Over the course of about 4-5 months, the Bible study I lead read and studied the book of Acts. I am going to use my notes to create a series of posts that go through the entire book in small sections depending on where a coherent stopping point is in the text. I am going to attempt to keep these relatively short (less than 20 minutes; there are 8 posts that are 20 minutes or longer) so that if you are interested in studying Acts with each post, it won't be too overwhelming trying to read a lot of scripture and look at the post as well. This post will serve as an index where you can find all of the posts for the entire book. As I finish each post, I will update this one with the appropriate link. I plan on posting these 5 times a week, which means it will take 13 weeks. The total running time is 12 hours, 26 minutes, 1 second. Here is the outline of the book as I will cover it:
Part 1: Introduction and Acts 1:1-11 (Jesus' instructions and ascension, 19:21)
Part 2: Acts 1:12-26 (Apostles wait for the promise of the Father and select a new apostle, 10:22)
Part 3: Acts 2:1-13 (The HS falls on the day of Pentecost, 10:25)
Part 4: Acts 2:14-21 (Peter's speech: Pentecost prophesied, 19:55)
Part 5: Acts 2:22-47 (Peter's speech: Preaching Jesus, 24:49)
Part 6: Acts 3:1-10 (Lame beggar healed, 6:36)
Part 7: Acts 3:11-26 (Peter preaches in Jerusalem, 15:16)
Part 8: Acts 4:1-12 (Apostles vs. Council, Round 1, Part 1, 10:46)
Part 9: Acts 4:13-22 (Apostles vs. Council, Round 1, Part 2, 14:04)
Part 10: Acts 4:23-31 (Boldness in witnessing, 11:20)
Part 11: Acts 4:32-5:16 (Joseph, Ananias, Sapphira, Signs and Wonders, 21:57)
Part 12: Acts 5:17-42 (Apostles vs. Council, Round 2, 20:30)
Part 13: Acts 6:1-7:1 (Deacons selected, Stephen arrested, 18:03)
Part 14: Acts 7:2-8 (Stephen's speech: Abraham, 13:45)
Part 15: Acts 7:9-16 (Stephen's speech: Joseph, 5:23)
Part 16: Acts 7:17-43 (Stephen's speech: Moses, 9:48)
Part 17: Acts 7:44-47 (Stephen's speech: Idolatry and the Temple, 6:34)
Part 18: Acts 7:48-53 (Stephen's speech: Answering of the charges, 13:56)
Part 19: Acts 7:54-8:3 (Stephen stoned, 7:20)
Part 20: Acts 8:4-25 (Church persecution and Samaria evangelized, 13:05)
Part 21: Acts 8:26-40 (Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, 15:05)
Part 22: Acts 9:1-19a (Saul converted, 15:07)
Part 23: Acts 9:19b-31 (Saul preaches Jesus, 11:44)
Part 24: Acts 9:32-43 (Peter works healings, 8:05)
Part 25: Acts 10:1-8 (Cornelius sends for Peter, 6:04)
Part 26: Acts 10:9-16 (Peter has a vision, 7:03)
Part 27: Acts 10:17-23a (Peter goes to Cornelius, 3:37)
Part 28: Acts 10:23b-48 (Peter delivers the Gospel to the Gentiles; the HS falls on them, 10:53)
Part 29: Acts 11:1-18 (Peter tells Jerusalem about the Gentiles, 6:36)
Part 30: Acts 11:19-30 (Disciples and then Barnabas and Saul in Antioch, 11:01)
Part 31: Acts 12:1-13:3 (James dies; Peter arrested and freed; Herod dies; Barnabas and Saul sent, 11:05)
Part 32: Acts 13:4-12 (Barnabas and Saul in Cyprus, 6:06)
Part 33: Acts 13:13-52 (Barnabas and Saul in Antioch in Pisidia, 18:48)
Part 34: Acts 14:1-7 (Barnabas and Paul in Iconium, 4:13)
Part 35: Acts 14:8-23 (Barnabas and Paul in Lystra, 6:04)
Part 36: Acts 14:24-28 (Barnabas and Paul in Antioch in Syria, 2:47)
Part 37: Acts 15:1-21 (Jerusalem Council, 14:10)
Part 38: Acts 15:22-35 (Council's Letter to Gentiles, 28:51)
Part 39: Acts 15:36-41 (The separation of Barnabas and Paul, 3:32)
Part 40: Acts 16:1-15 (Paul in Macedonia, Lydia converts, 12:38)
Part 41: Acts 16:16-40 (Paul jailed in Philippi, 14:21)
Part 42: Acts 17:1-9 (Paul in Thessalonica, 7:29)
Part 43: Acts 17:10-15 (Paul in Berea, 3:41)
Part 44: Acts 17:16-34 (Paul in Athens, 24:34)
Part 45: Acts 18:1-17 (Paul in Corinth, 6:39)
Part 46: Acts 18:18-23 (Paul travels to Antioch in Syria, 3:21)
Part 47: Acts 18:24-28 (Apollos in Ephesus, 5:46)
Part 48: Acts 19:1-20 (Paul in Ephesus, 17:52)
Part 49: Acts 19:21-41 (Riot at Ephesus, 10:27)
Part 50: Acts 20:1-16 (Paul in Macedonia, Greece, and Troas, 12:30)
Part 51: Acts 20:17-38 (Paul in Miletus speaks to Ephesian elders, 20:10)
Part 52: Acts 21:1-26 (Paul in Jerusalem, 19:05)
Part 53: Acts 21:27-36 (Paul arrested by Jews, 6:13)
Part 54: Acts 21:37-22:21 (Paul's speech to Jerusalem, 13:28)
Part 55: Acts 22:22-23:11 (Paul as a Roman vs. Council, 11:08)
Part 56: Acts 23:12-22 (Jews plot to kill Paul, 3:49)
Part 57: Acts 23:23-35 (Paul taken to Caesarea, 7:35)
Part 58: Acts 24:1-21 (Paul speaks to Felix the governor, 9:58)
Part 59: Acts 24:22-25:12 (Paul appeals to Caesar, 7:54)
Part 60: Acts 25:13-27 (Paul's case told to Agrippa, 2:16)
Part 61: Acts 26:1-32 (Paul speaks to Agrippa and Bernice, 18:35)
Part 62: Acts 27:1-12 (Paul sails for Rome, 4:14)
Part 63: Acts 27:13-44 (Storm while sailing and shipwreck, 6:15)
Part 64: Acts 28:1-10 (Paul in Malta, 3:25)
Part 65: Acts 28:11-30 and Summary (Paul in Rome, 28:32)
Monday, December 26, 2016
Monday, December 19, 2016
Book Review: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ
*This will be my last post of the year. Next week, December 26th, I am going to go ahead and post the index for my bible study on the book of Acts. This series will run Monday through Friday, from Monday, January 2nd to Friday, March 31st.The total running time for the series is about 12 hours. There are 65 posts, ranging in time from about 2 minutes to about 30 minutes, with most of them in the 10-15 minute range.*
I am going to do a quick review of the book: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ written by Robert M. Bowman, Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski. This is a short book for a topic so big, but it is packed with information about the subject on which it speaks. The book has a popular level feel to it; in both its writing style and its presentation. It is very easy to read, except one chapter that goes into several arguments about the Greek language. Despite its easy to read style however, in terms of the amount and level of information, it is academic in its scope. I have been surprised, after looking at the chapter titles and overall length, how chock full of useful and insightful information this book contains.
While this book is only about part of the Trinity, 2/3rds of it really, God the Father and Jesus Christ, it presents a clear understanding of how the New Testament writers carefully wrote about Jesus Christ in light of their strong belief that God is one. They clearly represent Jesus as God, but not as the Father. When I converted, this was a topic I struggled with mightily. How can it be that God is both the Father and the Son? The second time I ever read the Bible all the way through, I highlighted every reference I could find, in both the Old and New Testaments, that seemed to represent the Trinity. There were a lot. Once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere. This book has surprised me in how deep and broad the evidence is for the deity of Christ. Needless to say, Jesus is God, and this book is a great resource for i) affirming your own belief in the Godhood of the Son and ii) for defending this doctrine from skeptics and other "Christian" relgions (i.e. LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.) who deny this fact.
The authors make it real easy to absorb the basic information as well by offering an acrostic to remember for why Jesus is God: HANDS. They then fill in the reasons in each chapter. Here is the acrostic
Jesus shares the...
Honors due to God: worship, prayer to, singing to, faith in, reverence
Attributes due to God: eternal, uncreated, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, incomprehensible
Names of God: YHWH, Lord, Shepherd, Rock, Bridegroom, Savior, first and last
Deeds that God does: creation and sustainment of the universe, saving people from sin, spiritual blessings, speaking with absolute truth and authority, raising the dead, judges all humanity
Seat of God's throne: Jesus shares God's very position of divine rule over all creation
In closing, I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to better understand the fact that Jesus is God or those of you who may encounter "Christians" who do not affirm the Trinity and need a resource to defend what really is, the doctrine of the Christian faith. Here is a link: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ.
I am going to do a quick review of the book: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ written by Robert M. Bowman, Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski. This is a short book for a topic so big, but it is packed with information about the subject on which it speaks. The book has a popular level feel to it; in both its writing style and its presentation. It is very easy to read, except one chapter that goes into several arguments about the Greek language. Despite its easy to read style however, in terms of the amount and level of information, it is academic in its scope. I have been surprised, after looking at the chapter titles and overall length, how chock full of useful and insightful information this book contains.
While this book is only about part of the Trinity, 2/3rds of it really, God the Father and Jesus Christ, it presents a clear understanding of how the New Testament writers carefully wrote about Jesus Christ in light of their strong belief that God is one. They clearly represent Jesus as God, but not as the Father. When I converted, this was a topic I struggled with mightily. How can it be that God is both the Father and the Son? The second time I ever read the Bible all the way through, I highlighted every reference I could find, in both the Old and New Testaments, that seemed to represent the Trinity. There were a lot. Once you start looking for it, you see it everywhere. This book has surprised me in how deep and broad the evidence is for the deity of Christ. Needless to say, Jesus is God, and this book is a great resource for i) affirming your own belief in the Godhood of the Son and ii) for defending this doctrine from skeptics and other "Christian" relgions (i.e. LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.) who deny this fact.
The authors make it real easy to absorb the basic information as well by offering an acrostic to remember for why Jesus is God: HANDS. They then fill in the reasons in each chapter. Here is the acrostic
Jesus shares the...
Honors due to God: worship, prayer to, singing to, faith in, reverence
Attributes due to God: eternal, uncreated, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, incomprehensible
Names of God: YHWH, Lord, Shepherd, Rock, Bridegroom, Savior, first and last
Deeds that God does: creation and sustainment of the universe, saving people from sin, spiritual blessings, speaking with absolute truth and authority, raising the dead, judges all humanity
Seat of God's throne: Jesus shares God's very position of divine rule over all creation
In closing, I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking to better understand the fact that Jesus is God or those of you who may encounter "Christians" who do not affirm the Trinity and need a resource to defend what really is, the doctrine of the Christian faith. Here is a link: Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Monday, December 12, 2016
Jesus' Love and Our Sin
*Starting on Monday, January 2nd, I will be posting a Bible study of the
book of Acts. It will be posted in increments 5 days per week (Mon
through Fri) for 13 weeks (65 posts). I wanted to announce this early,
so that if you so desire, you can plan accordingly to read and study
along with my lessons. On the 2nd, an index post will go up (as well as
the first lesson) that will allow you to navigate more easily as the
series grows in size.*
Think about it for a minute; what are the first words of Jesus' ministry? Don't look down! Think! What are they? Many of you probably are thinking of Jesus' temptations right now. He quotes from Deuteronomy all three times that he rebukes the devil. That is not the beginning of his ministry though. Figure it out yet? It also is not his words to John the Baptist about "fulfill[ing] all righteousness" when he is baptized. Got it now? Jesus' first words of ministry are the following:
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt 4:17)
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)
It is striking to me that Jesus' first words in his mission to reconcile the lost to the Father were "repent". Repent literally means to change one's mind. Why did Jesus tell everyone to change their mind? Change their mind about what? Paul answers that in his letter to the Colossians. As he extols the majesty of Jesus Christ and his peacemaking mission by way of the cross, he follows that with this: "And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds," (Col 1:21). That is why Jesus called everyone to change their mind. They (and we!) were in open rebellion to God; alienated from Him, hostile in our thinking about Him, and sinning against Him in our every action. This is the direct result of our sin, which separates us from God with a chasm that we cannot ever hope to bridge under our own power.
