When the Church enters into mixture in its allegiance with the kingdoms of this age, its function is confused and its form is retarded. This allegiance is almost always due to an underlying theological distortion that identifies the Kingdom with present wealth and power (vs. that which the Church will receive upon Jesus’ return). - John P. Harrigan
i will untie the knots.
type. type. type.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
As a nation without land, the Church is a “pilgrim nation,” submitting to the rebellious nations of the earth that God has sovereignly instituted and allowed to exist (cf. Mt. 17:27; Rom. 13:1ff; 1 Tim. 2:2; Tit. 3:1; 1 Pe. 2:13; etc.), until their judgment and the church’s allotted inheritance (cf. Heb. 9:15; 1 Pe. 2:11). - John P. Harrigan
Monday, November 18, 2024
The day of the Lord is the predominant theme of the Scriptures. Moreover, it is the event that ultimately unifies the Christian and Jewish Scriptures, for all hold to the ultimate divine end that God “has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31). Furthermore, the day of the Lord is so dynamic and extraordinary that it creates a fundamental delineation of time: “this age” before the day and “the age to come” after the day (cf. Matt. 12:32; Eph. 1:21; Heb. 6:5). Human sin and depravity will progress until the end of this age when God judges humanity on the last day, rewarding the righteous with eternal life and punishing the wicked with eternal fire. Through the day of the Lord, God will initiate the age to come, which will go on in righteousness, peace, and joy for unending ages (i.e., “eternity”). - John P. Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ Crucified, p.3
Sunday, November 17, 2024
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." (Luke 23:42) A beautiful and effective prayer. We are all, down to the last man, nothing more than the thief on the cross. - Travis M. Snow
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Genesis 4 through Malachi 4 is not just "background information" to the "real story" of Jesus and the church. Unless we first understand what the Law, Prophets, and Writings meant for 1st century Jews, we don't have much of a chance of rightly understanding the words of Jesus. - Joshua Hawkins
Friday, November 15, 2024
5 The earth also shall yield its fruit ten-thousandfold and on each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each grape produce a core of wine. 6 And those who have hungered shall rejoice: moreover, also, they shall behold marvels every day. 7 Four winds shall go forth from before Me to bring every morning the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the close of the day clouds distilling the dew of health. 8 And it shall come to pass at that self-same time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years, because these are they who have come to the consummation of time. 2 Baruch 29:5-8
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Jesus did not “declare all foods clean”. It’s time to retire this drastically misleading mistranslation. - Logan Williams
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
-- The Bible's bookends -- Genesis 1-2: God on the planet, tree of life, no death Revelation 21-22: God on the planet, tree of life, no death Many Christians wrongly see the beginning as tangible and earthly, but the end as ethereal and heavenly. - Joshua Hawkins
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Because the day of the Lord and the age to come are markedly punitive in nature, this age is broadly defined by divine mercy. Everything that happens before the last day must be understood as a restraint of divine wrath and judgment upon sin. This age is this age because the day of judgment has not yet arrived. Indeed, God is patient, not wanting any to perish but all to repent and be saved (2 Peter 3:9). As such, the event of the cross exemplifies all divine activity during this age. God has ultimately shown humanity his mercy and love by offering his Son in order that we might be saved from the wrath to come (cf. John 3:16; Rom. 5:8–9; Titus 3:4–7). This age, therefore, can broadly be described as “cruciform” (i.e., shaped like the cross), while the age to come is generally “apocalyptic” (i.e., established by the day of the Lord). If we seek to describe biblical theology as a whole, it is best summarized as cruciform apocalypticism. - John P. Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ Crucified, p.3
Monday, November 11, 2024
My teaching on Jesus's relationship to the Sabbath and the calling of the 12 disciples from Luke 6. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
“De esto estoy seguro, que el que comenzó en vosotros la buena obra, la perfeccionará en el día de Jesucristo. Fil 1:6
La escatología impulsa el discipulado. Sin él, la iglesia vaga de un lado a otro sin dirección ni propósito.” - John P. Harrigan
Saturday, November 09, 2024
Yes, in our fallen world of suffering, death can bring an end to often excruciating physical pain, but that does not make death your ‘friend’ any more than passing through a doorway engulfed in flames to escape a burning building makes the wall of flame your friend. - Dr. Micheal Svigel, Fathers on the Future, p.275
Friday, November 08, 2024
“Scripture and traditional Christian faith are clear that death is the enemy of humanity. In fact, death is the enemy of all creation; the victory over death is resurrection and restoration of all creation (Rom 8:18–25).” - Dr. Micheal Svigel, Fathers on the Future, p.275
Thursday, November 07, 2024
“Death is not our friend. Death is the enemy (1 Cor 15:26).
