Last night at chapel, I was listening to the brother expound on the resurrection of Christ and the appearance to Mary. The preaching sparked a thought that I had had in the past (and of course, which has been discussed to death in commentaries) but I wanted to put down some views on paper. Why did Christ tell Mary not to touch Him when later on in John 20 He’s telling Thomas to touch Him?
Tags: ascension, john, mary
Posted in study | Comments (1)
How would you deal with the question: “When did the Son of God exist?” Notice that it’s not asking “when was the Word created” or “Is Jesus eternal?” The question is specifically asking about the Son of God and doing that assuming a whole bunch of things about what it means to be the Son of God.
Tags: christ, son of God, the Word, trinity
Posted in apologetics, christ, eschatology, study, the father, trinity | Comments (2)
At times, we find that our logic has limits so we reach to our Bible and our Strong’s concordance and find exactly how our opponent falls short of what Scripture Is Actually Saying. Unfortunately we go and use Scripture in exactly the way it shouldn’t be used and find that even though we might technically be making a good point we’re using Scripture in a wrong way to support that point. So I’ve decided to put together a post that shows the wrong way to use Scripture and although I use specific examples these are indicative of the types of things folk do all the time:
Tags: bible study, exegetical fallacies
Posted in apologetics, study | Comments (0)
With the tri-fold assumptions in place: (1) the Church is made up of people; (2)that the Church could only come about after certain historical requirements were in place; and (3) that the Church’s leadership is divine (in other words: God is the church’s leader), we can safely move on to the purpose, or goal, of the Church. An ambitious goal for one post but that’s what you can expect from a probable-heretic.
Tags: new testament church
Posted in church, israel, study | Comments (0)
Why even have assumptions anyway? I mean, why can’t I simply study The Church without any assumptions whatsoever, like a theological tabula rasa?
Tags: assumptions, logic, new testament church
Posted in Uncategorized, church, study | Comments (2)
Psalm 137 is gorgeous and some would say “almost perfect”. Lots of Psalms fall into that category in people’s minds: that Almost Perfect slot. You usually know where people feel any Psalm falls short during the Lord’s Supper when one of the brothers is sharing a Psalm and stops just short of the end. Surely the rest of the Psalm was right and nice…but that last bit really threw the whole thing off. Psalm 137 is, once again, a perfect example.
Tags: imprecatory prayer, psalms, suffering
Posted in pray, sin, study | Comments (2)
Should we pray imprecatory prayers? You know, the type like the Psalm 137 where we ask for God for payback and then list cruel things like dashing babies against rocks?
Well, I think the question is phrased all wrong if we’re looking to justify cruelty.
Posted in pray, study | Comments (3)
What sort of teacher am I? Every now and then I get in a black funk where I start reexamining my motives or questioning any gift the Lord has granted or checking the barometric pressure of my big head and I sit off to the side, somberly reflecting. Maybe its that I’m tired (two kids plus one newborn can do that) or maybe its that I’m in a new area where my ministry has changed from working with urban minority teens and college age folk to working mostly with rural, white over-sixty year olds that’s causing this reflection. I don’t know what’s causing it but this time I decided to write it down.
Posted in acts, church, human, personal, religion, rey's a point, study | Comments (0)
This post is home to my study in Romans.
Posted in romans, study | Comments (0)
This all is a radical difference from our previous lives and Paul makes a point to set up the truly transforming nature of his gospel. We’re not to simply fall into the habits of this world around us by doing those things we previous didwe must be transformed in our minds.
Here some Christians will raise a banner that we need new thinking, chaste thinking: Christian Thinking. And in so doing a plethora of marketing merchandise comes out like wrist bands asking us What Jesus Would Do or fish bumper icons or a crown of thorn tattoo with the words.
Posted in acts, church, romans, sin, spirit, study | Comments (0)
Present your bodies not someone else’s body. And the whole entire body, not just the grumbling part or the angry part, but all of it to be offered as a sacrifice.
I’m reminded of two examples from the Old Testament. One is from Leviticus 1 where the offering is brought to the Lord and consumed on the altar as a well-pleasing sacrifice: a soothing aroma to the Lord. The entire thing is consumed in the fire and is pleasing to the Lord but that’s easy for a dead animal: after all, the thing is alive till it gets to the tabernacle then someone slits its throat and has its corpse on the altar. Living Sacrifices have a problem with staying on hot altars, or so the saying goes.
But then we have the second example of Numbers chapter 8 where the Levites are chosen by God to do special work. They remember their past: they’ve been rescued from the bondage of Egypt and delivered from the power of Pharaoh. They have crossed the great divide of the Sea and passed from one side through the other and they were being led to an inheritance and here they stood: a people freed by God and now His. They were cleansed, they were reminded of their salvation and they were told to serve Him in the tent of meeting.