The next question we must ask is: "Why?" Why did Jesus come down to earth to die for us if we were all in open rebellion against him (remember, Jesus is God) in both thought and deed? Now this you know: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Love. Jesus came because he loves us. That in and of itself is incredibly profound. But, we should keep reading. Because if we do, a fantastic insight can be found within the passage that goes with one of the most famous verses of all time. Here is John 3:16-18:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."
I want you to notice that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it. That means, in general, when Jesus is going around telling people about the Kingdom of God, he is not condemning them. He is telling them that he has come to save them if they will believe in him. Now think back to his first words. He told everyone to repent. In effect, he was telling everyone that they were sinful, separated from God, and what to do about it: Repent! Change your mind before it's too late! Jesus, in telling people that they were sinners and needed to repent, was not condemning anyone. Let's look at this in a logical syllogism:
1. If Jesus did not come to condemn the world, then his words and actions did not condemn anyone.
2. Jesus did not come to condemn the world. (John 3:17)
3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone.
Jesus told people about their sinful ways without condemning them. The insight here concerns our efforts to evangelize the lost. Many people are nervous about sharing the gospel because they are aware that they have to give the "bad news" before the "good news". People must understand that they are lost before they can understand that they need to be saved. This means telling them about their sinful ways and calling on them to repent and believe in Christ. Our culture has made it taboo to tell people that what they think is wrong and that you have the truth. This makes evangelism even more daunting because we are conditioned in many ways to think that if we tell someone they are wrong, then that is rude and intolerant. Our Lord Jesus Christ, always the counterculturalist, has another message: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In other words, you are wrong, everything is not okay with you, you need to be saved from yourself. This is part of the message you should be delivering to people when you share the gospel. Using Christ as our example and realizing, as I argued above, that Jesus' calling everyone to repentance was not condemnation, it can be seen that our evangelizing efforts that include merely telling people they are sinners and to repent isn't condemnation either. In fact, Jesus came because he loves us. Logic again:
1. If Jesus came because he loved the world, then his words and actions were loving towards the world.
2. Jesus came because he loved the world. (John 3:16)
3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions were loving towards the world.
And another:
1. Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone.
2. Jesus' words and actions were loving towards the world.
3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone and were loving towards the world.
Society is wrong. Telling people to repent because they are sinners is both loving and not condemnatory. This should give us comfort. Even if our society cannot see the truth of Jesus' words, we can trust that God, who knows all the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, is pleased when He sees us delivering the truth to a lost world.
Think about it for a minute; what are the first words of Jesus' ministry? Don't look down! Think! What are they? Many of you probably are thinking of Jesus' temptations right now. He quotes from Deuteronomy all three times that he rebukes the devil. That is not the beginning of his ministry though. Figure it out yet? It also is not his words to John the Baptist about "fulfill[ing] all righteousness" when he is baptized. Got it now? Jesus' first words of ministry are the following:
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt 4:17)
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)
It is striking to me that Jesus' first words in his mission to reconcile the lost to the Father were "repent". Repent literally means to change one's mind. Why did Jesus tell everyone to change their mind? Change their mind about what? Paul answers that in his letter to the Colossians. As he extols the majesty of Jesus Christ and his peacemaking mission by way of the cross, he follows that with this: "And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds," (Col 1:21). That is why Jesus called everyone to change their mind. They (and we!) were in open rebellion to God; alienated from Him, hostile in our thinking about Him, and sinning against Him in our every action. This is the direct result of our sin, which separates us from God with a chasm that we cannot ever hope to bridge under our own power.
The next question we must ask is: "Why?" Why did Jesus come down to earth to die for us if we were all in open rebellion against him (remember, Jesus is God) in both thought and deed? Now this you know: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Love. Jesus came because he loves us. That in and of itself is incredibly profound. But, we should keep reading. Because if we do, a fantastic insight can be found within the passage that goes with one of the most famous verses of all time. Here is John 3:16-18:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."
I want you to notice that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it. That means, in general, when Jesus is going around telling people about the Kingdom of God, he is not condemning them. He is telling them that he has come to save them if they will believe in him. Now think back to his first words. He told everyone to repent. In effect, he was telling everyone that they were sinful, separated from God, and what to do about it: Repent! Change your mind before it's too late! Jesus, in telling people that they were sinners and needed to repent, was not condemning anyone. Let's look at this in a logical syllogism:
1. If Jesus did not come to condemn the world, then his words and actions did not condemn anyone.
2. Jesus did not come to condemn the world. (John 3:17)
3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone.
Jesus told people about their sinful ways without condemning them. The insight here concerns our efforts to evangelize the lost. Many people are nervous about sharing the gospel because they are aware that they have to give the "bad news" before the "good news". People must understand that they are lost before they can understand that they need to be saved. This means telling them about their sinful ways and calling on them to repent and believe in Christ. Our culture has made it taboo to tell people that what they think is wrong and that you have the truth. This makes evangelism even more daunting because we are conditioned in many ways to think that if we tell someone they are wrong, then that is rude and intolerant. Our Lord Jesus Christ, always the counterculturalist, has another message: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." In other words, you are wrong, everything is not okay with you, you need to be saved from yourself. This is part of the message you should be delivering to people when you share the gospel. Using Christ as our example and realizing, as I argued above, that Jesus' calling everyone to repentance was not condemnation, it can be seen that our evangelizing efforts that include merely telling people they are sinners and to repent isn't condemnation either. In fact, Jesus came because he loves us. Logic again:
1. If Jesus came because he loved the world, then his words and actions were loving towards the world.
2. Jesus came because he loved the world. (John 3:16)
3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions were loving towards the world.
And another:
1. Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone.
2. Jesus' words and actions were loving towards the world.
3. Therefore, Jesus' words and actions did not condemn anyone and were loving towards the world.
Society is wrong. Telling people to repent because they are sinners is both loving and not condemnatory. This should give us comfort. Even if our society cannot see the truth of Jesus' words, we can trust that God, who knows all the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, is pleased when He sees us delivering the truth to a lost world.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Monday, December 5, 2016
God's Image in Man: Creation, Fall, Salvation
*Starting on Monday, January 2nd, I will be posting a Bible study of the book of Acts. It will be posted in increments 5 days per week (Mon through Fri) for 13 weeks (65 posts). I wanted to announce this early, so that if you so desire, you can plan accordingly to read and study along with my lessons. On the 2nd, an index post will go up (as well as the first lesson) that will allow you to navigate more easily as the series grows in size.*
In the previous two weeks we have discussed what God's image in man is not and what it is. We saw in the post about what God's image in man is that the attributes or characteristics that God has communicated to us that make up our being made in His image have all been corrupted by the putrefying effects of sin. Today, we are going to expand on that theme by looking at the image in the Garden of Eden in creation, what happened to the image when Adam fell, and finally, how God is restoring that image in His elect Church.
Creation is where we will start. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). As God created, things were good. Light was good (1:4); land and seas were good (1:10); vegetation was good (1:12); sun, moon, and stars were good (1:18); living creatures were good (1:25); everything He made was very good (1:31). When we look a bit closer at the creation of man we see that i) God made man in His image expressly to "have dominion" over all the animals (1:26), ii) both male and female were created in the image of God (1:27), and that iii) God blessed them in their dominion as His last act of creation on the sixth day (1:28-31).
In Genesis chapter 2 we see more specifics about the creation of man that give us some inferences about the image. Namely, that Adam was created with freedom, goodness, and rationality. His freedom is evident in 2:16-17. There God warns Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but he can eat any other tree he would like. When coupled with the fact that Adam ate from that tree in chapter 3, it becomes apparent that Adam had the freedom to choose to eat from the tree or not. In other words, Adam could have not sinned. Adam being created with goodness is seen in God's entrusting him with creation. Adam is told to work and keep it (2:15). In 1:29 Adam is told that the plants are to eat. If we consider these pieces of information together, it shows that Adam had the care of all the animals on the earth. This was part of his dominion as evidenced in his naming the animals in 2:19-20. This shows Adams' goodness, albeit not the moral perfection that God possesses, for the simple reason that God, being love itself, would not put someone/something who was not good in charge of His creation that He had declared very good (1:31). Finally, we see Adam's rationality, which is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason, in the fall. We actually see that the rationality was used to i) hide from God because they were naked and ashamed (3:8-10) and ii) to make excuses for eating from the forbidden tree; Adam blames Eve (3:12) and Eve blames the serpent (3:13). Now, of course, this is Adam and Eve using their rationality for the wrong purposes, but in these excuses we see that they were able to reason with the facts of their situation enough that they knew they must have done something wrong and their actions needed excuses to avoid culpability. This leads right into what happened to God's image in man as a result of the fall.
As I discussed in the second post of this series, there were consequences for the fall that directly affect the image of God in man. Humanity lost its freedom and became a slave to sin (Romans 6:16) displaying mainly the aspects of walking in the flesh that Paul says are opposed to the Spirit (Galatians 5:19-21). Humanity's goodness that Adam and Eve had in the garden was lost (Romans 3:9-18) and they were separated from God, unable to get back to His presence (Colossians 1:21). Humanity's rationality was corrupted by sin and bound to misunderstand creation, for example, and turn away from God (Romans 1:18-22). This rationality, due to its decay, also cannot be a reliable way in and of itself to discover God. The natural man cannot understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14-16) and needs the Holy Spirit to even call Jesus Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Ultimately, due to our rationality being broken, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to show people the way to God (John 16:8-15). But, even in the Garden of Eden, God already had a plan for the salvation of humanity and creation.
Genesis 3:14-15 says: "The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." In the end, God will defeat Satan and evil and death will be vanquished. But that would be to get ahead of ourselves all the way to redemption or glorification. What happens in the mean time? We can plainly see that even with Jesus' sacrificial death things are not right. Do we have to wait for the end for the image of God to be fixed? In a way, yes, the image will not be fixed completely until Christ returns and everything is remade. Right now though, through salvation in Christ, the image is being restored to those who by faith believe in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Typically, salvation is considered to contain three parts: justification, sanctification, and redemption or glorification. Justification is right legal standing before God. Justification is given by God to the sinner who has faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8). This justification makes us righteous in the sight of God (Romans 4:5). Along with justification we are remade. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 says: "From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." We see here that we are recreated when we are saved. This is the beginning of the restoration of the image of God in us. In our recreated state, we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:17-18) and our minds are no longer darkened to the truth of God's word (Ephesians 4:18). This means, being slaves to righteousness, that we are now "called to freedom" (Galatians 5:13) in Christ. Notice also in the 2 Corinthians passage from above that we are not regarded according to the flesh anymore. We have already talked about the fruit of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21), but Paul is contrasting those selfish behaviors with the unselfish behaviors found in the recreated saint as they walk in the Spirit. He says: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23a). Notice how much those things go to describing the perfect goodness of God. The more we walk in the Spirit, and by contrast, not by the flesh, the more we are like God. This moves us into the second aspect of salvation, sanctification.
Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives (Grudem, Systematic Theology, pg. 746). Sanctification is a lifelong process wherein we are being remade into God's image (2 Corinthians 3:18). Freedom is restored to us as we are constantly renewing our minds (Romans 12:1-2) and yielding ourselves to God (Romans 6:13). Freedom reigns in Christ for us and that allows us to live lives of faith wherein our intellect, emotions, will, and spirit are slowly being transformed to more resemble the original image of God that was imparted to Adam and Eve. Our intellect is renewed through the knowledge of God (Colossians 3:10; Philippians 1:9). Our emotions are unchained from their sinful desires and that allows us to display the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23a; 1 Peter 2:11) and put away negative emotions (Ephesians 4:31). Our will, or decision-making faculty, changes from wanting to rebel against God into wanting "to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). Our spirit is also cleansed is the sanctifying process (2 Corinthians 7:1). The image of God impacts every aspect of who we are and sanctification is the means by which God restores that image.
