Theology 101: In the kingdoms of this world, people seek power to exercise authority and make servants of others. In the Kingdom of Heaven, God grants power to people to divest themselves of power and become servants of others. - Dr. Michael Svigel

I often think about how the average person doesn't understand the judgment of God that is coming because they misinterpret common grace.

"The sun is shining today, I have a good job, and things are pretty good, so I must have nothing to worry about."

That's common grace you are receiving, which God bestows because of His kindness. I mean, He can't have a world where the minute you do wrong you get smoked and turned into a vapor. The world just couldn't function that way. Plus He wants to give people time to repent and live faithfully.

But common grace is not a sign of God's ultimate pleasure or displeasure towards you. There is a day when common grace ends and God comes to settle accounts. - Travis M Snow

May we seek the good of wherever we have been assigned, and renounce every cultural ambition for dominion and control so that we are freed up simply “to serve,” lest we instead build a culture wherein we ourselves are served. May we be unthreatened by the strength of Babylon—she’ll collapse one day, and it’ll only take an hour —so that we beautify her in bearing witness of the better Beautiful.

May we match Wilberforce’s fervor and diligence to plant gardens in Babylon, and may we even see them bloom before we pass into the sleep of the saints—until He comes. - Stephanie Quick, Planting Gardens in Babylon

I’m not a dominionist, and I don’t at all mean to encourage any kind of “seven mountains” campaigns or nationalistic fervor. Babylon was not Jerusalem then, and it is not Jerusalem now. And, in obedience to the word of the LORD, Babylon was bettered by the presence of the exiles. In one generation, they beautified Nebuchadnezzar’s wicked kingdom in obedience to the King of Heaven and Earth, whose Kingdom is “not of this world” but will soon bring our groaning creation under His regenerative jurisdiction. That is what we plant gardens for, because we are meant to bear witness to the Beauty coming. - Stephanie Quick, Planting Gardens in Babylon

My teaching on our view of God. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

Let’s study the whole Bible. Link the testaments!

A common objection to the Biblical belief in Jesus’ deity is that neither Jesus nor the NT writers (other than Paul in Titus 2:13) came right out and said “Jesus is God”

They didn’t need to. There are many times when Jesus did things which the OT writers knew only God could do. The NT writers made the connection.  We must, too, dig deeper and make the connections. 

Here’s one:

“They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;

    their courage melted away in their evil plight;

they reeled and staggered like drunken men

    and were at their wits' end.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

    and he delivered them from their distress.

👉🏻He made the storm be still👈🏻

 and 👉🏻the waves of the sea were hushed👈🏻

Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,

    and he brought them to their desired haven” Ps 107:26-30

Then go to:

“A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, 👉🏻”Quiet! Be still!”👈🏻Then 👈🏻the wind died down and it was completely calm👈🏻. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Mark 4:37-41

Who do the wind and waves obey?   

The One who created them and is the Lord of all creation. 

The OT is a gold mine. We can see the Son all throughout it. Let’s dig in and have fun exploring God’s word. - John Gacinski

The first time the phrase “true Israel” shows up in Christianity is in the Dialogue with Trypho written by Justin Martyr in 160 AD, nearly 100 years after the NT era. 

It’s not a biblical concept to replace Israel with Christ or the Church. - Travis M Snow 

The Bible never says “Christ is the true Israel.” Won’t find that language anywhere. 

There is solidarity between Christ and his people according to the flesh. But that does not mean the people are now a “false” or “irrelevant Israel.” 

It means the opposite…think about it.-Travis M Snow 

Jesus had evoked these (apocalyptic) hopes when he, like John the Baptizer before him and like Paul after him, had announced the impending advent of God’s Kingdom. His followers’ experiences of Jesus raised—whatever it is that they thought they saw; however we interpret their experience now—point irrefutably to this movement’s rootedness in these apocalyptic convictions and commitments. The resurrection of the dead and the vindication of the righteous are two prominent tropes in these traditions, each representing God’s opportunity to finally put right all the things that, in the course of normal history, had gone wrong. - Paula Fredriksen, When Christians Were Jews.

The resurrection of the dead was but one of any number of miraculous events that Jewish biblical and postbiblical traditions anticipated as marking the Endtimes, and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. Not only would life be restored to the dead; the ten tribes of Israel, “lost” to the Assyrian conquest in the eighth century B.C.E., would also be restored to the nation, “gathered in” with the exiles of Israel. In the final battle between good and evil, the forces of good—led by an archangel, or perhaps by a warrior of King David’s house, the messiah—would definitively prevail. The righteous would be vindicated, the wicked punished. The false gods of the nations, subdued in their turn, would themselves acknowledge the god of Israel. Their peoples and former worshipers, the pagan nations, would themselves stream to Jerusalem, to worship together with Israel on God’s holy mountain. God would pour out divine spirit upon eschatological humanity. And the mother city of the wide-flung Jewish nation, Jerusalem, restored and resplendent, would shine in the End as the place of God’s presence, the seat of his Kingdom. - Paula Fredriksen, When Christians Were Jews.

