Started on September 22, 2024 at KAMC ABQ. Every Sunday at 1:30 pm.

He’s created his own curriculum based around Bible Panorama by Terry Hall, and another that seems to be in a series related to that. It’s excellent that the church members get to experience a survey of the whole Bible using a rather time-tested book, and I went in just as a personal refresher. Most of the material is supposed to be a direct quote from the book, so I don’t expect to have much beef to pick on except for the echos of Hall’s lean to dispensationalism and Koo’s personal slant towards it. (George Ladd’s works have even put the most dispensational seminaries to the middle, and yet it is still perpetuated as a gospel among some.) Having a personality that analyzes everything in-depth, this is a mere outlet for me, not any negative criticism of the person doing the teaching here. In other words, definitely not an ad hominem argument, but mere response to things that stuck out as ear sores. Echoing Augustine’s dictum of plurality in non-essentials, unity in essentials, and charity in all things, I find myself wanting to be gracious while finding it extremely difficult to see wrong things being taught through this class.

This will be pinned during the duration of this study (possibly 8+ sessions.)

Teaching style

• As often is the case, he seems to reaffirm the Dunning-Kruger effect. Maybe it comes with the age, but he’s unafraid to be speak as though it is the only interpretation even though there are more in-depth interpretations available. Although it is a commonly held conception, it isn’t a correct interpretation (e.g. “God is more pleased with blood sacrifice than a grain offering.”) given the context, i.e. Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s. It annoys me to no end when someone makes absolute their opinions rather than merely teach what the Bible teaches.

9/22

• Not much issue came to surface, except for his fascination, and what almost sounds like an adoration of Buddhist monks’ harsh asceticism. It is indeed rather interesting that the famous Korean Buddhist monk Seong-cheol had acknowledged the existence of hell and the intractable nature of sin, however, given the Biblical context in which even demons know Christ and the truth of supernatural beyond the visible, it isn’t anything more than an interesting factoid. (One doesn’t need 40 years of meditation to come up with such notions, even though Koo seems to believe it was somehow an independent discovery?!) Qrn’s writer did it surprisingly well and more simply by observing Jews and Christians around him.)

9/29

• Instead of offering to the audience, the commonly held opinion of the reason why God accepted Abel’s offering over Cain, he stated it as if it’s the one and only reason, although the biblically informed interpretation would put the scope around the text itself, and not try to go beyond that. This may be a layman’s mistake, and may point to his inexperience of teaching in such context, but rather annoying to me when he added that, “God is not pleased with the grain offering.” He apparently threw out baby with the bath water out of the window the fact that in the Mosaic covenantal law, God does indeed command for grain offering, and there’s no indication in the Bible that God is more pleased with blood sacrifice over grain offering, and yet this is what Koo taught to my dismay.
• Another sigh of reluctance with his teaching that Catholics removed the second commandment, “Thou shall not make graven images.” He doesn’t seem to know that the groupings of commandments are merely different, and that even Lutherans shares the same grouping with RCC. The commandment of not making graven images is lumped up in the first commandment, and yet treading the footsteps of Catholic bashers, he boldly states as if Catholics had removed the commandment. I’m not sure if he left out Lutherans (i.e. Rev. Brian Earl) intentionally, or if it was out of ignorance. I’m not sure if it was from the Korean version of the book, Bible Panorama, but it commits a sin of omission by misrepresenting the first commandment by leaving out the rest of the text for the first commandment on the Catholic side in the illustration. (At this point, I’m reminded that in religious context, confidence whilst lacking proper education and knowledge can be a rather dangerous thing. I don’t know if I have the energy to deal with a stubborn old man who seems to have made up his mind about a lot of things he has no business about being too confident about.)
• The third thing that stuck out is his pointed statement that the main theme of the Bible is about territory, while repeatedly saying that the Earth is owned by Satan. It’s increasingly becoming clear as to what kind of horizon of interpretation he’s on. Nowhere in the Bible teaches that Satan owns the Earth, although he’s given power (most of English translation uses the word dominion) over it. The book of Job is clear that the ultimate sovereignty and ownership is with God, not Satan. Koo’s view is that the kingdom of God is about retaking of Satan’s territory.
• Note: I had to leave exactly at 2:30 pm to help out with Brian’s ministry at Aki Matsuri, and apparently, there were more material he had covered after 2:30 pm. The class won’t be held for next two weeks over his business trip.