Finally, redemption or glorification, is the giving of the resurrection body by Christ to the elect. It will happen at the "last trumpet" when Christ returns (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). At this time, with glorified, perfect resurrection bodies, the image of God will be perfectly restored in us as the sanctification process is brought to completion by God. I will leave you with a passage from Paul, where he contrasts the corrupted image "of the man of dust" (Adam) that we have borne with the perfect image "of the man of heaven" (Jesus):
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:42-49)
In the previous two weeks we have discussed what God's image in man is not and what it is. We saw in the post about what God's image in man is that the attributes or characteristics that God has communicated to us that make up our being made in His image have all been corrupted by the putrefying effects of sin. Today, we are going to expand on that theme by looking at the image in the Garden of Eden in creation, what happened to the image when Adam fell, and finally, how God is restoring that image in His elect Church.
Creation is where we will start. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). As God created, things were good. Light was good (1:4); land and seas were good (1:10); vegetation was good (1:12); sun, moon, and stars were good (1:18); living creatures were good (1:25); everything He made was very good (1:31). When we look a bit closer at the creation of man we see that i) God made man in His image expressly to "have dominion" over all the animals (1:26), ii) both male and female were created in the image of God (1:27), and that iii) God blessed them in their dominion as His last act of creation on the sixth day (1:28-31).
In Genesis chapter 2 we see more specifics about the creation of man that give us some inferences about the image. Namely, that Adam was created with freedom, goodness, and rationality. His freedom is evident in 2:16-17. There God warns Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but he can eat any other tree he would like. When coupled with the fact that Adam ate from that tree in chapter 3, it becomes apparent that Adam had the freedom to choose to eat from the tree or not. In other words, Adam could have not sinned. Adam being created with goodness is seen in God's entrusting him with creation. Adam is told to work and keep it (2:15). In 1:29 Adam is told that the plants are to eat. If we consider these pieces of information together, it shows that Adam had the care of all the animals on the earth. This was part of his dominion as evidenced in his naming the animals in 2:19-20. This shows Adams' goodness, albeit not the moral perfection that God possesses, for the simple reason that God, being love itself, would not put someone/something who was not good in charge of His creation that He had declared very good (1:31). Finally, we see Adam's rationality, which is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason, in the fall. We actually see that the rationality was used to i) hide from God because they were naked and ashamed (3:8-10) and ii) to make excuses for eating from the forbidden tree; Adam blames Eve (3:12) and Eve blames the serpent (3:13). Now, of course, this is Adam and Eve using their rationality for the wrong purposes, but in these excuses we see that they were able to reason with the facts of their situation enough that they knew they must have done something wrong and their actions needed excuses to avoid culpability. This leads right into what happened to God's image in man as a result of the fall.
As I discussed in the second post of this series, there were consequences for the fall that directly affect the image of God in man. Humanity lost its freedom and became a slave to sin (Romans 6:16) displaying mainly the aspects of walking in the flesh that Paul says are opposed to the Spirit (Galatians 5:19-21). Humanity's goodness that Adam and Eve had in the garden was lost (Romans 3:9-18) and they were separated from God, unable to get back to His presence (Colossians 1:21). Humanity's rationality was corrupted by sin and bound to misunderstand creation, for example, and turn away from God (Romans 1:18-22). This rationality, due to its decay, also cannot be a reliable way in and of itself to discover God. The natural man cannot understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14-16) and needs the Holy Spirit to even call Jesus Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Ultimately, due to our rationality being broken, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to show people the way to God (John 16:8-15). But, even in the Garden of Eden, God already had a plan for the salvation of humanity and creation.
Genesis 3:14-15 says: "The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." In the end, God will defeat Satan and evil and death will be vanquished. But that would be to get ahead of ourselves all the way to redemption or glorification. What happens in the mean time? We can plainly see that even with Jesus' sacrificial death things are not right. Do we have to wait for the end for the image of God to be fixed? In a way, yes, the image will not be fixed completely until Christ returns and everything is remade. Right now though, through salvation in Christ, the image is being restored to those who by faith believe in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Typically, salvation is considered to contain three parts: justification, sanctification, and redemption or glorification. Justification is right legal standing before God. Justification is given by God to the sinner who has faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8). This justification makes us righteous in the sight of God (Romans 4:5). Along with justification we are remade. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 says: "From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." We see here that we are recreated when we are saved. This is the beginning of the restoration of the image of God in us. In our recreated state, we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:17-18) and our minds are no longer darkened to the truth of God's word (Ephesians 4:18). This means, being slaves to righteousness, that we are now "called to freedom" (Galatians 5:13) in Christ. Notice also in the 2 Corinthians passage from above that we are not regarded according to the flesh anymore. We have already talked about the fruit of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21), but Paul is contrasting those selfish behaviors with the unselfish behaviors found in the recreated saint as they walk in the Spirit. He says: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23a). Notice how much those things go to describing the perfect goodness of God. The more we walk in the Spirit, and by contrast, not by the flesh, the more we are like God. This moves us into the second aspect of salvation, sanctification.
Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives (Grudem, Systematic Theology, pg. 746). Sanctification is a lifelong process wherein we are being remade into God's image (2 Corinthians 3:18). Freedom is restored to us as we are constantly renewing our minds (Romans 12:1-2) and yielding ourselves to God (Romans 6:13). Freedom reigns in Christ for us and that allows us to live lives of faith wherein our intellect, emotions, will, and spirit are slowly being transformed to more resemble the original image of God that was imparted to Adam and Eve. Our intellect is renewed through the knowledge of God (Colossians 3:10; Philippians 1:9). Our emotions are unchained from their sinful desires and that allows us to display the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23a; 1 Peter 2:11) and put away negative emotions (Ephesians 4:31). Our will, or decision-making faculty, changes from wanting to rebel against God into wanting "to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). Our spirit is also cleansed is the sanctifying process (2 Corinthians 7:1). The image of God impacts every aspect of who we are and sanctification is the means by which God restores that image.
Finally, redemption or glorification, is the giving of the resurrection body by Christ to the elect. It will happen at the "last trumpet" when Christ returns (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). At this time, with glorified, perfect resurrection bodies, the image of God will be perfectly restored in us as the sanctification process is brought to completion by God. I will leave you with a passage from Paul, where he contrasts the corrupted image "of the man of dust" (Adam) that we have borne with the perfect image "of the man of heaven" (Jesus):
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:42-49)
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day
This week, again, I only have one link for you. The reason is that it is filled with a couple of dozen links to articles all concerned with one general topic: the authenticity of the Christmas story or more specifically, the infancy narrative of Jesus. I know many of us see/read/hear stories that come out this time of year every year that purport to tell us the "real" story or the "facts" about our Lord's birth. Dont' be fooled, people will do anything to remain in their rebellion against God and remember, Paul says we fight "...not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Eph 6:12) The devil certainly doesn't want people to know the truth. Christ's birth was the beginning of the end for Satan. I would also encourage parents and grandparents not to be caught without an answer for your children and grandchildren. I am always amazed at what Faith picks up and either says or asks questions about. One more thing: if you read nothing else from these links, read about the early Christian dating of Christmas. Many Christians believe that Christmas is merely the mixing of pagan festivals with Christian lingo and that this was part of a forced action of Constantine, the emperor of Rome, in order to get all the "Sun/Son" worshippers on the same page in the early 300's. This conspiracy theory is simply false. Read that article if you read nothing else. Without further ado, here's the link.
1. On Christmas Apologetics
1. On Christmas Apologetics
Monday, November 28, 2016
God's Image in Man: What is it?
In a previous post I discussed some things that God's image is not. Namely, His image in us does not mean that God has a physical body and His image in us does not mean that God is both male and female, He's neither. Now we want to address what God's image in man actually is. This list of items that are inherent to human character and attributes is not meant to be comprehensive (and neither was the NOT post), but simply a short list of some of the more important aspects of His image as imprinted in our natures. The items we will take a look at that make up some of what it means to have God's image in us are: freedom; moral perfection/goodness which entails patience, grace, love, holiness, justice, and mercy; rationality.
Freedom
The first item on this list is freedom. What I mean by freedom is the ability to make a decision without coercion. God has this attribute by virtue of the fact that He is the only necessary being. He neither relies on anything outside of Himself for existence or sustainment. As the sovereign Creator of all that exists, He can do whatever He wants. He has chosen to give humanity this same attribute, but, as I tried to explain in the first post, God's communicable attributes, those attributes that are communicated to humanity in some way, are not expressed the same way in human beings as they are in God. Adam and Eve, until they sinned, had the most freedom of any humans the world has ever seen, though they could never have overcome God's own will. Even someone as deterministic as John Calvin believed this. Of course, once they sinned, true freedom was lost. Thus Paul writes in Romans 6:16: "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" Adam and Eve became slaves to sin the moment they sinned in the Garden of Eden, and, just like them, we are trapped by our sin with a nature that is dominated by the flesh. Let's look at Paul again. Romans 5:12-14:
"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."
Sin came into the world through Adam, and then all men after him sinned and lost their freedom. Paul again in Titus 3:3: "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another." Paul's explanation of "we ourselves", which of course applies to all of us without Christ, is further bolstered when we look at how our will is bent to evil, and, in turn, our freedom is corrupted because of the coercing effects of sin. Paul explains the works of the flesh that come about from sin in Galatians 5:19-21: "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." In the end, humanity has lost the freedom it was granted in the garden to Adam and Eve due to sin. We do however, have the capacity to be free as Adam and Eve were before the fall and that is why this is part of God's image in man.
Goodness
Wayne Grudem defines God's goodness: "God is the final standard of good and all that God is and does is worthy of approval." God's goodness is moral perfection that expresses itself in everything that God does. This can be broken down into the attributes of God that fall under His goodness:
1. Patience: But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)
2. Grace, mercy, peace: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 John 1:3)
3. Love: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
4. Holiness: Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11)
5. Justice: O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. (Psalm 10:17-18)
God is all these things in absolute perfection. When He gave His image to man these attributes that make up goodness were included. Adam and Eve did not express them in the absolute perfection that God does, but they had them nonetheless. Of course, the same thing happened to these attributes as their freedom when they, and hence the rest of us, sinned. They are marred with the stain of sin. However, I think they still come out, maybe not in our actions all the time, but certainly in our thought processes. Paul is instructive once again in Romans 2:14-16: "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." Paul shows here that the law is written on every persons' heart. In other words, we know right from wrong even if we don't believe in God. In addition, I think most people, Christian or otherwise, would readily admit that there is something wrong with this world. Something wrong with the way people treat each other; something wrong with all the natural danger and destruction, etc. This is a part of God's image that is imprinted on each human being that enables them to recognize goodness and the lack thereof in the world.
Rationality
Aristotle classified man as a rational animal. Human beings are the only creatures that he classified this way. This is really what separates us from the rest of creation. We have the ability to reason and to think existentially. Animals, such as birds, fish, dogs, etc. cannot think rationally or logically. Really what we are talking about when we talk about rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason. Who doesn't want to be reasonable? That conjures images of someone who thinks before they act. They are not impulsive. They weigh the available evidence. They think through the positive and negative outcomes based on the choices they might make. I think everyone wants to be reasonable, at least to some degree. This ability to reason or to be rational comes from God. It is part of the image of God that has been given to us. There is a major difference of course. God's rationality, His weighing of evidence and outcomes is perfect and is informed by His perfect knowledge of everything and His perfect power to do anything. Our rationality is, once again, disfigured by sin. The Bible, from front to back, expects us to make decisions rationally. It does this because we have been imbued with this trait as part of the image of God. Here are a few examples:
Proverb 14:15: The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.
