Theology 101: Stop lamenting the small voice the church has in the world; start repenting for the loud voice the world has in the church. - Dr. Michael Svigel

Husband— You want respect from your wife? Don’t beg for it.

Sacrificially love her. Be kind. Befriend and pursue her. Work hard. Keep your word. Lead with responsibility. Discipline and care for your children. Be satisfied with Christ. Be a churchman.

You will have her respect. - BA Purtle

A common response to the fine-tuning argument is to say that of course the universe is finely tuned, because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to observe it.

That's a truism and a tautology, not an explanation.

Think of it this way. You're standing before a firing squad of dozens of skilled shooters, all with loaded weapons pointed straight at you, who all fire at you simultaneously. Yet you walk away unscathed. Your response? Well, if I hadn't survived, I wouldn't be here to observe it. Does that explain this extremely improbable outcome? No. It's a statement of the obvious, but you'd be searching for answers.

In the same way, the fine-tuning of the universe to allow conscious life cries out for an explanation. The possibilities are that this happened by

1. Chance

2. Necessity

3. Design

Option 1 is the firing squad problem. The odds are so overwhelmingly against this "just happening" that proponents have resorted to untestable and bizarre explanations like an infinite multiverse.

There is no evidence for Option 2. Nothing in the laws of nature requires the finely-tuned parameters of the universe to be the way they are.

Logically, this leaves Option 3 as the most probable explanation.

When I was a physics student coming out of my lifelong atheism, I was deeply moved by this argument. It didn't matter what my prejudices were, the logic was so sound that I couldn't see any way around it. - Sarah Salviander

The age to come is far more Jewish than what most Christians are currently comfortable with. - Tyler Luedke

Are you a dispensationalist?

Just because someone takes a futurist approach to eschatology does not mean they are a Zionist or a dispensationalist.

We are not disciples of Darby or Scofield. We are trying to trust that what God said in the Law and the Prophets agrees with what Jesus and the apostles taught, and that both stand in continuity with the eschatological expectations found in Second Temple Jewish literature.

Why does that matter? Because terms like Kingdom of God, Resurrection of the Dead, Eternal Life, Gehenna, and Son of David already had meaning before Jesus and the apostles. They were not inventing a new framework for a new religion or a new church. They were using language that was already defined and understood, then calling the Gentiles being grafted in to learn those terms according to their established meaning.

That is why Paul says the apostles received “grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake” (Romans 1:5). The apostolic mission was not to detach Gentiles from Israel’s promises, but to disciple them into the faith and hope those promises had already established.

So no, this does not make someone a dispensationalist. That label is often used as a convenient dismissal by those who argue that Scripture was never meant to be understood in its plain prophetic sense, and that Jesus and the apostles were redefining Israel’s promises away from their first century Jewish expectation.

But the opposite is true. The apostles were Jews trained by Jesus, commissioned by grace, and sent to disciple the nations into the expectation of the faith they themselves had received.

Now, that does not mean the modern state of Israel is righteous in all it does. It does not mean the current Israeli government is living faithfully according to the covenants given to the fathers. But it does mean there is a remnant within Israel that will be redeemed and will inherit what was promised in the Law and the Prophets, because that is the expectation shared by God’s prophets, by Jesus, and by the apostles.

The real problem is that Gentiles gradually broke away from those promises and began redefining everything around themselves instead of being discipled into the faith they were meant to be grafted into.

As R. Kendall Soulen has argued, this was an “incomplete conversion” of the Gentiles into the Jewish matrix of the faith. The result is the modern Gentile church often standing at a great distance from the very categories, promises, and expectations it was supposed to inherit.

So it is simply incorrect to label biblical Gentile disciples as dispensationalists just because they see a future for Israel.

A Gentile disciple who believes in Israel’s future restoration and understands himself as grafted into those promises is not importing a foreign system. He is taking the Bible seriously.

The future of Zion is what we believe in because that future is the only thing that gives proper context to the terms: Kingdom of God, Resurrection of the Dead, Eternal Life, Gehenna, and Son of David. - Stephen Holmes

Peter doesn’t invite us to speculate about timelines, but to examine our lives:

What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness? [2 Peter 3:11]

Holiness, here, is not withdrawal from the world, but alignment with the world to come. It is a way of living that reflects the reality we are moving toward. A life that anticipates the day when righteousness will finally dwell on the earth.