Inconvenience is an illusion of persecution. But if we are meant to carry our own crosses, presumably the same way and to a similar end that Jesus carried His, we instead become servants of all ethnolinguistic people groups. We do not conquer and subjugate; we serve and wash feet.

Nationalism, Christian or otherwise, is antithetical to the narrow way of the cruciform witness. They are mutually exclusive. We must not squander time and opportunities on the absurd culture wars and conspiracy theories Isaiah and Paul explicitly instructed us to avoid [Isaiah 8:12, 2 Tim 2:16]. We must steward our numbered days to obey Jesus and behave like Jesus, in word and deed, “filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.”[Col 1:24] If you want to affect redemptive change in your nation, William Wilberforce is a magnificent example of a man who leveraged politics to serve Jesus in a faithful manner. If you want control, power, and authority you can wield over your neighbors in religious superiority, better to swap #ChristIsKing for #AllahuAhkbar. - Stephanie Quick, Culture Wars and the Way of the Cruciform

Matthew recorded the following declarations, one a commitment and one a commission, bookends Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection:

This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness, and then the end will come. Matthew 24:14

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. Matthew 28:18-20

It is worth noting that “nations” in the latter verse is ethnos, referring to tribal, ethnolinguistic people groups. So every tongue and tribe is meant to receive the same kind of incarnate witness Jesus provided when He took on flesh and dwelt amongst us to declare the Father. If we take Matthew 28:19 to mean we are meant to conquer and subdue geopolitical nations, we are no longer bearing witness to Jesus, but rather Muhammed. Who knew culture wars could so easily conflate Christianity with Islam? - Stephanie Quick, Culture Wars and the Way of the Cruciform

Contrary to the opinion of some, eschatology is no peripheral matter, rather it is the very expression of biblical hope. - Joel Richardson

It must disgust Him, then, that Christians have spent innumerable centuries leveraging the confession of His crown to build empires He has no part of and will dismantle when He comes on the clouds in power and glory. At a minimum, our history should trouble us and serve as a warning when the dominionist fever spikes and we once again are permitting or participating in the conspiratorial clamor to “take back” geopolitical nations we are meant to actually serve and submit to, prioritizing the proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom to all men everywhere. - Stephanie Quick, Culture Wars and the Way of the Cruciform

If you’re not a teachable person you’ll never be a good teacher. - BA Purtle

“It is only of unmerited mercy that any is redeemed, and only in well-merited judgment that any is condemned.” - Augustine

My teaching on Jesus the Bridegroom from Luke 5. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives - Albert Schweitzer

My teaching on Psalm 1 and 2. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

“And though my hard heart scarce to thee can groan,

Remember that thou once didst write in stone.”

 —George Herbert

“He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble.” Psalm 147:4–6

The peculiar glory of God: infinite power and care for the lowly. - John Piper

A big part of rescuing eschatology from the fringes is helping people see that the biblical storyline is fundamentally eschatological from the beginning. This is not some irrelevant subset of theology but simply the Bible’s story arc post-Fall—focused on the end of this evil age and the coming New Creation. - Travis M Snow 

It is the revelation of God’s absolute power and love over creation, culminating in the Day of the Lord, that evokes the greatest response of worship.  - John Harrigan

The assertion that anyone besides God himself could make a new covenant with Israel and be called the bridegroom who rightfully possessed the bride is totally foreign to the Old Testament. - Stephen Venable

"At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart." -Jeremiah 3:17

Theology 101: In our preaching and teaching, we should not stand in front of Christ, but behind Him; we should not stand over the Bible, but under it. Those in our charge should hear us pointing always to Christ and to his word. - Dr. Michael Svigel

Theology 101: In this world, if it’s not dead, it’s sick; if it’s not sick, it’s broken; if it’s not broken, it’s twisted; if it’s not twisted, it’s filthy. But one day the filthy will be cleansed, the twisted will be straightened; the broken will be fixed; the sick will be healed; and the dead will be made alive. - Dr. Micheal Svigel

"By your endurance you will gain your lives" (Luke 21:19)

"I believe in Israel's restoration to their Land and their conversion to their Messiah. I accept as a future certainty that the Jewish people will be gathered to their ancient homeland and that ultimately 'all Israel shall be saved.' As I believe in Israel's present disgrace, so I believe in the nation's coming glory and pre-eminence." Horatius Bonar (1808-1889) 

Via BA Purtle

"Of paramount importance to the writer [of Hebrews] is the effectiveness of the sacrificial death of Christ. He several times emphasizes that it was ‘once for all’ (7:27; 9:12, 26; 10:10). There was never any question of a repetition. It was totally inconceivable that such an offering could ever be inadequate, nor would the re-offering of such a sacrifice be intelligible (cf. 9:26). The writer is convinced that the uniqueness of Christianity rests in the central act of Christ in giving himself as an offering on the cross for the sins of his people."

–– Donald Guthrie, in "Hebrews: An Introduction and Commentary"

"Sigh and long for the dawning of that morning, and the breaking of that day of the Coming of the Son of Man when the shadows shall flee away. Persuade yourself the King is coming. Wait with the wearied night watch for the breaking of the eastern sky."- Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) 

Via BA Purtle