Proverb 19:2: Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21: Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
Acts 17:2-3: And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."
James 4:17: But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
More verses could be given, but the clear message is that reasoning through things and belief that follows evidence is the operating norm of the Bible.
These three things; freedom, goodness, and rationality, are part of what make up the image of God in man. You may have noticed though, that all of these things have been damaged by sin. Sin influences everything we are and everything God made us to be. While God does everything for His own glory, and so should we, but, one of the biggest subsidiary reasons for God to act in order to redeem the elect is to restore His image in man back to the state the image was in when Adam and Eve were innocent in the Garden of Eden. The next post will deal with those issues. What happened to the image of God in man when Adam sinned? How does this all tie in to the salvation of Christ's elect?
Freedom
The first item on this list is freedom. What I mean by freedom is the ability to make a decision without coercion. God has this attribute by virtue of the fact that He is the only necessary being. He neither relies on anything outside of Himself for existence or sustainment. As the sovereign Creator of all that exists, He can do whatever He wants. He has chosen to give humanity this same attribute, but, as I tried to explain in the first post, God's communicable attributes, those attributes that are communicated to humanity in some way, are not expressed the same way in human beings as they are in God. Adam and Eve, until they sinned, had the most freedom of any humans the world has ever seen, though they could never have overcome God's own will. Even someone as deterministic as John Calvin believed this. Of course, once they sinned, true freedom was lost. Thus Paul writes in Romans 6:16: "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" Adam and Eve became slaves to sin the moment they sinned in the Garden of Eden, and, just like them, we are trapped by our sin with a nature that is dominated by the flesh. Let's look at Paul again. Romans 5:12-14:
"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."
Sin came into the world through Adam, and then all men after him sinned and lost their freedom. Paul again in Titus 3:3: "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another." Paul's explanation of "we ourselves", which of course applies to all of us without Christ, is further bolstered when we look at how our will is bent to evil, and, in turn, our freedom is corrupted because of the coercing effects of sin. Paul explains the works of the flesh that come about from sin in Galatians 5:19-21: "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." In the end, humanity has lost the freedom it was granted in the garden to Adam and Eve due to sin. We do however, have the capacity to be free as Adam and Eve were before the fall and that is why this is part of God's image in man.
Goodness
Wayne Grudem defines God's goodness: "God is the final standard of good and all that God is and does is worthy of approval." God's goodness is moral perfection that expresses itself in everything that God does. This can be broken down into the attributes of God that fall under His goodness:
1. Patience: But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)
2. Grace, mercy, peace: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 John 1:3)
3. Love: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
4. Holiness: Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11)
5. Justice: O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. (Psalm 10:17-18)
God is all these things in absolute perfection. When He gave His image to man these attributes that make up goodness were included. Adam and Eve did not express them in the absolute perfection that God does, but they had them nonetheless. Of course, the same thing happened to these attributes as their freedom when they, and hence the rest of us, sinned. They are marred with the stain of sin. However, I think they still come out, maybe not in our actions all the time, but certainly in our thought processes. Paul is instructive once again in Romans 2:14-16: "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." Paul shows here that the law is written on every persons' heart. In other words, we know right from wrong even if we don't believe in God. In addition, I think most people, Christian or otherwise, would readily admit that there is something wrong with this world. Something wrong with the way people treat each other; something wrong with all the natural danger and destruction, etc. This is a part of God's image that is imprinted on each human being that enables them to recognize goodness and the lack thereof in the world.
Rationality
Aristotle classified man as a rational animal. Human beings are the only creatures that he classified this way. This is really what separates us from the rest of creation. We have the ability to reason and to think existentially. Animals, such as birds, fish, dogs, etc. cannot think rationally or logically. Really what we are talking about when we talk about rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason. Who doesn't want to be reasonable? That conjures images of someone who thinks before they act. They are not impulsive. They weigh the available evidence. They think through the positive and negative outcomes based on the choices they might make. I think everyone wants to be reasonable, at least to some degree. This ability to reason or to be rational comes from God. It is part of the image of God that has been given to us. There is a major difference of course. God's rationality, His weighing of evidence and outcomes is perfect and is informed by His perfect knowledge of everything and His perfect power to do anything. Our rationality is, once again, disfigured by sin. The Bible, from front to back, expects us to make decisions rationally. It does this because we have been imbued with this trait as part of the image of God. Here are a few examples:
Proverb 14:15: The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.
Proverb 19:2: Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21: Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
Acts 17:2-3: And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."
James 4:17: But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
More verses could be given, but the clear message is that reasoning through things and belief that follows evidence is the operating norm of the Bible.
These three things; freedom, goodness, and rationality, are part of what make up the image of God in man. You may have noticed though, that all of these things have been damaged by sin. Sin influences everything we are and everything God made us to be. While God does everything for His own glory, and so should we, but, one of the biggest subsidiary reasons for God to act in order to redeem the elect is to restore His image in man back to the state the image was in when Adam and Eve were innocent in the Garden of Eden. The next post will deal with those issues. What happened to the image of God in man when Adam sinned? How does this all tie in to the salvation of Christ's elect?
Monday, November 21, 2016
God's Image in Man: What it is NOT
God's image is both a complicated and simple idea that can be both easily understood in one sense and deeply thought-provoking in another. The simple idea is that we, as human beings, are bearers of God's image (Gen 1:26-27) and thus have value that no other creature has. The complex idea is that...we'll cover that in the next post. The first part of this series on God's image in man is what that image is not. Next week's post will cover what that image is and the next week we'll discuss how that ties in to the big picture of creation, the fall, and the parts of salvation (justification, sanctification, redemption/glorification).
The negative description of God's image in man is twofold: i) God's image is not physical and ii) God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women.
1. God's image is not physical
a. This is really simple when you look at the Bible and connect some dots. John 4:24 says that "God is spirit...". Luke 24:39 says: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Jesus says in Luke that a spirit does not have a physical body. Since God is spirit, He does not have a physical body either. It follows then, that human beings who bear God's image, are not made to look like God in the physical sense.
Some of you may be thinking about the descriptions of God that assign Him human features at this point. I believe these are anthropomorphism's that merely describe God in ways that make sense to us, because if He truly showed His fullness to us we would be utterly inept at comprehending His infinite vastness of being and character. If you are studious, I think you would find that most of these types of descriptions of God wherein He is described as having human or animal parts of in the poetic and prophetic books which are filled with rich metaphorical imagery. This would be another post in and of itself, so I will direct you to a great explanation of this idea from William Lane Craig.
b. Another problem with the idea that God has a physical body is that everything came into being when God created it. The traditional understanding of Gen 1:1 is that God created ex nihilo which means out of nothing. There was no matter, space, time, or energy before God spoke it into existence. If that is the case, that no material was present before God created it, then by default He cannot be physical. That would lead to the absurd conclusion that God created Himself out of nothing. If, on the other hand, God is a physical being, then the objection; "Who made God?" has some merit because something would have had to have made the material being we call God.
c. Yet another problem with the idea of God having a physical body is His attribute of omnipresence, which means God is at every point of space with His whole being. Psalm 139:7-12 describes His omnipresence well: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." God's omnipresence precludes His being physical. If He was a physical being, He could not be everywhere at once. It would be impossible for a collection of matter forming a body to be everywhere at once. Inferentially, this tells us that God, in order to be omnipresent, must be a non-material being that is not constrained by physical limitations.
2. God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women
a. Gen 1:27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Both males and females bear God's image. I have recently seen it taught that this means that God is both male and female. This is an absurd concept. God is neither male nor female. Descriptions of Him as a father are His revelation of Himself to us in a way that we can understand Him. Why did He choose to reveal Himself as a father (male)? I have no idea, but that is the way He chose to do it, so it must be correct because He cannot make any mistakes.
b. The image of God is not physical, so this cannot mean that God has both male and female anatomy. It has already been shown that God is not a physical being.
c. This also cannot be talking about the attributes of men and women in terms of temperament and personality. Did God give attributes that He has to man and woman? Yes, however, the communicated form of these attributes that we possess are not the same thing as what God possesses. For instance, do we love the same way that God loves? No. His love is perfect, holy, and unconditional. Ours is imperfect, unholy, and conditional. Is our knowledge the same as God's? No. His knowledge is unlimited, perfect, and immediate. Ours is limited, imperfect, and mediate. This means that our characteristics as both men and women come from God, but are not the same thing. This doesn't mean that God is male and female, it means that God has chosen to accentuate various attributes in the different sexes in order to create a complementary set that can partner for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom. God does not express these attributes the same way as either men or women. To say that God is both male and female for this reason is to say that God is modeled on us. This is clearly false, since it is not our image that God is made in the likeness of, but the other way around.
Now that we have a clear understanding of what God's image in man is not, next time we will take a look at a positive description of what God's image in man entails. Happy Thanksgiving!
The negative description of God's image in man is twofold: i) God's image is not physical and ii) God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women.
1. God's image is not physical
a. This is really simple when you look at the Bible and connect some dots. John 4:24 says that "God is spirit...". Luke 24:39 says: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Jesus says in Luke that a spirit does not have a physical body. Since God is spirit, He does not have a physical body either. It follows then, that human beings who bear God's image, are not made to look like God in the physical sense.
Some of you may be thinking about the descriptions of God that assign Him human features at this point. I believe these are anthropomorphism's that merely describe God in ways that make sense to us, because if He truly showed His fullness to us we would be utterly inept at comprehending His infinite vastness of being and character. If you are studious, I think you would find that most of these types of descriptions of God wherein He is described as having human or animal parts of in the poetic and prophetic books which are filled with rich metaphorical imagery. This would be another post in and of itself, so I will direct you to a great explanation of this idea from William Lane Craig.
b. Another problem with the idea that God has a physical body is that everything came into being when God created it. The traditional understanding of Gen 1:1 is that God created ex nihilo which means out of nothing. There was no matter, space, time, or energy before God spoke it into existence. If that is the case, that no material was present before God created it, then by default He cannot be physical. That would lead to the absurd conclusion that God created Himself out of nothing. If, on the other hand, God is a physical being, then the objection; "Who made God?" has some merit because something would have had to have made the material being we call God.
c. Yet another problem with the idea of God having a physical body is His attribute of omnipresence, which means God is at every point of space with His whole being. Psalm 139:7-12 describes His omnipresence well: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." God's omnipresence precludes His being physical. If He was a physical being, He could not be everywhere at once. It would be impossible for a collection of matter forming a body to be everywhere at once. Inferentially, this tells us that God, in order to be omnipresent, must be a non-material being that is not constrained by physical limitations.
2. God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women
a. Gen 1:27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Both males and females bear God's image. I have recently seen it taught that this means that God is both male and female. This is an absurd concept. God is neither male nor female. Descriptions of Him as a father are His revelation of Himself to us in a way that we can understand Him. Why did He choose to reveal Himself as a father (male)? I have no idea, but that is the way He chose to do it, so it must be correct because He cannot make any mistakes.
b. The image of God is not physical, so this cannot mean that God has both male and female anatomy. It has already been shown that God is not a physical being.
c. This also cannot be talking about the attributes of men and women in terms of temperament and personality. Did God give attributes that He has to man and woman? Yes, however, the communicated form of these attributes that we possess are not the same thing as what God possesses. For instance, do we love the same way that God loves? No. His love is perfect, holy, and unconditional. Ours is imperfect, unholy, and conditional. Is our knowledge the same as God's? No. His knowledge is unlimited, perfect, and immediate. Ours is limited, imperfect, and mediate. This means that our characteristics as both men and women come from God, but are not the same thing. This doesn't mean that God is male and female, it means that God has chosen to accentuate various attributes in the different sexes in order to create a complementary set that can partner for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom. God does not express these attributes the same way as either men or women. To say that God is both male and female for this reason is to say that God is modeled on us. This is clearly false, since it is not our image that God is made in the likeness of, but the other way around.