When we live this way, our lives become signposts. Small glimpses of a future reality breaking into the present. We are not perfect, but oriented in the right direction. -  Sebastiaan van Wessem, The Future Pulling Us Foward

It wasn’t the severity of the whips or the size of the nails that made the Cross of Christ effectual. Rather, it was the Father’s sending of the Son, the Son’s willing sacrifice, and the work of “the Eternal Spirit” which carried out the Divine plan of bringing many sons to glory. - BA Purtle

There is coming a Day when a Jewish king will rule the world from Jerusalem, and all the nations will flourish under his leadership. Death, injustice, and lack will be no more. Sorrow and sighing will flee away. Maranatha.

~ Josh Hawkins, The Apocalyptic Gospel Podcast

The Kingdom and the Covenant

 

We owe all to Jesus crucified. What is your life, my brethren, but the cross?...

What is your joy but the cross?

What is your delight, what is your heaven, but the Blessed One, once crucified for you, who ever liveth to make intercession for you?

-- Spurgeon

The greatest race ever sprinted was run by a Man with His feet nailed to a tree. - Bob Sorge

The author of Hebrews claims that one function of the Levitical system was to provide God’s people with a glimpse of heavenly worship. But with that, the author argues that the earthly worship system has earthly functions that the earthly people need for the present age. Although Hebrews 10 often is read as a critique of Levitical worship, especially by those who adhere to the relapse theory, the author instead presents the earthly cult affected by injustice and/or limited in scope. Ultimately, God’s desire was to send Jesus into the world with a human body that could be offered to perfect his people. The perfection of Jesus offered to the people allows for the once-for-all offering to be permanent, which renders portions of the earthly cult unnecessary. When bodies are no longer susceptible to ritual impurity, offerings that address it will no longer be needed. - Madison N. Pierce, Relapsing, Reverting, or Rejecting? The Purpose of Hebrews and Early Jewish Religion

My teaching on interpreting Luke 9:27 "Some standing here will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come." Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

The relapse theory often goes hand-in-hand with replacement theologies, and these ideologies often utilize Hebrews 8 as a text that teaches that the ‘old’ is done. But as we have seen, the author’s appeal to Jeremiah 31 does not need to serve an antinomian or supersessionist argument. Instead, the author’s interpretation of the quotation presents God restoring his relationship with his people and instituting another covenant that pertains to the heavenly realm that the people will experience fully in the future. - Madison N. Pierce, Relapsing, Reverting, or Rejecting? The Purpose of Hebrews and Early Jewish Religion

The second factor for consideration with the author’s [of Hebrews] quotation is the timing. The author presents the dissolution of the first covenant as a future reality (Ellingworth 1993: 419; Gäbel 2006: 280; Karrer 2008: 123–24; Koester 2001: 392–93, though 388; Nanos 2009: 186; contra Cockerill 2012: 370; Moo 2024: 294). This is clearest in the author’s summary comment where the ‘old’ is said to be near disappearance and ‘growing old and aging’ (Moore 2024: 148). This coheres with the quotation itself. The days of the new covenant are coming, not here. Further, the reality described in which everyone knows the Lord is not a present reality. The new covenant surely is in place, but its effects appear delayed. The author says that the old covenant has not yet disappeared. A similar chronology appears elsewhere in Hebrews. In Hebrews 9 (to which we will return), the illustration that the earthly worship space provides is for the ‘present time’ (9.9) related to their current bodily reality (9.10), and in Hebrews 8, the author mentions that if Jesus had been a priest on earth, then he would not have had anything to offer (8.4). Earth is where the Levites minister. This leaves open the possibility for the earthly cult to be operative and for the addressees to participate—depending on to whom and when Hebrews is written (so also Thiessen 2019: 187–88). - Madison N. Pierce, Relapsing, Reverting, or Rejecting? The Purpose of Hebrews and Early Jewish Religion