This fact is often forgotten in many Christian circles, especially when funerary sentimentality gets in the way of sound doctrine—when statements abound like ‘Don’t cry for him; he’s more alive than ever’ or ‘She’s finally been made fully whole’ or ‘That body isn’t him, he’s in heaven.’” - Dr. Micheal Svigel, Fathers on the Future, p.275
Wednesday, November 06, 2024
“From a biblical-theological perspective, the ‘second coming’ involves the entire period of the seven-year tribulation as well as the eternal reign of Christ on earth. His second coming is first manifested indirectly as he fulfills YHWH’s role in a theophanic ‘coming’ in judgment—that is, throughout the whole tribulation.” - Dr. Micheal Svigel, Fathers on the Future, p.250
Tuesday, November 05, 2024
“Irenaeus articulated quite explicitly not only a futurist view of the impending Day of the Lord but also fleshed out details of the reign of antichrist, which will take place in a future seventieth week of Daniel 9. This perspective, he says, he received not only from the Gospels, Paul’s epistles, and the book of Revelation, but also from his own teachers who received this eschatology from the apostles themselves.” - Dr. Micheal Svigel, Fathers on the Future, p.219
Monday, November 04, 2024
The descriptions of the New Zion presuppose a new temple, for no good Israelite could think of one without the other - RJ McKelvey
Sunday, November 03, 2024
Above all else, authentic eschatological hope will produce perseverance among the saints, both Jew and Gentile.
The sacrificial death of the Messiah secures this eschatological hope, and the Spirit of the Messiah guarantees it. -John P. Harrigan
Saturday, November 02, 2024
Friday, November 01, 2024
“In classic Irenaean premillennial eschatology, the coming ultimate tribulation period (Dan 12:1–12; Matt 24:21–22) is the same as the ultimate Day of the Lord (1 Thess 5:1–9; 2 Thess 2:2–12), which is also the same period as the seventieth week of Daniel 9:27, all of which are described in other passages related to the ultimate coming judgment prior to the coming kingdom (e.g., Jer 30:7; Dan 7:25; Rev 7:14; Rev 11–13).” -Dr. Micheal Svigel, Fathers on the Future, p.212
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Theologians, eminent for their piety and position in the church, are now entertaining crude ideas and contradictory conceptions of the kingdom. For many centuries under the interpretation given by men who have, probably unconsciously, largely imbibed the spirit of the Alexandrian school, the kingdom has been made to mean a variety of things have the option of the writer. Modern authors, with but few exceptions, instead of discarding this looseness, seem to revel in it, making the kingdom to denote almost everything that fancy connects with religion or the Church or even with humanity. - George N. H. Peters
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
“For persecution never kills the church. But a compromised Gospel will” — Dr. Patrick Fung
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
But redeemed humanity gathers in two families: Israel, those twelve tribes descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and everyone else, all seventy nations, descended from Noah’s three sons. If, for this vision to be realized, gentiles in the Christ movement had to remain gentiles, so too then did Jews have to remain Jews—that people constituted by the family connections and God-given privileges and promises that Paul in Romans chapters 9 through 11, and again in chapter 15, so proudly pronounced. “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable!” The day of that realization verged on arriving, this earliest community was convinced, because their messiah, slain and resurrected, was about to return. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.162
Monday, October 28, 2024
Paul fought with Peter in Antioch after men from James arrived there.
Oceans of ink have been spilled trying to account for the causes of their fight.
Because of one prominent scholarly tradition of interpretation, James and
Peter have long been cast as conservative, Law-observant apostles, “Jewish
Christians” who wanted Christ-following gentiles to be circumcised. Paul, by
contrast, is the “Law-free” radical who insists that gentiles (and, in some
readings, Jews too) be unencumbered by Law-observance. And this
reconstruction presupposes that Paul, too, had stopped living a Jewish life.
He thereby transmutes from being a “Jewish” Christian into a sort of
honorary gentile one, as well as the premier defender of and spokesman for a
“Law-free” gentile Christianity.