Now that we have a clear understanding of what God's image in man is not, next time we will take a look at a positive description of what God's image in man entails. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day
I only have one link for you today. It is an hour long forum about persecuted Christians featuring Nancy Guthrie, Mindy Belz, D. A. Carson, Karen Ellis, and Nastaran Farahani.
1. On the Persecuted Church
1. On the Persecuted Church
Monday, November 14, 2016
Daniel 9:24-26a, Part 3
"24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy
city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone
for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision
and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore
and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build
Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be
seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with
squares and a moat, but in a troubled time. 26a And after the
sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have
nothing."
Part 1 and Part 2 can be found here.
So far we have seen that this prophecy concerns Jesus' crucifixion and we have seen that the start date for the prophecy was Nisan 1, 444 BC. In this post we are going to look at the three sources mentioned in the previous post to see how some people have attempted to calculate the prophecy dates. Before we cover those models, some groundwork has to be laid.
1. Most of the people who attempt to calculate the prophecy assume, based on Genesis 7:11, 24 and 8:4 where 150 days passes and exactly 5 months pass, that there is a 360-day year (12, 30-day months) that is God's "prophetic calendar". The timing of prophecies must then be calculated using the 360-day year rather than our modern 365.25 days per year model with leap years. This is highly debatable. Probably the foremost expert on the Ancient Near East and an Old Testmanet commentator, Gleason L. Archer, said that there is no evidence that anyone ever used a 360-day year. But, I am not saying this "prophetic calendar" is correct, I am merely attempting to show the timing of Daniel's 70 weeks is accurate by way of showing how close we can get to calculating it. In the end, you will see that if we just had a bit more data, we could calculate it accurately.
2. This prophecy culminates in Christ's crucifixion, so we are looking for that Friday Passover sometime between 28-33 AD. However, the prophecy says first that the anointed one will come. A lot of commentators agree that this is Jesus' triumphal entry. This is intimately associated with the Passover lamb instructions that God gave the Israelites in Exodus 12:3, 6. Namely, that the lamb has to stay in the house with them for 4 days before they kill and eat it (10th Nisan with the Passover being 14th Nisan). This means Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem had to come on Sunday so he could "stay in house" for 4 days as our Passover lamb: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The passover supper would have been on Thursday evening, the crucifixion on Friday, and the resurrection on Sunday. Ultimately, we are looking for a Sunday triumphal entry in a year that had Passover on a Friday.
3. For the sake of brevity, I am leaving out a lot of the astonomical data concerning the moon phases. The first book's author used data from the Royal Observatory in England to calculate his dates. It would be time consuming and confusing to include it. I am giving the information you need, not necessarily all the information used.
4. As I have said before, calendar matching from ancient to modern is not something that can be done with high accuracy.
With that in mind, let's get started.
The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson
Anderson's model is wrong, but it is the most robust modern try at it and it forms the basis for a lot of subsequent thought about this prophecy. He starts off by naming the wrong starting date. He thinks Nisan 1 is March 14th, 445 BC. In his defense, he wrote in the late 1800's/early 1900's, scholars didn't know about the dating procedures of ancients. Remember we said that accession year dating was used, so Artaxerxes' first year, 465 BC, was only partial and wasn't counted. His "first year" by their count was 464 BC. That puts the 20th year (Neh 2:1) in 444 BC, not 445 BC. Next, he calculated the days from that date.
69 weeks of years x 7 years per week = 483 years
483 years x 360 days/year = 173,880 days
173,880 days + March 14th, 445 BC = April 6th, 32 AD (a Sunday)
This seems to work. But, Passover in 32 AD was either Sunday or Monday. This does give us a start though.
Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Part VI: Daniel's Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology by Harold Hoehner
Hoehner took Anderson's model and made some refinements that get us a little further. First, he fixed the start date. Nisan 1, 444 BC is March 5th, 444 BC.
173,880 days + March 5th, 444 BC = March 26th, 33 AD
Hoehner does some finagling with the prophetic calendar and the solar year calendar that I am not showing. I will discuss that below. This also doesn't work because the 26th was a Thursday. This would put the Passover on Monday. We need a triumphal entry on a Sunday.
"An Examination of the Chronological Difficulties of Hoehner and Ice's Calculations of Daniel 9's First 69 Weeks" by Bob Pickle
Pickle points out some problems with Hoehner's model that will be helpful to us. But, Pickle himself comes to the conclusion that Christ's baptism was the end of the prophecy. I am going to ignore that part of it. First, the Jews inserted leap months, 7 every nineteen years, into their calendars. That means they had an extra month 7 times every nineteen years. 444 BC was one of those leap years. That makes the start date April 2nd, 444 BC when the extra month is taken into consideration.
173,880 days / 365.24219 days per year (solar year) = 476 solar years
476 solar years x 365.24219 days per year = 173,855 days
173,855 days + April 2nd, 444 BC = March 29th, 33 AD
March 29th, 33 AD is a Sunday -- Triumphal Entry
March 30th, 33 AD is a Monday -- Nisan 10th
30th, 31st, 1st, 2nd -- lamb kept in house
April 3rd, 33 AD is a Friday -- Nisan 14th (this day would start the evening before according to Jewish reckoning and means the Passover dinner was eaten what we would call Thursday night)
This seems to fix everything, except that there is some serious rounding in the math done. The numbers are actually 476.0676744 solar years and that translates back into 173,880 days. Keeping the numbers accurate would put the triumphal entry on a Friday. Also, the Passover was on Saturday or Sunday in 33 AD. Finally, I am not even going to get into the arguments over what year Jesus' ministry started.
At this point, you can see that every model and set of calculations has some problems, but this still gets us very close to calculating the date of both Christ's triumphal entry and crucifixion. I said previously that this series would be a little bit anticlimactic and I still think it is. However, the fact that we cannot accurately calculate the prophecy in no way means that is isn't true. Jesus held the Jews responsible for not knowing it. In Luke 19:41-44, he says with my highlights:
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
It is still readily believable that Jesus orchestrated his death down to the very day. That should give us great comfort. Jesus willingly sacrificed himself for us even though he knew the whole time what was coming and the very hour of his death. It also demonstrates the incredible knowledge and power of God that in 483 years of human history, He effortlessly organized it so that the table was set for the God-man, Jesus Christ, to appear on the day he told Daniel 600 years before hand.
Part 1 and Part 2 can be found here.
So far we have seen that this prophecy concerns Jesus' crucifixion and we have seen that the start date for the prophecy was Nisan 1, 444 BC. In this post we are going to look at the three sources mentioned in the previous post to see how some people have attempted to calculate the prophecy dates. Before we cover those models, some groundwork has to be laid.
1. Most of the people who attempt to calculate the prophecy assume, based on Genesis 7:11, 24 and 8:4 where 150 days passes and exactly 5 months pass, that there is a 360-day year (12, 30-day months) that is God's "prophetic calendar". The timing of prophecies must then be calculated using the 360-day year rather than our modern 365.25 days per year model with leap years. This is highly debatable. Probably the foremost expert on the Ancient Near East and an Old Testmanet commentator, Gleason L. Archer, said that there is no evidence that anyone ever used a 360-day year. But, I am not saying this "prophetic calendar" is correct, I am merely attempting to show the timing of Daniel's 70 weeks is accurate by way of showing how close we can get to calculating it. In the end, you will see that if we just had a bit more data, we could calculate it accurately.
2. This prophecy culminates in Christ's crucifixion, so we are looking for that Friday Passover sometime between 28-33 AD. However, the prophecy says first that the anointed one will come. A lot of commentators agree that this is Jesus' triumphal entry. This is intimately associated with the Passover lamb instructions that God gave the Israelites in Exodus 12:3, 6. Namely, that the lamb has to stay in the house with them for 4 days before they kill and eat it (10th Nisan with the Passover being 14th Nisan). This means Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem had to come on Sunday so he could "stay in house" for 4 days as our Passover lamb: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The passover supper would have been on Thursday evening, the crucifixion on Friday, and the resurrection on Sunday. Ultimately, we are looking for a Sunday triumphal entry in a year that had Passover on a Friday.
3. For the sake of brevity, I am leaving out a lot of the astonomical data concerning the moon phases. The first book's author used data from the Royal Observatory in England to calculate his dates. It would be time consuming and confusing to include it. I am giving the information you need, not necessarily all the information used.
4. As I have said before, calendar matching from ancient to modern is not something that can be done with high accuracy.
With that in mind, let's get started.
The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson
Anderson's model is wrong, but it is the most robust modern try at it and it forms the basis for a lot of subsequent thought about this prophecy. He starts off by naming the wrong starting date. He thinks Nisan 1 is March 14th, 445 BC. In his defense, he wrote in the late 1800's/early 1900's, scholars didn't know about the dating procedures of ancients. Remember we said that accession year dating was used, so Artaxerxes' first year, 465 BC, was only partial and wasn't counted. His "first year" by their count was 464 BC. That puts the 20th year (Neh 2:1) in 444 BC, not 445 BC. Next, he calculated the days from that date.
69 weeks of years x 7 years per week = 483 years
483 years x 360 days/year = 173,880 days
173,880 days + March 14th, 445 BC = April 6th, 32 AD (a Sunday)
This seems to work. But, Passover in 32 AD was either Sunday or Monday. This does give us a start though.
Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Part VI: Daniel's Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology by Harold Hoehner
Hoehner took Anderson's model and made some refinements that get us a little further. First, he fixed the start date. Nisan 1, 444 BC is March 5th, 444 BC.
173,880 days + March 5th, 444 BC = March 26th, 33 AD
Hoehner does some finagling with the prophetic calendar and the solar year calendar that I am not showing. I will discuss that below. This also doesn't work because the 26th was a Thursday. This would put the Passover on Monday. We need a triumphal entry on a Sunday.
"An Examination of the Chronological Difficulties of Hoehner and Ice's Calculations of Daniel 9's First 69 Weeks" by Bob Pickle
Pickle points out some problems with Hoehner's model that will be helpful to us. But, Pickle himself comes to the conclusion that Christ's baptism was the end of the prophecy. I am going to ignore that part of it. First, the Jews inserted leap months, 7 every nineteen years, into their calendars. That means they had an extra month 7 times every nineteen years. 444 BC was one of those leap years. That makes the start date April 2nd, 444 BC when the extra month is taken into consideration.
173,880 days / 365.24219 days per year (solar year) = 476 solar years
476 solar years x 365.24219 days per year = 173,855 days
173,855 days + April 2nd, 444 BC = March 29th, 33 AD
March 29th, 33 AD is a Sunday -- Triumphal Entry
March 30th, 33 AD is a Monday -- Nisan 10th
30th, 31st, 1st, 2nd -- lamb kept in house
April 3rd, 33 AD is a Friday -- Nisan 14th (this day would start the evening before according to Jewish reckoning and means the Passover dinner was eaten what we would call Thursday night)
This seems to fix everything, except that there is some serious rounding in the math done. The numbers are actually 476.0676744 solar years and that translates back into 173,880 days. Keeping the numbers accurate would put the triumphal entry on a Friday. Also, the Passover was on Saturday or Sunday in 33 AD. Finally, I am not even going to get into the arguments over what year Jesus' ministry started.
At this point, you can see that every model and set of calculations has some problems, but this still gets us very close to calculating the date of both Christ's triumphal entry and crucifixion. I said previously that this series would be a little bit anticlimactic and I still think it is. However, the fact that we cannot accurately calculate the prophecy in no way means that is isn't true. Jesus held the Jews responsible for not knowing it. In Luke 19:41-44, he says with my highlights:
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
It is still readily believable that Jesus orchestrated his death down to the very day. That should give us great comfort. Jesus willingly sacrificed himself for us even though he knew the whole time what was coming and the very hour of his death. It also demonstrates the incredible knowledge and power of God that in 483 years of human history, He effortlessly organized it so that the table was set for the God-man, Jesus Christ, to appear on the day he told Daniel 600 years before hand.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
Daniel 9:24-26a, Part 2
"24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy
city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone
for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision
and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore
and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build
Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be
seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with
squares and a moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the
sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have
nothing."