In summary, the author’s [of Hebrews] declaration that the regulation about Levitical priests is ‘weak and useless’ provides many interpreters with the basis for their claim that the author desires to prevent the addressees from returning to Jewish religion; however, even if the whole law is in view, the author does not present the law as deficient in its own right, only that it might be judged deficient when compared with the efficacy and scope of the offering of Jesus. - Eric Mason, 'The Epistle (Not Necessarily) to the "Hebrews"

Rather than claiming that the law failed, the author of Hebrews claims quite the opposite throughout the work. Consider Hebrews 9.13–14 (cited by Ellingworth). The author says: 

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a red heifer sprinkled on those defiled consecrates (ἁγιάζει) for the purification of the flesh, then how much more will the blood of Christ, who offered himself blameless to God through the eternal Spirit, cleanse our conscience (καθαριεῖ τὴν συνείδησιν ἡμῶν)…? 

The author uses an argument from lesser to greater here, and that argument depends upon the effectiveness of the Levitical offerings (Moffitt 2019). The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a red heifer consecrate; that is a claim clearly made. Those items cannot cleanse the conscience, but they were not intended to do so. - Madison N. Pierce, Relapsing, Reverting, or Rejecting? The Purpose of Hebrews and Early Jewish Religion

Theology 101:

Them: “The NT applies OT promises to the seed of Abraham spiritually to the church. 

So—no future promises for the physical seed of Abraham.”

Me: “The NT applies the OT promise of resurrection spiritually to the church. 

Will there be no future physical resurrection?”

-Dr. Michael Svigel

Jesus knew that if He went to His garden of prayer He would be arrested (because Judas knew the place). And still He went and prayed. He wanted to be arrested in the place of prayer. - Bob Sorge

Newman: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

Me:

To be deeper in history to realize Protestantism is actually right where it matters most.

To be deepest in history is to embrace Protestantism as the authentic expression of true catholicity. - Dr. Michael Svigel

What is the Kingdom of God?

It’s not a vague spiritual reality and you're supposed to just have enough faith it is all around you all the time; or within you; or some place you go when you die.

From Genesis to Jesus, it is one consistent promise:

God dwelling with His people

on a restored earth under His rule.

In Eden, God was with man in paradise. That was lost. A Messiah is promised to restore this.

In Genesis 17, God promises Abraham a people, a land, and that He will be their God showing us that from this land He will accomplish His will of restoration.

In Exodus 15, He declares He will bring them in, plant them on His holy mountain, and dwell among them as King. 

2 Samuel 7 this Messiah is shown to be the son of David- born within the nation of Israel. He will: 

“appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly,

— 2 Samuel 7:10

Daniel 7 shows us this Messiah and tells us the timing of this inheritance: 

“I kept looking in the night visions,

And behold, with the clouds of heaven

One like a Son of Man was coming,

And He came up to the Ancient of Days

And was presented before Him.

“And to Him was given dominion,

Glory and a kingdom,

That all the peoples, nations and men of every language

Might serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

Which will not pass away;

And His kingdom is one

Which will not be destroyed.

— Daniel 7:13-14

But we are shown that after the final blasphemous ruler is judged and destroyed:

I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom.

— Daniel 7:21-22

The apostles understood this. After Jesus’ resurrection they asked:

“Is it now You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

Jesus didn’t correct them—only told them to wait…

So they “strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

— Acts 14:22.

Paul further clarifies:

“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom.”

The Kingdom comes with the resurrection.

Jesus confirms this directly:

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne… Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

— Matthew 25:31-34

The timeline never changes, it’s the same every time:

•rebellion and oppression

•the coming of the Son of Man

•judgment

•resurrection life

•then the Kingdom is given to the saints

The Kingdom of God is an entirely future physical reality based on the promises of Law and the Prophets being fulfilled.

It is something you inherit when Jesus returns, raises the dead, restores the earth, and dwells with His people.

So: Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.

