the assignment. Remember, your goal is not to create a painting that mirrors the person next to you, but to do your best with the materials I’ve given you to replicate my painting (p. 31).”

We can each rest in the knowledge that God is sovereign over our life’s situation. No matter where we are today or what mistakes we’ve made in the past, He has given us everything we need to glorify Him right now (p. 31).

So what is courtship?… It’s dating with a purpose. It’s romance chaperoned by wisdom. It’s a way of approaching relationships that can help us live out the truth of God’s Word as we persuit our heart’s desire. It’s a story of boy meets girl, where— whether you choose to marry or not— you can get to know each other in the confidence that you have only God’s very best ahead for each of you (p. 32).

    After my graduation in 2007, I began to further upgrade my knowledge in phonology and foreign language teaching. This was not only for an academic reason, which was my hope to improve my levels in English and Chinese. A more important reason was that I truly believe that we as contemorary human beings of the 21st Century, who come from different countries, nations, and speak different mother tongues, are now having an unpresedented need for inter-communication and mutual understanding.

    Many people say that English has now become the universal language in the world,  therefore it is bringing an unnecessary troule onto oneself to learn another language besides English and one’s first languguage. I used to think that such an opinion was reasonable. After all, I live in Italy, and my future family, work place and so on will be in my own country. Why should I bother to initiate interactions with foreigners? Later at university,  I learned about the Universe of the East Asia. Only then did I realize that with the progression of globaliztion and the booming of technology, such words as “border”, “distance”, and even the basic notions of “my place” and “your place” have lost their specific meanings. Right now, I am speaking to you from my small home in Italy. However, if I go to live in China tomorrow, or in Botwana, should I not remain the same man? I would still be me!

    Yet, even though globalization and advanced technologies have helped the humankind overcome many obstacles, problems still exist in communications among individuals. I think the first step of solving the problems in the communications in our time is to learn about the different backgounds of various cultures with effort. And this first step must begin with studying the languages which represent those cultures. For example, when a foreigner is willing to step into the cultural world of a Chinese, with only English, it would be very difficult for him to connect with the Chinese people who do not know this foreign language (English). Then he would not be able to carry on the conversation without an interpretor. In other words, he could only convey his ideas and thoughts to others through this filtering global language from England.

    On the contrary, if I know some Chinese, I can then chat with Mr. Zhang and Mrs. Zhou, or even with the elderly gentleman who practices Qigong or plays with his birds in the park. I can have a direct dialogue even with him.

    Every nation (people) is not only its population, economy, traditions and customs. It is more an angle, a way of managing the complexity of life. Every nation (people) also represents an attitude it has towards the future, its concerns, its dreams and its hopes. This, I think, is the clear difference between mere superficial understanding and true inter-communication.

    A language usually reflects the cultural background it represents, therefore it also embodies the psychological core of a nation. Only with a deep understanding of all these can we comprehend this simple truth: (What? What? What?)

    Basically, all human beings desire and demand for the same thing, to have a comfortable and peaceful life, and to pursuit happiness. The critical point is, different cultures come with different mindsets in approaching the delemas of ”what is a comfortable and peaceful life”, “how to lead such a life” and “how to pursuit happinese”. (Ah…..)

    The special features of each language also come from the differences in various mindsets. From this point of view, to learn a foreign language other than English is not a waste of energy and time, but a privilege. (the END)

    This software is generally offering to create an online or virtual  real-life dialogue situation to train the learners’ language skills on listening, speaking reading and writing. According to the advertisement, this software is designed for learning 28 languages.

    It is also visible that the pedagogy of this language software is in favour of the idea of modifying the ways in which native speakers use the languages and use it as a focus, as it suggests that there is no translation and grammar drills.

    My questions for this add are (1) How can you be so confident in guaranteeing the learners can learn a language fast by using your software? (2) Do you think the native-speaker way is the most suitable way for everyone to learn a language? How about Cook (1999)”s notion of multicompetance? I(3) If you are not sure the native-speaker way is the best way of language learning, how can you guarantee the FASTEST learning outcome? How fast is that?

    However, it is interesting and important to look at exams and tests at school to consider the roles they play in an education system and and where they are taking the people in this system, the teachers, students, their families, And perhaps, in an even broader sense, what do exams in a certain education system affect the community and culture in which it is present. This topic mighgt be discussed in further postings.