In part 1 we discussed verse 24 wherein we saw that the prophecy related to Daniel in this passage is Messianic. That means it has to do with Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In particular, it has to do with his crucifixion. The reason we can pinpoint that particular aspect of his ministry, his atonement that is, is due to the fact that the removal of transgressions, sins, and iniquity is in view. That only happened on Calvary when Christ was crucified. As mentioned last week, there is a specific timing element to this prophecy and it ends at Christ's crucifixion. In today's post we will look at some theories about where the timing fits in history based on an evaluation of verse 25 and 26a.
Verse 25: The opening phrase of verse 25 is important. It says; "Know therefore and understand...". A lot of people think that prophecy isn't that important, but what we see here is that Gabriel, with a message from God, is telling Daniel to know and understand what he is about to say. Since this is part of the Old Testament canon that God saw fit to give to us, we had also better know and understand it to the best of our ability. The next phrase, "that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem..." is very specific. It points to some kind of word that will allow or order the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem. Remember that in 587/6 BC, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian armies destroyed Jerusalem and the first temple. Jerusalem has lain in ruins for close to seventy years which is exactly what God told Jeremiah (25:11; 29:10) he was going to do to Israel for their rebellion. At this time, about 538 BC, the Jews were living under Persian rule, so anything they did in their homeland had to be approved by the ruler of the Persian empire. That is exactly what happened. In 538/7 BC, Cyrus the King of Persia allowed, by decree, Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple. This is recorded at the end of 2 Chronicles, verses 22 and 23 and it was prophesied by God through Isaiah in chapter 44, verse 28. This is exactly where Ezra picks up, in chapter 1, verses 1-4; with Cyrus' decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This was the first time that Jews were officially allowed to return to Israel since the Babylonian empire conquered Judah. But, this is not our decree. It says nothing of the city of Jerusalem. It only directs the construction efforts of the temple. The prophecy says specifically that the word is to "restore and build Jerusalem", not the temple.
We have yet another decree concerning the temple in Ezra 6:1-15. It was really just a reinforcement of Cyrus' original decree due to the opposition the Jews were facing in completing the temple. They did get the temple finished, but we still don't have a starting point for the prophecy we are investigating. For that we have to look in Nehemiah 2:1-8.
In Nehemiah chapter 1 it says that Nehemiah got a report that Jerusalem and its gates were still ruined. This causes Nehemiah great consternation. So much so that Artaxerxes, the King of Persia at this time, recognizes his sadness and grants his request to return to Israel. This is how it happens. Nehemiah 2:1-8:
"In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.” And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me."
Now we have our decree to fix Jerusalem! In addition, we have the month this decree was made; Nisan, which is March/April on our calendar. And, we have what year it was; the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Most commentators agree that because no day is given along with the month, this means that Nehemiah refers to the first day of the month. Historians and biblical scholars have shown that the king referred to is Artaxerxes Longimanus, also known as Artaxerxes I. He reigned from 465-424 BC. The 20th year of his reign would be 444 BC due to the fact that ancient peoples started counting a king's rule from the first full year, which in this case would be 464 BC. This means that Nisan 1, 444 BC is our start date.
Our end date is where the real argument lies, though people still argue about the start date as well. The scripture says: "to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time." The prophecy is now split up into two parts; 69 weeks and 1 week to make seventy weeks. There are 69 weeks total when added in the first part (7+62). However, even this is a point of contention among translators and theologians about how to take the 7 and 62 weeks, but I think it makes the most sense to join them so that it is 69 weeks or 483 years between the decree and the coming of an anointed one. The HCSB, KJV, NASB, and NIV translate it to this effect. I usually read the ESV and that is what is quoted above. That leaves 1 week or 7 years at some point after the "prince" comes. Who is the anointed one that will be the end of the 69 weeks? This seems assuredly to be Christ. In light of verse 24 and the discussion of the end of sin and the ushering in of everlasting righteousness in which a "holy [one]" (see part 1 about the translation here) is anointed seems very clear; it is Jesus Christ. Specifically, it is his crucifixion. This is the only place where atonement for sin was made. Verse 26a gives us that information: "an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing." If Jesus is the anointed one, and I think he is the person in view, then his being "cut off" and coming to "have nothing" seems evident in the Gospels. Specifically in Matthew's Gospel chapter 27, verse 46.
With all that in place, we can now turn to the actual modern calendar dates and figuring out how this prophecy is laid out. We have a start date of Nisan 1, 444 BC and an end date of Christ's crucifixion to be determined by calculating the 69 weeks. In order to do this we are going to take a look at 3 dating models and, in a bit of an anticlimactic ending, we are going to realize that dating this thing with 100% accuracy is virtually impossible this side of heaven. However, even though we can't pinpoint the exact dates, we can get close, close enough to understand that it does happen just as God said it would. That should make us all realize the power in the foreknowledge of God and His providential control of all world events. The three models we are going to look at are:
1. The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson
2. Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Part VI: Daniel's Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology by Harold Hoehner
3. "An Examination of the Chronological Difficulties of Hoehner and Ice's Calculations of Daniel 9's First 69 Weeks" by Bob Pickle
This is where we will continue next time.
In part 1 we discussed verse 24 wherein we saw that the prophecy related to Daniel in this passage is Messianic. That means it has to do with Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In particular, it has to do with his crucifixion. The reason we can pinpoint that particular aspect of his ministry, his atonement that is, is due to the fact that the removal of transgressions, sins, and iniquity is in view. That only happened on Calvary when Christ was crucified. As mentioned last week, there is a specific timing element to this prophecy and it ends at Christ's crucifixion. In today's post we will look at some theories about where the timing fits in history based on an evaluation of verse 25 and 26a.
Verse 25: The opening phrase of verse 25 is important. It says; "Know therefore and understand...". A lot of people think that prophecy isn't that important, but what we see here is that Gabriel, with a message from God, is telling Daniel to know and understand what he is about to say. Since this is part of the Old Testament canon that God saw fit to give to us, we had also better know and understand it to the best of our ability. The next phrase, "that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem..." is very specific. It points to some kind of word that will allow or order the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem. Remember that in 587/6 BC, Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian armies destroyed Jerusalem and the first temple. Jerusalem has lain in ruins for close to seventy years which is exactly what God told Jeremiah (25:11; 29:10) he was going to do to Israel for their rebellion. At this time, about 538 BC, the Jews were living under Persian rule, so anything they did in their homeland had to be approved by the ruler of the Persian empire. That is exactly what happened. In 538/7 BC, Cyrus the King of Persia allowed, by decree, Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple. This is recorded at the end of 2 Chronicles, verses 22 and 23 and it was prophesied by God through Isaiah in chapter 44, verse 28. This is exactly where Ezra picks up, in chapter 1, verses 1-4; with Cyrus' decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This was the first time that Jews were officially allowed to return to Israel since the Babylonian empire conquered Judah. But, this is not our decree. It says nothing of the city of Jerusalem. It only directs the construction efforts of the temple. The prophecy says specifically that the word is to "restore and build Jerusalem", not the temple.
We have yet another decree concerning the temple in Ezra 6:1-15. It was really just a reinforcement of Cyrus' original decree due to the opposition the Jews were facing in completing the temple. They did get the temple finished, but we still don't have a starting point for the prophecy we are investigating. For that we have to look in Nehemiah 2:1-8.
In Nehemiah chapter 1 it says that Nehemiah got a report that Jerusalem and its gates were still ruined. This causes Nehemiah great consternation. So much so that Artaxerxes, the King of Persia at this time, recognizes his sadness and grants his request to return to Israel. This is how it happens. Nehemiah 2:1-8:
"In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it.” And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me when I had given him a time. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah, and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me."
Now we have our decree to fix Jerusalem! In addition, we have the month this decree was made; Nisan, which is March/April on our calendar. And, we have what year it was; the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Most commentators agree that because no day is given along with the month, this means that Nehemiah refers to the first day of the month. Historians and biblical scholars have shown that the king referred to is Artaxerxes Longimanus, also known as Artaxerxes I. He reigned from 465-424 BC. The 20th year of his reign would be 444 BC due to the fact that ancient peoples started counting a king's rule from the first full year, which in this case would be 464 BC. This means that Nisan 1, 444 BC is our start date.
Our end date is where the real argument lies, though people still argue about the start date as well. The scripture says: "to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time." The prophecy is now split up into two parts; 69 weeks and 1 week to make seventy weeks. There are 69 weeks total when added in the first part (7+62). However, even this is a point of contention among translators and theologians about how to take the 7 and 62 weeks, but I think it makes the most sense to join them so that it is 69 weeks or 483 years between the decree and the coming of an anointed one. The HCSB, KJV, NASB, and NIV translate it to this effect. I usually read the ESV and that is what is quoted above. That leaves 1 week or 7 years at some point after the "prince" comes. Who is the anointed one that will be the end of the 69 weeks? This seems assuredly to be Christ. In light of verse 24 and the discussion of the end of sin and the ushering in of everlasting righteousness in which a "holy [one]" (see part 1 about the translation here) is anointed seems very clear; it is Jesus Christ. Specifically, it is his crucifixion. This is the only place where atonement for sin was made. Verse 26a gives us that information: "an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing." If Jesus is the anointed one, and I think he is the person in view, then his being "cut off" and coming to "have nothing" seems evident in the Gospels. Specifically in Matthew's Gospel chapter 27, verse 46.
With all that in place, we can now turn to the actual modern calendar dates and figuring out how this prophecy is laid out. We have a start date of Nisan 1, 444 BC and an end date of Christ's crucifixion to be determined by calculating the 69 weeks. In order to do this we are going to take a look at 3 dating models and, in a bit of an anticlimactic ending, we are going to realize that dating this thing with 100% accuracy is virtually impossible this side of heaven. However, even though we can't pinpoint the exact dates, we can get close, close enough to understand that it does happen just as God said it would. That should make us all realize the power in the foreknowledge of God and His providential control of all world events. The three models we are going to look at are:
1. The Coming Prince by Sir Robert Anderson
2. Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Part VI: Daniel's Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology by Harold Hoehner
3. "An Examination of the Chronological Difficulties of Hoehner and Ice's Calculations of Daniel 9's First 69 Weeks" by Bob Pickle
This is where we will continue next time.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day
1. On Paul and postmodern skepticism
2. On religious freedom's endangerment
3. On cops looking the other way for other cops
4. Cold-Case Christianity
Cold-Case Christianity is a book written by J. Warner Wallace, an LAPD cold-case detective. He converted from very skeptical atheism to Christianity by evaluating the evidence for the resurrection and the New Testament the same way he would investigate a cold-case homicide. The adult book is excellent. This link takes you to a review of the kids book. Wallace has reworked his original book into a kids format that not only gives the information found in the adult version, but teaches kids how to think critically when evaluating evidence.
5. On justification by Geerhardus Vos
2. On religious freedom's endangerment
3. On cops looking the other way for other cops
4. Cold-Case Christianity
Cold-Case Christianity is a book written by J. Warner Wallace, an LAPD cold-case detective. He converted from very skeptical atheism to Christianity by evaluating the evidence for the resurrection and the New Testament the same way he would investigate a cold-case homicide. The adult book is excellent. This link takes you to a review of the kids book. Wallace has reworked his original book into a kids format that not only gives the information found in the adult version, but teaches kids how to think critically when evaluating evidence.
5. On justification by Geerhardus Vos
Monday, October 31, 2016
Daniel 9:24-26a, Part 1
"24 Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. 25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again, with squares and a moat, but in a troubled time. 26 And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing."
There probably are not many scripture passages more argued about within Christianity than this one. The timing of end time events is always a much talked about topic. What I want to do here is offer some of my own thoughts that have come about as I have studied and read about this passage. There is an obvious timing element to this prophecy, and that is the real center of the debate about it. To what or whom does the timing refer? When does the clock start? When did it end? How do we compare calendars to figure out exact dates for what we may think it means? All these questions and more matter. Let's get started.