— Acts 3:19-21

Because the kingdom of God is at hand! Maranatha! - Stephen Holmes

Theology 101: The amillennial claim that Satan’s binding in Rev 20:1-3 is just limited to the act of deceiving the nations doesn’t fit the severity of the language in light of its clear Enochian background of the binding and imprisoning of wicked demons. If I say, “The murderer was captured, shackled, and sent to prison so he can’t kill anymore,” nobody in their right mind would assume, “Oh, but he’s freed from jail to commit lesser crimes like theft, vandalism, and assault!” - Dr. Michael Svigel

When someone says, “The Jews rejected Jesus, so God rejected them,” this is my response:

“Many believed in His name…” — John 2:23

“Many of the people believed in Him…” — John 7:31

“As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him” — John 8:30

“Many of the Jews… believed in Him” — John 11:45

“Many even of the authorities believed in Him…” — John 12:42

Not a few. Not a fringe.

Many… Jews.

All four Gospels record the triumphal entry—roads lined with Jews openly declaring Him as Messiah:

“Hosanna!

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”

— John 12:13

That’s not rejection, that’s recognition.

Then Acts:

3,000 Jews believe after Peter’s first sermon and he tells them:

“The promise is for you and your children…” — Acts 2:39

Still speaking to Israel.

Then 5,000 more:

“The number of the men came to be about five thousand” — Acts 4:4

Then it keeps growing:

“Multitudes of men and women were constantly added…” — Acts 5:14

“A great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith” — Acts 6:7

Yes, even Jewish priests.

And later:

“You see… how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed.” — Acts 21:20

Thousands.

Not rejecting, responding.

The apostles themselves were Jews, the first among the remnant of Israel to believe Jesus was the Messiah.

Paul says it plainly:

“Has God rejected His people? May it never be!

For I too am an Israelite…” — Romans 11:1

So the claim that “the Jews rejected Jesus, therefore God rejected them” is not simply wrong, it is actually built on a false premise that the Scriptures themselves do not support. It exposes the influence of imposed Gentile frameworks and familiar phrases that shape how people come to believe things about the Bible that the Bible itself does not say. This is what I call the gentile Christian matrix… until you unplug you don’t know you’re in it. You actually think you read the Bible correctly when you’re making grave errors like assigning the entire nation of Israel in Jesus’ day the blanket label of unbelief. - Stephen Holmes

"I believe we Gentiles have been very guilty concerning a large portion of God’s truth. I believe that we have cherished an arbitrary, reckless habit of interpreting 1st-Advent texts literally and 2nd-Advent texts spiritually. I believe we have not rightly understood ‘all that the prophets have spoken’ about the 2nd personal Advent of Christ any more than the Jews did about the 1st.” - JC Ryle

Anyone who can raise Himself from the dead is strong enough to also raise me up from the dead. - Bob Sorge

"There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." (Rom. 2:9)

The Jews still being the Chosen People does not mean they get off Scot-free for their sins. It just means human evil cannot cancel out an eternal, divine covenant. - Travis M. Snow

“Save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” Matthew 27:40

Ahh.

Now we know what the devil was up to in the wilderness.

“If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Matthew 4:3

Jesus was already on the Calvary Road of self-denial.

Satan was desperate to get him off. - John Piper

Replacement Theology robs us of one of the most powerful apologetic arguments for the truth of the Bible. The Bible describes our current geopolitical situation in amazing detail:

• The Jewish people scattered across the earth (Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 28:64). 
• The miraculous rebirth of Israel and return of the exiles (Isaiah 11:11–12; Ezekiel 36:24; 37:21–22; Amos 9:14–15). 
• The descendants of Ishmael becoming a great people warring against themselves (Genesis 16:10–12; 17:20). 
• The whole world drunk on the “luxurious living” of Babylon (Revelation 18:3, 7, 9–19). 
• The surrounding nations turning against Israel (Zechariah 12:2–3; 14:2).
• Jerusalem becoming a “cup of trembling” (Zechariah 12:2–3; Zechariah 14:2; Joel 3:1–2). 
• The nations being against the temple (Psalm 79:1; Luke 21:24; Revelation 11:1–2). 
• Many of the nation’s currently fighting Israel are even in the same geographic location of the ancient enemies of Israel (Psalm 83:1–8; Ezekiel 35:10; 36:2). 
• It even predicts the rise of those who scoff (spiritualize?) at the coming of Christ and the fulfillment of prophecies (2 Peter 3:3–4; Jude 1:17–18).