This interpretation misreads all parties. From the beginning—before Paul
was even involved—the movement had admitted gentiles without requiring
them to be circumcised. James, Peter, and John all affirmed that position,
back in Jerusalem. But these gentiles were responsible for maintaining some
specifically Jewish behaviors, such as worshiping only Israel’s god (sic), and
renouncing sacrifices made to idols. All the apostles, Paul included, were
agreed on this, and in this sense no form of the gospel, for gentiles, was
“Law-free.” And finally, Paul, as we have seen, worked in concert with
James about the collection for the Jerusalem community throughout the rest
of his missions. No ideological breach yawned between the two men. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.160-161
Sunday, October 27, 2024
All of these New Testament texts are often read as antagonistic to Jews and to Judaism. I think that this is due, again, to the long shadow of later Christian anti-Judaism, cast backward. We simply assume that “Judaism” and “Christianity” are two incompatible traditions because that is the way that, in large part, things eventually worked out. So too when reading Paul. He says terrible things about the Law—but he says them with reference to his gentiles, who are listening to other apostles urging them to accept proselyte circumcision. (And Paul says really terrible things about these other apostolic colleagues!) Elsewhere, Paul affirms the Law, quoting from the Ten Commandments, urging its observance on his gentile assemblies. “The Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.” And as late as the late 50s, Paul is still praising the cult of sacrifices offered in Jerusalem’s temple. The Paul of history stands entirely within Judaism. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.159-160
Saturday, October 26, 2024
For this reason, throughout this study, I have avoided using the terms “Christian” and “church.” These words too readily conjure the later realities of organized institutions, and of a religion separate from, different from, and hostile to Judaism. But in its founding generation—which was committed to the belief that it was history’s final generation—members of this movement were traditionally observant Jews, Paul included. (And for that matter, reaching back to the period before his crucifixion, so was Jesus.) These people all studied Jewish scriptures. They honored the god (sic) of Israel through offering sacrifices at the temple. They came together on the Sabbath. They imagined final redemption, inclusive of eschatological gentiles, as a natural extension of the history of Israel. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.158
Friday, October 25, 2024
So powerful is Paul’s toxic rhetoric in Galatians that it still effects, and
even distorts, modern critical reconstructions of the beginning decades of
what will eventually be Christianity. Freedom, grace, Spirit, life: these
describe Paul’s “law-free” mission and message, and Christianity in general.
Slavery, works, flesh, death, the Law: these describe the “Judaizing” message
of Paul’s circumcising opponents and, by extension, Judaism in general. But, as we have already seen, the outreach to gentiles had never required
circumcision. In this regard, it was “Law-free” from the beginning. And,
again as we have already seen, the outreach to gentiles had always required
exclusive worship of the god (sic) of Israel, and foregoing sacrifices before images
of other divinities. In this regard, it was a “Judaizing” gospel from the
beginning, insisting on a public behavior that Paul himself demands of his
gentiles as well. No other gods and no images—the first two of Judaism’s
Ten Commandments—were always the sine qua non for any and all gentiles
joining this movement. In this regard, even Paul’s own gospel was never
“Law-free.” -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.136-137
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Against this idea [circumcising Gentile believers], however, stood centuries of prophetic traditions. In the End, as Isaiah had foreseen, the gentiles were to join with Israel, but they would not join Israel. Their place in the Kingdom was to be as gentiles, now free from their enchainment to idol worship. “The root of Jesse shall come,” prophesied Isaiah, “he who rises to rule the gentiles. In him shall the gentiles hope.” Paul repeated this verse from Isaiah when summarizing his own view
of final redemption in his letter to the Romans. Gentile Endtime inclusion did
not mean an Endtime “conversion.” A policy of circumcision, of turning
these gentiles “into” Jews, would undermine the very same positive sign of
the times that they themselves embodied. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.134-135
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Into this carefully maintained urban religious ecosystem, working their way via the network of diaspora synagogue communities, walked the apostles of the early Jesus movement. What these apostles urged on their Jewish hearers would have required no huge adjustment religiously so much as an altered perspective. The god (sic) of Israel, they proclaimed, was about to end history. Some of the behaviors that they consequently encouraged—focused repentance, immersion for sin in Jesus’ name, reception of divine spirit— were indeed new. But diaspora Jews attracted to the Jesus movement still prayed to the same god as before; they still read the same scriptures as before; they still kept the same calendar as before; and their traditional practices, domestic and liturgical, were all the same as before. Jews joining the Jesus movement, in short, did not “convert” so much as make a lateral move within Judaism, similar to a decision to move from being a Sadducee to becoming a Pharisee, as Josephus, in his own life, had done. To an outside observer, it would all have seemed like some version of Jewish business as usual. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.131
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Jerusalem’s destiny in the age to come informs our prayers in this age. - John P. Harrigan
Monday, October 21, 2024
My teaching on Paul's cruciform apocalyptic discipleship model in the book of 1st Corinthians. Audio 1. Audio 2.