Posted in acts, church, romans, study, worship | Comments (0)
What mercies of God is he holding up as the logical progression that he can hold a “therefore” next to?
Well, chapters 9 through 11 of Romans reflect God’s right to show mercy to whoever He willsboth to the believers and to the unbelievers alike. Paul concerned about the salvation of Israel shows how Israel has been set apart so that God could show them that they are not believers and thus show mercy to the whole lot of them. God’s incomprehensible yet awesome wisdom that he would show mercy to a peoplewho were not His people (namely us old Gentiles) so that He could show mercy to His actual people who were being stiff necked and disobedient.
And there’s God shouting out to stubborn Israel “All the day long I have stretched out my arms to a disobedient and obstinate people!” Can you see the picture? God like a Father stretching His arms out to His stubborn child waiting to show mercy and forgiveness!
Posted in romans, salvation, study | Comments (0)
Sometimes verses like Romans 12:1 fall into the Christian canyon of sanctified bumper-sticker sayings. Sometimes it’s a call to arms for hormone-crazed teens (or so youth teachers have often taught): in light of God being a good God, present your bodies to himundefiled by immorality. Other times it’s phrased in such a way as if it were obligatory payback; kind of how you treat a good boss.
Posted in acts, study, text/language | Comments (0)
So what is righteousness anyway? What is God’s righteousness? What rightessness did the Gentiles attain and the Jews fell short of? I’ve spoken about this before and more often than not people say something like “Righteousness is goodness.”
But note the text states that the Gentiles were not pursuing righteousness: we can’t say they weren’t pursuing goodness. It would be ridiculous to state that for years upon years Gentiles were ignoring The Good and trying to attain only evil especially in light of the moral arguments of philosophers prior to Paul’s day.
Rather this righteousness was attained by faith and here people will be quick to interject their arguments about the Jews working for their salvation in the Law and the Law being useless and the Law detracting from Grace, but hold one minute. This is God’s Law, a perfect and holy and just law: how dare we.
Paul says that Israel was “pursuing a law of righteousness but did not arrive at that law.” Note what’s being stated here, the Jews were actually following the law of righteousness yet they didn’t grip the law, come to terms with it, arrive at it.
Here our Gentile minds start filling up arguments that Jesus was the only one that kept the entire law perfectly thus actually being the only man to have kept the Law.” And when we mention the Sabbath we get into sticky territory where we border on the edge of blaspheming the Lord by either supplanting the Sabbath or ascribing it to some tripartite division of the Law under the Ceremonial header or merely getting rid of the thing altogether.
They didn’t pursue God’s Law of Righteousness by faith but as though it were something to be attained by their doing so then they stumbled over the stumbling stone.
Here’s what Paul is actually saying. The Law wasn’t describing how to be good, although it did do that, nor was it describing what exactly you have to do to be saved on your own accord. The Law by making its propositions of do and do not is describing, by inference somebody who doesn’t have to be told all that.
I am reminded of the Father who tells the child “sit up in class, listen very well and take notes” knowing full well that such sort of actions point to an individual who will do well from that sort of attentioneven if that individual is a myth in dad’s mind.
But the Law was perfect and belonged to God so there’s no hypothetical’s about it. The Law was pointing to an individualnot to individuals who could actually earn the status the Law was pointing to. That’s where Israel stumbled, on the stone that was laid down and by its very existence points out that no one could attain that status: it can only be bestowed and that by faith (note Romans chapter 4 for further analysis on faith).
Therefore Israel is not saved because of the way they tried to attain a perfectly right righteousness: by earning it. With this fact in mind Paul finds himself still praying for their salvation!
Posted in israel, study | Comments (0)
Last time I said that God’s unmerited mercy was being poured out on vessels of wrath: stupid, pagan Gentiles who weren’t even looking for God in the first place—but what about Israel, these vessels that were prepared beforehand for glory? What about their fate?
Paul’s overarching point, if you recall, is especially concerned with the salvation of unsaved Israel—a point that seems to be quickly ignored in many debates. If the argument here is that God has decided not to save Israel there is truly a problem with God’s word which will always stand yet in Paul’s day (and presently) Israel as a whole does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
The evidence stands against them for the prophets had spoken about God’s mercy left and right (a fact that is overwhelmingly ignored when looking at God in the Old Testament). Speaking about a cast off Israel, God through Hosea says He will take those cast off Israelites and call them His People and they will thus be called living sons of the living God. Speaking about a chastised Israel, Isaiah says that the entire Israelite nation will not be wiped out but there would be a remnant, a small shoot, that will be saved and preserve Israel for God has left them this posterity instead of wiping them out like Sodom and Gomorrah.
So God did in fact show mercy to Israel that He hasn’t wiped them out and He doesn’t intend to wipe them out but currently Israel does not believe because in the way they pursued God’s righteousness.
Posted in israel, salvation, study | Comments (0)
Rey's Personal Blog