It's impossible for this to be a coincidence. It’s time for Christians to wake up and reject Replacement Theology. - Johnathon Grimwood

When I come to the cross, I want to help Him. I want to fix it. I want to help Him save me. But all I can do is sit and watch while He saves me. I bring nothing to the cross, He does everything. - Allen Hood

My teaching on Jesus' prediction of suffering from Luke 9. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

Paul the apostle (esp. 1 Cor. 15; and 2 Cor. 4:16—5:10), the author of Hebrews (esp. chs. 1—2), and the author of the Gospel of John (esp. 1:1–14) are history's most consequential metaphysicians and it isn't particularly close--the audacity to baptize and to raise Middle Platonist and Stoic metaphysics in the christological reception of the Jewish creational tradition. - Chris Kugler

I know it's hard to see all the evil hatred of Zionism, Jewish people, Israel, etc. that masquerades as something intelligible or God-honoring.

But you also need to remember that, ultimately, this is all by God's sovereign design. He says in Zechariah 12:2-3:

“I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling...I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will severely injure themselves."

It is God Himself who is allowing the Israel Derangement Syndrome because He has a case against the nations and is leading them to judgment.

Our task is to discern the times, the Scriptures, and to choose where we stand. Do not be flabbergasted and shaken from your poise because the Scriptures are moving towards their fulfillment.

God is right on schedule. And soon, He will be "the Holy One in Israel":

"So I will make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel." (Ezek. 39:7)

-Travis M. Snow

Simon of Cyrene, when you carried the cross, you thought you were saving Jesus from a burden He couldn’t carry, but actually He was saving you from a burden you couldn’t carry. - Bob Sorge

The cross demonstrates that when you know you have everything, you can die with nothing. - Bob Sorge

The gospel doesn’t awaken you to who you truly are; it kills and resurrects you into a gloriously new and different identity. - Bob Sorge

In Acts 1.6 the apostles asked Jesus, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

John Calvin commented: “There are as many errors in this question as words.”

But Calvin, otherwise rightly beloved in many respects, was himself the one who erred. For Jesus did not correct or rebuke the content of their question. Rather, he said:

“It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (vv. 7-8)

He affirmed the restoration of the kingdom to Israel as an epoch that “the Father has fixed by his own authority.” Then He said essentially that it wasn’t their business to figure out its timing, but to pray, receive the power of the Spirit, and to bear faithful witness to Christ as messengers of the Gospel. -BA Purtle

There are some keys that, if You are to handle them, You must have scars in Your hands. - Bob Sorge

Learn the contours of 1st Century Jewish Apocalypticism—it is absolutely the interpretive framework of Jesus and the Apostles. Also, learn the contours of the Greek (pagan) philosophical worldview—it is the underlying interpretive framework of perhaps half of the Christian Church today. - Joel Richardson

“While the foolish virgins were going to buy oil, the bridegroom came.” Matthew 25:10

You can’t make yourself love the second coming at the second coming.

“The righteous judge will award to me a crown of righteousness on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:8

-John Piper

Theology 101: Every eschatology—whether amillennial, premillennial, or postmillennial—has death on earth during the millennial kingdom of Rev 20. Only in classic premillennialism is death reduced to a mere trickle while the world is gradually freed from its bondage to corruption. - Dr. Michael Svigel

Paul is not contradicting himself when he speaks of a remnant now and all Israel later. He is tracing the same prophetic sequence:

• Now: a remnant by grace.
• Meanwhile: a partial hardening.
• Then: a future moment when Deliverer-from-Zion removes ungodliness from Jacob.

The end result: Israel as Israel is no longer split into a segment that is faithful and a segment that is unfaithful.