Sunday, October 20, 2024
The Judaized pagans of these urban synagogues thus presented the
apostles with a startling new opportunity. Once the apostles brought their
testimony to the synagogue, they not only persuaded some of its Jews to
repent and to immerse in Jesus’ name in preparation for the coming of the
Kingdom. They also persuaded some of its associated pagans, who likewise
wanted to commit to this charismatic assembly. But how should these
gentiles be integrated into the movement? Jesus himself had left no teachings
on this matter.
The apostles needed to improvise, and that is what they did. They drew
upon that same prophetic paradigm within which the movement had always
functioned: the expectation that, in the End, the nations too would renounce their false gods and worship the one true god alongside of Israel. Thus,
apostles welcomed these pagans into their new assemblies too.
But there was one major proviso: these gentiles absolutely could not
worship their own gods or sacrifice before their images anymore. By
immersing in Jesus’ name, by receiving holy spirit, by being empowered to
prophesy, to receive visions, to exorcise demons, to heal, these ex-pagan
pagans had to shut the door on the old age and step into the new. Just as the
original community back in Jerusalem represented a beachhead of the
Kingdom, so too did these new non-Jewish members. By committing to
Israel’s god alone, they were no longer pagans—and, thus, no longer godfearers: they were eschatological gentiles. What greater confirmation that the
times were fulfilled, that the Kingdom of God truly was at hand?
These ex-pagan pagans were walking into absolutely uncharted social
territory. Like proselytes, they made an exclusive commitment to Israel’s god;
unlike proselytes, they did not assume the bulk of Jewish tradition. Gentile
men were not required to circumcise. They remained gentiles, which was
precisely the point: God’s Kingdom was to encompass all humanity, Israel
and the nations. Like god-fearers, these gentiles were still gentiles, that is,
they retained their native ethnic status as non-Jews. Unlike god-fearers, they
could no longer worship their native gods. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.123-124
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Jesus said that "many who are first [in this age] will be last [in the age to come], and the last [in this age] first [in the age to come].” (Mark 10:31)
Disciple of Jesus, don't fear. Though the wicked seem to prosper today, it won't always be this way. - Joshua Hawkins
Disciple of Jesus, don't fear. Though the wicked seem to prosper today, it won't always be this way. - Joshua Hawkins
Friday, October 18, 2024
Paul’s premier sense of self was as “apostle to the pagans.” Only his
letters from midcentury survive. By that time, he would have had to explain
to his own ex-pagan congregations, as well as to himself, why the Kingdom
was already “late”—some twenty-five years after Jesus’ resurrection—and why many other Jews were not persuaded by this messianic reading of their
ancient scriptures. In Romans, Paul lays out his two-phase explanation. Israel
would have received the gospel, had God wanted them to. But instead, God
was currently and deliberately preventing most of Israel from so doing, for
strategic reasons: to give Paul (and other apostles) more time to reach out to
the pagan nations. Once the “full number” of gentiles came over, God would
cease this strategic hardening of Israel, and then history’s finale could begin.
At that point, “a Deliverer will come from Zion / he will banish ungodliness
from Jacob.” It was the outreach to the gentiles—the time it was taking to
turn pagans from their gods to Paul’s god (sic) —that was holding things up. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.118-119
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Loving and longing for the appearing of our Lord is not cowardly escapism, but the triumphant expression of our sure and blessed hope. -BA Purtle
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Jesus’ followers in the year 30, however, innocent of the future—of this future—were not burdened by the need to explain the temple’s destruction in 70. They never saw it coming. The trauma that compelled them, rather, was the crucifixion of their beloved leader. Their experiences of Jesus raised— which eventually blended into their evolving expectations for Jesus’ second, public debut as the eschatological warrior-messiah—was their response. They too scoured scriptures, as would the evangelists long after them. They modified Jesus’ prophecy of the coming Kingdom by linking its arrival to his second coming. That revamped message provided the core of the good news that they began to proclaim to holiday crowds in Jerusalem: the Kingdom was coming, and Jesus was coming back. -Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.113
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
“Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved, to sin no more.”
