How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Book Writing in TTC Singapore - Part 9

It has been almost a week already since I am back in my seminary office after returning from my 4-week research and writing break at Trinity Theological College, Singapore. While in Singapore, I was working on my second book in which I explored Paul's use of images in the Corinthian correspondence. The major thesis of this book is that Paul carefully and deliberately selects familiar images such as temple, building, athlete, body, etc, in his epistles to build up this community that he calls the ekklesia that is transformed by the power of the gospel, and how the same could also be said for the ekklesia in the 21st century, that we too could be the alternative assembly (to borrow the language of Horsley) for our community.

While working on this book, I was reminded that this was never intended to be a lonely journey. Neither was my attempt to look at how Paul hopes to build up the community in Corinth to be carried out by locking myself in the library all the time. I was very glad that I had the opportunity to do research and reflection within the context of community in Singapore.

I am very thankful to have met so many people in Singapore - both old friends and newly made friends. Tony Siew welcome me to Singapore by taking me out for dinner on my first day of arrival, and we had opportunity to catch up over several meals throughout the period I was in Singapore. Joshua took me out for meals, coffee and also book shopping. Soo Inn invited me, together with Vinoth Ramachandra and his lovely wife Karin, to his home for a very delicious home-cooked dinner. I also had the opportunity to have coffee with Kenny and two other friends. King, my contemporary from my undergraduate days who is now an Anglican priest at Marine Parade Christian Centre, and I had several meals together. Vincent, a new friend also made me felt at home in Singapore. It was also great meeting Alex and his family for dinner (and I am reminded that Agnes, Alex's lovely wife, is still having some problems in balancing the bill for treating my injured ankle sustained during our Greece trip in May this year). Of course, it was great meeting up with Cher and Chee Ying, Susan, Ong and Jessie, and Wang Yen.

Thank you, all of you, for being the Christ-community for me and for making my writing and reflection a deeply meaningful and unforgettable experience. All of you have made my 4-week stay at TTC a very memorable one indeed.

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Book Writing in TTC Singapore - Part 8

Time really flies. Today is my last day at Trinity Theological College, Singapore, working on my second book project. This evening, I will be making my way home.

It has been a very fruitful 4-week stay at Trinity, literally locking myself in the conducive library from 9-5 every weekday, trying to work on my book on Paul's Use of Images in the Corinthian Correspondence.

The reading room - where I have been hiding myself for the past 4 weeks

Over the last couple of days, I have been thinking about the flow of the book, and decided to add another chapter, bringing it to a total of 11 chapters. In my attempt to consider the images used in 1 & 2 Corinthians, I am further convinced that Paul does not simple pluck these images from the vacuum, neither does he use them merely for the sake of rhetoric in order to enhance the force of his argument. Rather, Paul's choice of images is deliberate and calculated. These images are carefully selected not just simply to persuade, correct, or instruct the Corinthians, they are employed for a wider specific purpose: to build up the community and to create a Christian identity among the predominant Gentile community in Corinth.

In this book, I will be examining a series of images used by Paul as reflected in the Corinthian correspondence, ranging from temples, body, commercial transactions, to images borrowed from the building and construction industry. These images, drawn from the Greco-Roman milieu, are very familiar to Paul's audience, but their impact to the original audience is unfortunately lost or reduced to a 21st century reader who may not have a full understanding of the 1st century world.

It is my purpose to explore these images and examine how they would have impacted the Corinthians as Paul strives to build up this community he calls the ekklesia - an alternative assembly (to borrow the language of Richard Horsley) in Corinth that is transformed by the power of the gospel, and how the same could also be said for the ekklesia in the 21st century, that we too could be that alternative assembly for our community.

Over the next few months, I will continue to reflect, write, rewrite and rewrite the materials. I target to complete the manuscript by the middle of 2009. By then it is time to work on my 3rd book, where I will be co-authoring with two others, on Jesus: His Life and Message, to be published by SPCK. More about the 3rd book later. Right now, it is time to finish browsing through a few more books, and to pack up!

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Book Writing in TTC Singapore - Part 7

The facade of the library from my apartment

This is my final week in Trinity Theological College, Singapore, working on my book. I must say I have grown to love this place. The library is a real pleasure to work in. With the semester break now on, the library is almost deserted and quiet.

The past 3 weeks or so have been productive for me. Not only I have done significant progress in my writing, I also have a clearer direction how the shape of the book will take. Should there be no more changes, there would be a total of 10 chapters of approximately 3,000-3,500 words for each chapter, a rather comfortable length for a chapter, giving a total book length of approximately 100-120 pages.

The stacks of the rather well-equipped library

I have done most of the groundwork for 8 of the 10 chapters, and hope to get another chapter done this week. The final chapter is to bring together all my argument in a coherent manner, and this would only be done at a later stage. For the next few months, I will be working on tidying up the flow of each of the chapters, and I anticipate this would take some months as my teaching load for the first semester of the 2009 academic year is really crazy and heavy.

Personally, I wish I have another month in Singapore to work on my book. But in any case, I am thankful that I have this 4-week short sabbatical, without which I would never be able to even set out working on the book.

The Advantage of Writer's Block

Just when I thought that I have been progressing rather well with the writing for my second book, it turned out that today is one of those days that no matter how hard I tried, I could not churn out anything meaningful and coherent at all. Instead of trying to push myself harder, I decided to call it a day at about 3.30pm.

So what would I do for the rest of the day? Suddenly, I remembered a partner-in-crime informed me earlier today of a bookstore having a hard-to-resist-30%-discount-sale for most books. So that was it. I did not have to think further, and immediately I jumped on the bus to the bookstore. As a result, I picked up the following 3 books that have been in my Amazon.com Wish List at a real bargain price.