Paul explains that Israel remains covenantally significant:

“for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

That is a sledgehammer against any theology that treats the prophetic promises to Israel as nullified in a way that denies the original promises as referring to Israel (all Israel—both faithful and unfaithful). Paul’s point is not merely that God saves individuals; it is that God will be faithful to His historical promises. - Joel Richardson, The Remnant Now, All Israel Then

Paul’s argument in Romans 11 is built on this prophetic structure. He affirms that at this present time there is only a remnant of believing Israelites, and a current hardening on the rest. But he also speaks of a future moment when the hardening is lifted and “all Israel will be saved.” When Paul says “all Israel,” he is not denying that it is only a remnant; he is bringing the remnant pattern to its promised climax. - Joel Richardson, The Remnant Now, All Israel Then

If Jesus truly inaugurated the new creation, wherein sin and the curse are overturned, then we foremost ought to campaign for the deposing of wicked leaders, for total social equality, for environmental restoration, etc. (as indeed many inaugurationalists have done). If our inheritance and resurrection has already begun, then where is the impetus to take up our cross in this life and endure martyrdom (Luke 9:23; 14:27)? Why should we follow in the footsteps of our Master (1 Peter 2:21), enduring hardships “while suffering unjustly” (v.19)? Why are we called to hate our lives in this age (Luke 14:26; John 12:25), laying down our lives as Jesus did (John 15:13; 1 John 3:16)? Why should we rejoice in persecution (Matt. 5:12; Acts 5:41)? What is the purpose of being the scum of the earth in this age, paraded around like those condemned to die in the arena (1 Cor. 4:9–13)? Why should we love our lives not unto death (Rev.12:11)? Why should we be those “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus. . . always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:10–11)? And why should we “share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings” (2 Cor. 1:5), being “united with him in a death like his” (Rom. 6:5), rejoicing “in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13), “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col.1:24), “becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10)? Why should we sell our possessions and give to the needy (Luke 12:33; Acts 2:45), joyfully accepting the confiscation of our property (Heb. 10:34)? Why should we soberly prepare our minds for grievous trials, setting our hope fully on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6–13)? If our inheritance has already been inaugurated, why then should we heed Paul’s radical exhortation to forsake living for this age in every area of life: 

This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none,and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.(1 Cor. 7:29–31)

John P. Harrigan, the Gospel of Christ Crucified

Furthermore, these two axes of Augustinianism (immaterial heavenly destiny and actualized divine sovereignty) have produced, broadly speaking, the deviant expressions of praxis found in monasticism and Christendom. We naturally seek to be “imitators of God” (Eph. 5:1). If the mission of God is ultimately to escape from materiality, then we will conform our lives to this end, and monasticism is the most logical response. Taking up the cross (cf. Luke 9:23 and par.) within Christoplatonism is thus assumed to be asceticism in its various forms, and Simeon Stylites (c. 390–459), who spent nearly forty years atop a desert pillar, would be the exemplar heavenly destiny disciple. 

Conversely, bearing the cross, according to Christendom, is understood in terms of denying yourself for the cause of extending the sovereignty of God over the earth, as exemplified in the Crusades when banners displaying the cross led the Christian armies in holy war against the infidels. Dominionists to this day continue to receive the same false vision of Constantine concerning the cross: “In this sign, conquer!” (in Latin, In hoc signo vinces). I believe both of these distortions are at odds with the cruciform-apocalyptic mission of God, and they militate against a true expression of the cross, in both word and deed, regarding the present mercy of God in light of the coming severity of God.  - John P. Harrigan, the Gospel of Christ Crucified, p.86

When we "pray for the peace of Jerusalem," we're not merely praying for the absence of geopolitical strife in the region. We're praying for "the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." - BA Purtle

Without a biblical theology of Israel men are bound to make either more or less than they should of the modern State/Land.

The Bible alone makes sense of the historic preservation, controversy, chastening (and future redemption) of the Jewish People.

Get clear on this, saints. - BA Purtle

As previously mentioned, the term “Christ” is little more than Jesus’ proper name in much of the popular mind. In the early church, however, one’s identity as a believer was dictated by his or her faith and confession that Jesus was “the Christ.” As John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God” (1 John 5:1). Put bluntly, the distortion of messianic expectation robs people of their identity as children of God. Moreover, it robs people of their boldness in bearing the Christian name—as Peter exhorts, “If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in having that name” (1 Peter 4:16, csb). The name that we bear as followers of Jesus inherently confesses our messianic hope. - John P. Harrigan, the Gospel of Christ Crucified, p.137-138

The surest road to wisdom is meditation upon the Word of God. - Charles Spurgeon

“The atonement never fluctuates. It never rises or falls in value.” — Charles Spurgeon