First things first. Daniel has recognized that Jeremiah's seventy years of desolation's (Jer 25:11; 29:10) of Jerusalem are nearly passed (9:1, 2) and that God's mercy will soon be realized among the Jews. Realizing this, Daniel prays (9:3-19). Mainly, he repents for Israel of all the evil that they have done against God and begs for His mercy. As a result, Gabriel comes to give Daniel (and us!) insight into what the future holds (9:20-23). That is where we will pick up the interpretation.
Verse 24: The seventy weeks can also be translated seventy sevens (also in verses 25, 26). Most commentators think this means that the overall time period being discussed is 70 weeks of years or 490 years (70 weeks x 7 years/week=490years). The weeks are for "your people" and "your holy city". I think we can agree that this is the Jews and Jerusalem. Gabriel is relating this prophecy to Daniel, so this seems to be straightforward. Daniel's people are the Jews and his holy city would be Jerusalem, where the temple mount is (the temple is no longer there and the 2nd temple is yet to be rebuilt). After that, there are 6 items listed that will happen in the seventy weeks: finish transgression, end sin, atone for iniquity, start righteousness forever, seal vision and prophet, and anoint a holy place. The early Church fathers who commented on this passage all thought that these things had to do with Christ (for example Theodotion 150 AD and Jerome 400 AD).
1. "to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin": The only thing that put an end to sin is Christ's sacrifice. It is through His blood that we can be free of the evil influence of sin that enslaves us (Rom 6:16). This was a common understanding of other passages of prophecy. Take a look at Isa 40:1-3. Notice that God tells Isaiah to tell "her", i.e. Israel, that her sins are paid for (v. 2). That is followed by a verse you probably know. It is a prophecy used in the Gospels for John the Baptist (Matt 3:3; Mark 1:3; John 1:23). These things to be done in the seventy weeks clearly seem to be Messianic as well.
2. "to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness": Following on the end of sin, iniquity will be atoned for as well and the resulting righteousness will be everlasting. Christ atoned for our sins (1 John 2:2) and ushered in the Kingdom of God, which will be everlasting, though it is not yet fully here until Christ returns.
3. "to seal both vision and prophet": This line concerns a ratification of God's visions and prophecies that we can find throughout the rest of the Old Testament. The idea here is that when Christ's work is complete (the cross and resurrection) it will be a Divine confirmation of everything that God has said would happen.
4. "to anoint a most holy place": There are some good exegetical arguments that show that this could be rendered "to anoint a most holy (thing) or (one)" instead of "place". This would fit with the idea that we are talking about Christ's sacrifice and that he is being anointed as the one who would fulfill the obligation to the law and the head of the new covenant. This also fits well with verse 25 that speaks of a coming "anointed one", as it discusses the timing of the prophecy in detail.
This is the end of part 1. The emphasis here is that this prophecy is Messianic. It concerns Jesus Christ. Specifically, it concerns his sacrifice on the cross that covered our sin and has inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Next time, we'll cover verse 25. In this verse we will get into all the timing issues concerning the prophecy.
There probably are not many scripture passages more argued about within Christianity than this one. The timing of end time events is always a much talked about topic. What I want to do here is offer some of my own thoughts that have come about as I have studied and read about this passage. There is an obvious timing element to this prophecy, and that is the real center of the debate about it. To what or whom does the timing refer? When does the clock start? When did it end? How do we compare calendars to figure out exact dates for what we may think it means? All these questions and more matter. Let's get started.
First things first. Daniel has recognized that Jeremiah's seventy years of desolation's (Jer 25:11; 29:10) of Jerusalem are nearly passed (9:1, 2) and that God's mercy will soon be realized among the Jews. Realizing this, Daniel prays (9:3-19). Mainly, he repents for Israel of all the evil that they have done against God and begs for His mercy. As a result, Gabriel comes to give Daniel (and us!) insight into what the future holds (9:20-23). That is where we will pick up the interpretation.
Verse 24: The seventy weeks can also be translated seventy sevens (also in verses 25, 26). Most commentators think this means that the overall time period being discussed is 70 weeks of years or 490 years (70 weeks x 7 years/week=490years). The weeks are for "your people" and "your holy city". I think we can agree that this is the Jews and Jerusalem. Gabriel is relating this prophecy to Daniel, so this seems to be straightforward. Daniel's people are the Jews and his holy city would be Jerusalem, where the temple mount is (the temple is no longer there and the 2nd temple is yet to be rebuilt). After that, there are 6 items listed that will happen in the seventy weeks: finish transgression, end sin, atone for iniquity, start righteousness forever, seal vision and prophet, and anoint a holy place. The early Church fathers who commented on this passage all thought that these things had to do with Christ (for example Theodotion 150 AD and Jerome 400 AD).
1. "to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin": The only thing that put an end to sin is Christ's sacrifice. It is through His blood that we can be free of the evil influence of sin that enslaves us (Rom 6:16). This was a common understanding of other passages of prophecy. Take a look at Isa 40:1-3. Notice that God tells Isaiah to tell "her", i.e. Israel, that her sins are paid for (v. 2). That is followed by a verse you probably know. It is a prophecy used in the Gospels for John the Baptist (Matt 3:3; Mark 1:3; John 1:23). These things to be done in the seventy weeks clearly seem to be Messianic as well.
2. "to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness": Following on the end of sin, iniquity will be atoned for as well and the resulting righteousness will be everlasting. Christ atoned for our sins (1 John 2:2) and ushered in the Kingdom of God, which will be everlasting, though it is not yet fully here until Christ returns.
3. "to seal both vision and prophet": This line concerns a ratification of God's visions and prophecies that we can find throughout the rest of the Old Testament. The idea here is that when Christ's work is complete (the cross and resurrection) it will be a Divine confirmation of everything that God has said would happen.
4. "to anoint a most holy place": There are some good exegetical arguments that show that this could be rendered "to anoint a most holy (thing) or (one)" instead of "place". This would fit with the idea that we are talking about Christ's sacrifice and that he is being anointed as the one who would fulfill the obligation to the law and the head of the new covenant. This also fits well with verse 25 that speaks of a coming "anointed one", as it discusses the timing of the prophecy in detail.
This is the end of part 1. The emphasis here is that this prophecy is Messianic. It concerns Jesus Christ. Specifically, it concerns his sacrifice on the cross that covered our sin and has inaugurated the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Next time, we'll cover verse 25. In this verse we will get into all the timing issues concerning the prophecy.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Monday, October 24, 2016
How much do you read the Bible?
Probably the most commonly talked about spiritual discipline in the Church is Bible reading. Every Christian realizes that they should be reading the Bible every day and, in my experience, most Christians don't believe they are reading the Bible enough, even if they are reading every day. So, what should be done about it?
For starters, we have to connect the idea that Bible reading should be done, to the results promised in the word of God. Why should we read the Bible? Let's take a look.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
John 17:17
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Psalm 1:1, 2
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
So we see that the word of God is useful for training in righteousness and enables us to be complete, that it sanctifies us when we read it and that it is a blessing when we delight in it. Many other scriptures could be offered, but they all pretty much fall in the categories presented in the above verses. I think most people reading this are on board so far. They see the need to read the Bible and read it more. They see the truth in the verses presented about how the word can shape our life. How do we turn that knowledge into action so that we can actually reap the benefits of consistently reading God's word?
I think the answer is screen time. This used to be just TV time, but now with the advances in technology and the pervasiveness of the use of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other social media as well as just plain old surfing the Internet, researchers call this screen time. When considering the time we spend in front of screens, there is ample time to read more of the Bible daily. Tape recorded versions of the Bible have proven that you can read through the Bible in 71 hours, so strap in and get busy. Just kidding. That is a stark number though; what does it mean? "The average person in the United States watches that much television [71 hours] in less than two weeks." (Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney, page 29) That is about 5 hours a day for two weeks on average. The book I am quoting from was written in 1991. How much has that increased since then? The Nielsen report from the 4th quarter of 2014 reports that electronic media time per day for the average US citizen was 11 hours. When you remove the radio time, that's about 8 hours a day in front of screens. (2) That would be 112 hours in two weeks. You could read the Bible 1.5 times through in that period.
Now, I am not suggesting that anyone give up TV (and their entire life!) to sit around and read the Bible cover to cover every two weeks. But, if we crunch some of these numbers we can turn this into useful data. Let's start big.
1. If, instead of 8 hours screen time, you spent the 8 hours reading the Bible, what would you end up with? You could read through the Bible every 9 days. That would be 40 times through in 1 year.
2. How about 7 hours reading the Bible? Completed every 10 days. 36 times per year.
3. 6 hours? Every 12 days. 30 times per year.
4. 5 hours? Every 14 days. 26 times per year.
5. 4 hours? Every 18 days. 20 times per year.
6. 3 hours? Every 24 days. 15 times per year.
7. 2 hours? Every 36 days. 11 times per year.
8. 1 hour? Every 71 days. 5 times per year.
Most of these numbers seem pretty ridiculous. I doubt many people could truly read for 4-8 hours a day. But, I bet there are some people that could read for 2-3 hours and I would guarantee that almost everyone in the Church could read for 1 hour a day. How would you like to read through the Bible 5 times per year? How do you think that would change you over the course of a year if you were constantly allowing God's word to wash over you intellectually and spiritually day in and day out like the ebb and flow of the ocean tides? I dare say you would be a radically different person that looked and thought more like Jesus Christ. If you are a disciple of the Lord, don't you want that?
I want to finish by offering you more practical information. Below is a list of times for reading each book of the Bible. These are averages, so you may be a little faster or slower, but it will give you a general idea. This can help you to plan your reading time. For instance, it takes 3.5 hours to read Genesis. There are 50 chapters in the book. You could split that into 4, hour-long sessions (4 days). That means you should read 13, 13, 12, and 12 chapters on those days. Using numbers like this may seem to take all the emotional spontaneity out of reading the Bible, but, it allows you to stay on track and be disciplined in your spiritual life which the apostle Paul compares to running a race in order to win. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Just as Paul says he does not run aimlessly, neither do professional runners. They plan their training and race strategy and they execute it to the best of their ability. You can do the same with reading the Bible if you will commit to a disciplined life of daily Bible intake.
For starters, we have to connect the idea that Bible reading should be done, to the results promised in the word of God. Why should we read the Bible? Let's take a look.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
John 17:17
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Psalm 1:1, 2
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
So we see that the word of God is useful for training in righteousness and enables us to be complete, that it sanctifies us when we read it and that it is a blessing when we delight in it. Many other scriptures could be offered, but they all pretty much fall in the categories presented in the above verses. I think most people reading this are on board so far. They see the need to read the Bible and read it more. They see the truth in the verses presented about how the word can shape our life. How do we turn that knowledge into action so that we can actually reap the benefits of consistently reading God's word?
I think the answer is screen time. This used to be just TV time, but now with the advances in technology and the pervasiveness of the use of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other social media as well as just plain old surfing the Internet, researchers call this screen time. When considering the time we spend in front of screens, there is ample time to read more of the Bible daily. Tape recorded versions of the Bible have proven that you can read through the Bible in 71 hours, so strap in and get busy. Just kidding. That is a stark number though; what does it mean? "The average person in the United States watches that much television [71 hours] in less than two weeks." (Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney, page 29) That is about 5 hours a day for two weeks on average. The book I am quoting from was written in 1991. How much has that increased since then? The Nielsen report from the 4th quarter of 2014 reports that electronic media time per day for the average US citizen was 11 hours. When you remove the radio time, that's about 8 hours a day in front of screens. (2) That would be 112 hours in two weeks. You could read the Bible 1.5 times through in that period.
Now, I am not suggesting that anyone give up TV (and their entire life!) to sit around and read the Bible cover to cover every two weeks. But, if we crunch some of these numbers we can turn this into useful data. Let's start big.
1. If, instead of 8 hours screen time, you spent the 8 hours reading the Bible, what would you end up with? You could read through the Bible every 9 days. That would be 40 times through in 1 year.
2. How about 7 hours reading the Bible? Completed every 10 days. 36 times per year.
3. 6 hours? Every 12 days. 30 times per year.