So I have no regrets for having a writer's block today.

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Book Writing in TTC Singapore - Part 6

Time flies - I have been here in Singapore for 2 weeks already! I have only less than 2 weeks here to put in as much work as possible for my second book project. Now I wish I have more time here.

On last Friday, the library was closed. So that means that I am "forced" to have a day off - something I would not complain. It was nice to have a day off just to refocus on the stuff that I have been working on, and also to have the opportunity to meet up with a couple of friends based in the National University of Singapore.


I also took the opportunity to walk around and explore the campus - here are some photos.

The imposing main entrance to the college, with the symbol of the cross clearly visible from the main road frontage, Upper Bukit Timah Road

The main administrative block

The rock fountain at the courtyard, with the halls of residence and the dining hall at the background



The facade of the library, and the chapel is located on level 4


The chapel

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Book Writing in TTC Singapore - Part 5

The triple-volume height reading room

How time flies. It's been more than a week since I arrived Trinity Theological College, Singapore, working on my second book project. I have been enjoying my time here, utilising the excellent resources available in the library.

The spacious reading room

View from the reading room, looking out to the courtyard and halls of residence

I particularly like the triple-volume height reading room which creates a generous sense of space for those who are working here. The clever use of glass panels surrounding the reading room not only allows the morning sun to penetrate it, giving a sense of warmth for the readers; it also allows one to look out to the aesthetically landscaped courtyard and halls of residence, providing one a necessary and welcome change of scenery from the books and computer screens.

Would anyone fancy a game of chess in the library? This is my favourite spot in the reading room

Thus far, my time has been rather productive working on my book, and have written about 15,000 words since I arrived Singapore. I have a better sense of the direction of the book and how I would like the flow of my argument to take. Since I have intended this book to be targeted at a rather popular level catering to an informed audience, I have to be mindful in limiting my footnote references and staying clear on the main course of getting the message across without being dragged into the seemingly unending scholarly debates of some of the wider issues.

What am I working on? I am looking at how Paul uses images/metaphors in his Corinthian correspondence with the specific purpose of building up the community, leading to the creation of a Christian identity; and how we can also appropriate Paul's teaching in the context of the 21st century church in the contemporary setting in Asia. I will blog more about this in the coming days.

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Wet Singapore - Part 4

Since my arrival into Singapore, it suddenly seems that the British wet and gloomy weather has hit this tropical city state. It has been raining quite a fair bit for the past few days (and I have not been able to jog for the past few days). I have a speculative theory why this may be so as I suddenly realised to my horror something rather disturbing (for me) and yet comical (for some of my friends) this afternoon. And I really hope against all hope that my eyes are playing tricks on me....!

The view from the library where I have been seating for the past few days - wet and gloomy!

Book writing is progressing rather well - written about 7,800 words in 3 days. I have finished the bulk of the introductory chapter, and another main chapter. I will blog about my book project in some depth later. Stay tuned!

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Arrived TTC - Part 3

I arrived Trinity Theological College on Monday afternoon, and quickly settled in the apartment allocated for my 4-week stay here. It is a very nice fully furnished 1-bedroom apartment with kitchenette.

Immediately after arrival, I headed straight to the library and ransacked the shelves for some of the books I need to work on my book project. I must say that I have been rather productive, and have written about 5,500 words (complete with footnotes!) in about 48 hours. This is a great achievement for me! But I am less certain if I am able to keep up with this pace in the following days to come (well - most of the stuff I have written have been swimming in my head for a while already and they form the bulk of the introductory chapter). And again, not all that has been written will see the light eventually.

It is not all work and no play for the budding NT scholar. On Monday, the first day of arrival, Tony Siew who is a faculty member of TTC and a good friend, together with his wife, took me out for dinner. Then on Tuesday, I met up briefly with Joshua Woo after his Greek exam (if you would like to know how he fared in his exam, you can read it here). Then I had lunch with a good old friend who is currently a priest at the Marine Parade Christian Centre. He has recently completed his Master of Theology at TTC. Our path first crossed more than 20 years ago in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia where we were both undergraduates in the same faculty. In the evening, I caught up with another dear friend who mentored me during my formative years in university and had dinner together with his family. On Wednesday, both Tony and I had the privilege of meeting up with blogpastor, Kenny Chee for lunch. We had a great time together.

I better get back to some writing before retiring for the night....Let's see whether I can hit 6,000 words??!!

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Second Book Writing Project at TTC - Part 2

I will be heading off to Singapore in a very short while. I will be spending about a month in Trinity Theological College working on my proposed second book project on Paul and the Corinthians. I will blog more about the book project after I settle down in TTC.

During my time there, I also hope to catch up with friends and relatives in the evenings and over the weekends. So it is not all work and no play!

How Does A Biblical Scholar Spend His Long Vacation? Second Book Writing Project at TTC - Part 1

Barring unforeseen circumstances, it looks like I will be heading down south to Trinity Theological College (TTC) for 4 weeks (from Nov 10 - Dec 5, 2008) to work on my second book project on Paul's correspondence to the Corinthians. I wish I could stay longer, but that's all the time I could afford. Being a junior and new lecturer at STM, I do not have the luxury of an extended sabbatical where I could spend concentrated time in my writing project. As such, the best I could spare is to squeeze 4 weeks out of the year end long vacation to go away to work on this book, and do the best I could out of these 4 weeks.

TTC is very kind to allocate an apartment on-campus for my 4-week stay where I could have access to the excellent library resources and facilities.