-William Cowper (1731-1800)
Monday, October 14, 2024
Unlike Christoplatonism, which generally interprets “seen” and “unseen” in metaphysical terms (material vs. immaterial), the Scriptures primarily refer to “seen” and “unseen” in historical terms (this age vs. the age to come). Such an approach is based upon the day of the Lord and the “appearing” of God (cf. Ps. 21:9; 102:16; Zech. 9:14; Mal. 3:2), when humanity will “see” him in his glory (cf. Ps. 97:6; Isa. 33:17; 52:8). Such language is assumed in the New Testament and applied to Jesus’ own “appearing” (Col. 3:4; 1 Tim. 6:14; Titus 2:13; 1 Peter 5:4; 1 John 2:28). Thus, “when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2), for “he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him” (Rev. 1:7; cf. Matt. 5:8). -John P Harrigan
Sunday, October 13, 2024
The double appropriation of this aspect of the David-traditions happened quickly, within two-plus decades of Jesus’ death. Already by the late 50s of the first century, on the evidence of Paul’s letter to Rome, the association of Jesus with David, both past and future, was firm. Paul uses it as the springboard for his own self-introduction:
Paul, slave of Jesus Christ, called to be his messenger, set apart for God’s good news— 2 promised beforehand through his prophets in the sacred scriptures— 3 the good news concerning his son, from the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 and declared son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead: Jesus Christ our lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship in order to bring the obedience of faithfulness on behalf of his name to all the nations/gentiles/pagans, 6 including to you. (Romans 1.1–6; my translation)
Paul simply asserts Jesus’ Davidic lineage here. He does not argue it, but ties it immediately to Jesus’ impending apocalyptic reappearance, when the dead would be raised. The claim of Jesus’ past Davidic descent, in other words (and for all the interest that Paul shows in it here), seems “caused” by expectations about Jesus’ future eschatological performance. - Paula Fredricksen, When Christians Were Jews, p.102-103
Saturday, October 12, 2024
“Israel is the carnal anchor that God has sunk into the soil of creation.” - Wyschogrod, Body of Faith
Friday, October 11, 2024
Christian Bible teaching and preaching is primarily based on the writings of the Apostle Paul. No exaggeration to say that Protestant churches especially stand upon a Pauline foundation. That means that, if we got Paul wrong, then we've got everything wrong. - Daniel Thomas Lancaster
Thursday, October 10, 2024
"For if you live according to the flesh [in this age] you will die [on the Day of the Lord], but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body [in this age], you will live [on the Day of the Lord]." (Romans 8:13)
Wednesday, October 09, 2024
“We sing not because the present is enjoyable, but because the future is glorious.” - Christopher Ash
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Theology 101: As in textual criticism, so in the history of doctrine—an earlier, well-established theological position is to be preferred to a later majority position. It is not those who hand down the teaching that made the error, but those who failed to receive it. -Dr. Michael Svigel
Monday, October 07, 2024
Sunday, October 06, 2024
Theology 101: “That’s just a symbol” is a lazy hermeneutical cop-out. Literally every word on your page is a symbol. That’s the nature of written language. The interpreter’s burden is to determine the meaning of the term; and if a figure of speech or symbolic vision, the referent of the image. Too often I feel people say “that’s just a symbol” to dodge the implications of the likely interpretation or to relieve themselves of the burden of thinking. -Dr. Michael Svigel
Saturday, October 05, 2024
“Christ . . . will appear a second time . . . to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Hebrews 9:28
The fact that we *have been* saved (Eph. 2:8) and *are being* saved (1 Cor. 1:18) means that we are irrevocably united to the One who *will save* us from coming judgment. - John Piper
Friday, October 04, 2024
“It is a general methodological assumption of the early church fathers, as well as those modern renewalists, that John’s vision of the new heavens and new earth in Revelation 21 must be read in light of Isaiah 65–66. To read this as annihilation and re-creation ex nihilo is to read into it meanings for “pass away” and “new heavens and new earth” that are foreign to the sum of biblical teaching.” -Dr. Michael Svigel, The Fathers on the Future, p.164
Thursday, October 03, 2024
Leonard Ravenhill: The devil is not afraid of a busy church, but he trembles at a praying church.
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
"The Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion." Isaiah 34:8
In an age of theological self aggrandizement and ministry clout farming, choose Christ instead.
Reject the clamorous dove sellers for the quiet service of, to, and for, Christ. - Aaron in Writing
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- When the Church enters into mixture in its allegia...
- As a nation without land, the Church is a “pilgrim...
- The day of the Lord is the predominant theme of th...
- "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdo...
- Genesis 4 through Malachi 4 is not just "backgroun...
- 5 The earth also shall yield its fruit ten-thousan...
- Jesus did not “declare all foods clean”. It’s time...
- -- The Bible's bookends -- Genesis 1-2: God on the...
- Because the day of the Lord and the age to come ar...
- My teaching on Jesus's relationship to the Sabbath...
- “De esto estoy seguro, que el que comenzó en vosot...
- Yes, in our fallen world of suffering, death can b...
- “Scripture and traditional Christian faith are cle...
- “Death is not our friend. Death is the enemy (1 Co...
- “From a biblical-theological perspective, the ‘sec...
- “Irenaeus articulated quite explicitly not only a ...
- The descriptions of the New Zion presuppose a new ...
- Above all else, authentic eschatological hope will...
- John Piper ~ Prosperity Gospel
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