4. 5 hours? Every 14 days. 26 times per year.
5. 4 hours? Every 18 days. 20 times per year.
6. 3 hours? Every 24 days. 15 times per year.
7. 2 hours? Every 36 days. 11 times per year.
8. 1 hour? Every 71 days. 5 times per year.
Most of these numbers seem pretty ridiculous. I doubt many people could truly read for 4-8 hours a day. But, I bet there are some people that could read for 2-3 hours and I would guarantee that almost everyone in the Church could read for 1 hour a day. How would you like to read through the Bible 5 times per year? How do you think that would change you over the course of a year if you were constantly allowing God's word to wash over you intellectually and spiritually day in and day out like the ebb and flow of the ocean tides? I dare say you would be a radically different person that looked and thought more like Jesus Christ. If you are a disciple of the Lord, don't you want that?
I want to finish by offering you more practical information. Below is a list of times for reading each book of the Bible. These are averages, so you may be a little faster or slower, but it will give you a general idea. This can help you to plan your reading time. For instance, it takes 3.5 hours to read Genesis. There are 50 chapters in the book. You could split that into 4, hour-long sessions (4 days). That means you should read 13, 13, 12, and 12 chapters on those days. Using numbers like this may seem to take all the emotional spontaneity out of reading the Bible, but, it allows you to stay on track and be disciplined in your spiritual life which the apostle Paul compares to running a race in order to win. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Just as Paul says he does not run aimlessly, neither do professional runners. They plan their training and race strategy and they execute it to the best of their ability. You can do the same with reading the Bible if you will commit to a disciplined life of daily Bible intake.
| Book | Time | Book | Time | |||||||
| Genesis | 3.5h | Matthew | 2.5h | |||||||
| Exodus | 3h | Mark | 1.5h | |||||||
| Leviticus | 2h | Luke | 1.5h | |||||||
| Numbers | 3h | John | 2h | |||||||
| Deuteronomy | 2.5h | Acts | 2.25h | |||||||
| Joshua | 1.75h | Romans | 1h | |||||||
| Judges | 1.75h | 1 Corinthians | 1h | |||||||
| Ruth | 15m | 2 Corinthians | 40m | |||||||
| 1-2 Samuel | 4h | Galatians | 20m | |||||||
| 1-2 Kings | 4.25h | Ephesians | 20m | |||||||
| 1-2 Chronicles | 4.5h | Philippians | 14m | |||||||
| Ezra | 40m | Colossians | 13m | |||||||
| Nehemiah | 1h | 1 Thessalonians | 12m | |||||||
| Esther | 30m | 2 Thessalonians | 7m | |||||||
| Job | 1.75h | 1 Timothy | 16m | |||||||
| Psalms | 5h | 2 Timothy | 11m | |||||||
| Proverbs | 1.75h | Titus | 7m | |||||||
| Ecclesiastes | 30m | Philemon | 3m | |||||||
| Song of Songs | 20m | Hebrews | 45m | |||||||
| Isaiah | 3.75h | James | 16m | |||||||
| Jeremiah | 4h | 1 Peter | 16m | |||||||
| Lamentations | 20m | 2 Peter | 10m | |||||||
| Ezekiel | 3.75h | 1 John | 16m | |||||||
| Daniel | 1.25h | 2 John | 2m | |||||||
| Hosea | 30m | 3 John | 2m | |||||||
| Joel | 12m | Jude | 4m | |||||||
| Amos | 25m | Revelation | 1.25h | |||||||
| Obadiah | 4m | |||||||||
| Jonah | 8m | |||||||||
| Micah | 20m | |||||||||
| Nahum | 8m | |||||||||
| Habakkuk | 9m | |||||||||
| Zephaniah | 10m | |||||||||
| Haggai | 7m | |||||||||
| Zechariah | 40m | |||||||||
| Malachi | 11m |
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Thursday is Link Around the Internet Day
People know that I read a lot and they ask me what I am reading sometimes. Many times I read things and think; "I should really share this with people, it would be beneficial." So, henceforth on Thursdays, I am going to link around the internet to things that I have read throughout the week that I think you might get some useful information from. I will give the topic of the link only. You will have to click and do some reading if you want the full info.
Disclaimer: I do not necessarily endorse everything I will post here. It is up to you to read and evaluate the information and arguments. However, I will let you know if I post something I explicitly disagree with so you can have your radar up if you choose to read it.
1. On Biblical sexuality
2. On disease in the new world
3. On the virgin birth
4. On not voting
5. On love separated by civil war
Disclaimer: I do not necessarily endorse everything I will post here. It is up to you to read and evaluate the information and arguments. However, I will let you know if I post something I explicitly disagree with so you can have your radar up if you choose to read it.
1. On Biblical sexuality
2. On disease in the new world
3. On the virgin birth
4. On not voting
5. On love separated by civil war
Monday, October 17, 2016
The Bible is an Idol
"The Bible is an idol, Jesus Christ is the real word. You don't need the Bible." I have read this objection from some fringe Christian groups who declare that the "word", when used in the Bible, isn't actually referring to the Bible but to the Gospel as the apostles delivered it. While technically correct, the idea, ironically turned into an idol by these groups constantly badgering other Christians on the Internet, does not capture the nuance of the organic growth of what came to be the Biblical text as we have it today. If we simply follow out the chain of events logically to our time, we can see that what was called the word in the Bible, the Gospel, came to be the Bible itself over time. This didn't happen because of any church councils or ideological crusades among a certain school of thought within Christendom, it just happened because everyone recognized what words were authoritative.
Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, was the full revelation of God. He is the real, living "word". Colossians 1:19 says: "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell..." When he was here, he spent most of his time talking and teaching people about the Kingdom of God. Eventually, when the time drew near, he told his disciples the ultimate reason he was on Earth; to die for mankind so we could be reconciled to the Father. After his resurrection, he spent 40 days appearing to the apostles and teaching them, I assume more fully, about the Kingdom of God and then he ascended to heaven (Acts 1:3-11). This is the original "word" that is spoken of most often in the New Testament (see Romans 10:17). When Jesus was gone, what happened to it? He left it with the apostles, with a promise that the Holy Spirit would bring it to their remembrance (John 14:26) and a command to tell everyone (Matthew 28:18-20).
The apostles did just that. In the process they turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). What were they telling people? The word that Jesus had told them. They were sharing the Gospel with anyone and everyone who would listen. As the Gospel expanded, they taught the disciple community in Jerusalem, the Samaritans, Jews and Gentiles in Syrian Antioch, Galatia, Phrygia, Asia, Macedonia, Greece, and Rome. At first, as they evangelized, they did this in person. As they planted churches, they also wrote letters with more instruction about God's kingdom that was recognized as being more than just human writing. One example would be 2 Peter 3:15-16:
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
Notice how Peter referred to Paul's writings; as scripture. Other examples would be 1 Thess. 2:9-13; Gal. 1:11, 12; and 1 Cor. 14:36, 37. This was recognized all over the Christian world, so these letters, and the Gospels/Acts being written at the same time, were copied, preserved, disseminated, and very widely read by the entire Church (with a big "C"!). So, Christ, the original word, taught the word to the apostles, who taught the word to the disciple community in the 1st century by mouth and letter. What happened when the apostles died off? As you have probably already figured out, the Church was already copying, preserving, disseminating, and reading the "word" in the form of letters and Gospels/Acts.
When we look just past the time of the apostles, circa 100 AD, we see that the early church fathers clearly distinguished between their words and the apostles preserved words in the copied letters, Gospels, and Acts. For example, here is Ignatius from about 110 AD:
I do not order you as Peter and Paul; they were apostles, I am a convict; they were free, I am even until now, a slave. (To the Romans 4:3)
By 170-180 AD, the Muratorian fragment counts 22 of 27 New Testament books as canon; leaving out only Hebrews, James, 1&2 Peter, and 3 John. By 250 AD, Origen lists every book we would call the New Testament in his Homilies on Joshua 7.1. This list is debated, but admirably defended by Michael J. Kruger here and by Edmon L. Gallagher here.
This history shows us that the Bible grew out of the authority of Jesus Christ (God!) himself. The apostles preached his word being commanded by him to do such; the disciples treasured the apostles teachings because they had immediately recognizable authority from Jesus via the witness of the Holy Spirit. These writings were preserved and organically came to be the standard of practice for Christian life by the second to third century AD. This is well before the official canonical list was "approved" in 393 AD. So to say that the word that Jesus taught back then is the standard and the word that we have today in the Bible is an idol, is extremely misleading. To say that we don't need the Bible is to ignore the providential organizing of the written word into the canon by God himself. Finally, Christ's authority followed his words all the way into the modern translations of the Bible. It is from Jesus' authority that we can have confidence in the Bible as "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16, 17)
Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, was the full revelation of God. He is the real, living "word". Colossians 1:19 says: "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell..." When he was here, he spent most of his time talking and teaching people about the Kingdom of God. Eventually, when the time drew near, he told his disciples the ultimate reason he was on Earth; to die for mankind so we could be reconciled to the Father. After his resurrection, he spent 40 days appearing to the apostles and teaching them, I assume more fully, about the Kingdom of God and then he ascended to heaven (Acts 1:3-11). This is the original "word" that is spoken of most often in the New Testament (see Romans 10:17). When Jesus was gone, what happened to it? He left it with the apostles, with a promise that the Holy Spirit would bring it to their remembrance (John 14:26) and a command to tell everyone (Matthew 28:18-20).
The apostles did just that. In the process they turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). What were they telling people? The word that Jesus had told them. They were sharing the Gospel with anyone and everyone who would listen. As the Gospel expanded, they taught the disciple community in Jerusalem, the Samaritans, Jews and Gentiles in Syrian Antioch, Galatia, Phrygia, Asia, Macedonia, Greece, and Rome. At first, as they evangelized, they did this in person. As they planted churches, they also wrote letters with more instruction about God's kingdom that was recognized as being more than just human writing. One example would be 2 Peter 3:15-16:
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
Notice how Peter referred to Paul's writings; as scripture. Other examples would be 1 Thess. 2:9-13; Gal. 1:11, 12; and 1 Cor. 14:36, 37. This was recognized all over the Christian world, so these letters, and the Gospels/Acts being written at the same time, were copied, preserved, disseminated, and very widely read by the entire Church (with a big "C"!). So, Christ, the original word, taught the word to the apostles, who taught the word to the disciple community in the 1st century by mouth and letter. What happened when the apostles died off? As you have probably already figured out, the Church was already copying, preserving, disseminating, and reading the "word" in the form of letters and Gospels/Acts.
When we look just past the time of the apostles, circa 100 AD, we see that the early church fathers clearly distinguished between their words and the apostles preserved words in the copied letters, Gospels, and Acts. For example, here is Ignatius from about 110 AD:
I do not order you as Peter and Paul; they were apostles, I am a convict; they were free, I am even until now, a slave. (To the Romans 4:3)
By 170-180 AD, the Muratorian fragment counts 22 of 27 New Testament books as canon; leaving out only Hebrews, James, 1&2 Peter, and 3 John. By 250 AD, Origen lists every book we would call the New Testament in his Homilies on Joshua 7.1. This list is debated, but admirably defended by Michael J. Kruger here and by Edmon L. Gallagher here.
This history shows us that the Bible grew out of the authority of Jesus Christ (God!) himself. The apostles preached his word being commanded by him to do such; the disciples treasured the apostles teachings because they had immediately recognizable authority from Jesus via the witness of the Holy Spirit. These writings were preserved and organically came to be the standard of practice for Christian life by the second to third century AD. This is well before the official canonical list was "approved" in 393 AD. So to say that the word that Jesus taught back then is the standard and the word that we have today in the Bible is an idol, is extremely misleading. To say that we don't need the Bible is to ignore the providential organizing of the written word into the canon by God himself. Finally, Christ's authority followed his words all the way into the modern translations of the Bible. It is from Jesus' authority that we can have confidence in the Bible as "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16, 17)
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