•A Brief Exhortation On Fatherhood•

Any father with an ounce of self-awareness is often cognizant of ways in which he falls short in the raising of his children. This grief is common to us all.

That being so, fathers: Don’t be paralyzed by your very real shortcomings, but make them your servants for clearer faith and better fatherhood.

Stand in Gospel grace, be quick to repent, and exercise your God-given authority— not timidly nor haughtily, but humbly, happily and heartily, for the glory of Christ and the flourishing of your children and grandchildren.

Don’t let society, your own failures, or the accuser of the brethren emasculate your soul. Be biblical, Spirit-led, and self-sacrificial in the holy call of fatherhood. 

Curse your propensity to pride, blame-shifting, and the limp-wristed abdication of responsibility. Ask the Lord regularly for a strong back, a wise walk, and a gentle spirit.

“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”

In more ways than you can know, the present and future joys of your wife and children will be shaped by your clarity of vision, relational earnestness, and steadfastness in the discipline and nurturing of your offspring.

There will come a day when they will no longer be under your roof. It will arrive very soon, brothers. Some of us are already there, with certain regrets, gratitude for mercy, and a desire that the rest of our brethren would be sober and wise in this precious stewardship. 

There will also come a day when you will no longer live under your own roof, and all that your children shall have of you will be the memories you left with them. Live in such way as to be unashamed when that day comes. 

Rest in Gospel grace, live free and happy in Christ, and aim for holiness in all of life. Pray that His very disposition might increasingly shine through you in all your interactions with them. 

If your phone is a distraction to fathering meaningfully, if the rat race for riches has gotten a hold of you, if lust and porn have a grip on you, chuck them all now, for God’s sake! And don’t go it alone. Walk in the light with brothers in a biblical church. Get Bible priorities and pour your life out in “the obedience of faith” to shoulder them.

Your God and Father has called you after His own name. He has made you a father. He has given you children! Be strong in His grace and keep your shoulder to the plow. It will be worth it in the end.

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”

-BA Purtle

My mother's day teaching on Acts 9 and 1 Corinthians 3. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

...The expression, 'the throne of David,' often occurs in prophecy; and it is difficult to understand exactly what the spiritualists make of it. According to them, so far as we can see, David’s throne might mean any throne, David’s kingdom any kingdom; or rather, it must mean every throne and every kingdom. But surely David’s throne was not in heaven. His kingdom was not in heaven. His throne was not in the hearts of men. His reign was not a mere reign of principles.

...whatever it means, it must at least mean the peculiar sovereignty of Messiah over the literal Israel. It appears to us, that Christ’s being to receive the throne of his father David, must refer to the peculiar dominion which he is to exercise over the tribes and land over which David ruled. It may mean more, but at least it means this, else it does seem to us to be as vague a term as could be employed. We cannot consent to explain away such an important phrase as this. Not that we deny the truth that Christ is really the Head and King of all his saints; we admit this most fully,—as fully as our opponents can possibly do. All we contend for is, that this phrase does not refer to this; that it means something more, and has reference to the peculiar exercise of his dominion over the nation of Israel. Surely no one will deny that it may mean this. None will say that his being in a peculiar and pre-eminent manner King of Israel, prevents his being also King of saints. No one will refuse to admit that such is the plain and natural meaning of the words. And if so, why are the strong and peculiar words of Scripture to be spiritualized till all their strength and peculiarity are gone?

That 'the throne of David,' and such-like expressions, have the literal meaning we have stated, is, we think, evident from many passages of the Old and New Testament Scriptures.

....Alas, for the forlorn exiles, the homeless tribes of Israel, that once were the people of the Lord, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood! But she shall yet rise again. She has dwelt in dust and been clothed with sackcloth, but she shall put on her beautiful garments,—garments more glorious than in the days of old. Rebuilt and re-adorned, as the metropolis of the earth, she shall forget her misery in the joy of her second espousals and remember her shame no more.

In Israel we see the standing memorial of Jehovah’s faithfulness and truth. Nothing has failed of all that the Lord had said that he would do for or against that people. All has come literally to pass. The curse has gone forth against them and every threat has been verified. Yet they are not consumed; they are still beloved for their fathers’ sakes, and preserved because of the covenant which cannot be broken. Destined for brighter days, they still live on. Monuments now of God’s righteous severity, they are yet to be more signal monuments of his unchanging grace, for 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' Tossed from billow to billow upon a single plank, they have weathered centuries of storm, seeing the mightiest vessels part anchor in the blast and go down at their side, themselves buoyant still. Merses profundo pulchrior evenit! To this day, as hitherto, unfixed, unanchored, unsheltered, unprotected—driven hither and thither by the tide or the tempest, they are awaiting the outburst of the world’s last hurricane, which, while it devastates the earth, and strews the sea with shipwreck, shall leave them unharmed, nay, waft them home! What faithfulness, what patience, what unchanging love. In Jehovah’s eyes they are precious still; the chosen heritage of God. Their covenant abideth sure; their promises are imperishable. Were it not for these, where had they been? Would they not have perished from the earth, and been found no more among the nations? These promises held them fast and bound their roots 'as with a band of iron and brass,' that they should not be swept away nor consumed. Through all these 1800 years they have been sustained as a nation, emerging from the smoke and ruin of a thousand cities,—rising out of the fragments of an hundred empires, surviving, with mysterious tenacity of life, the storm, the sack, the massacre, the flood, the flame!

The prominence given to Israel in the prophets forces itself vividly upon our notice. Nay, history and prophecy are in this respect alike. Such is Jehovah’s purpose; such is one of his ordained channels of self-manifestation! 'O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.'"

[Horatius Bonar, Prophetical Landmarks; Containing Data for Helping to Determine the Question of Christ’s Pre-Millennial Advent (London: J. Nisbet & Co., 1847), pgs. 295–332.]

Via BA Purtle 

We have no objection to the spiritual, provided the literal be found untenable; but till it be found so, we shall continue to hold by it. Not that we object to a spiritual application of these predictions: all we ask is, that such a spiritual application be founded upon a literal interpretation. We would spiritualize and apply prophecy just as we would history; that is, we would first interpret it. We would deal with the Book of Isaiah as we would do with the Book of Chronicles. We might admit that there was more of figure in the former than in the latter, though not so much more as many suppose; but we would still maintain that the language was essentially the same, and that, therefore, the same grammar and lexicon would do for both. The question would turn out to be one as to difference in degree, not in kind. There are figures in Chronicles as well as in Isaiah; and the same principle which shows us what is literal and what is figurative in Chronicles, will also show us what is literal and what is figurative in Isaiah. It seems often taken for granted that those who assert the literal interpretation of the blessings promised to Israel, thereby exclude the spiritual. They do not. They assert the literal blessing, because they believe that God has promised it; but they maintain the superiority and necessity of the spiritual as firmly as do the others. They believe that Israel will be converted, and they rejoice in this as the glorious issue towards which the prophets point. But they believe more; they believe not only that they will be converted, but that they will be restored to their own land. But does their literal restoration take from them one single spiritual blessing? Or, does it prevent the Gentile nations from enjoying one of those innumerable blessings which are given to them for an inheritance?

Every word of prophecy is big with meaning. 

....We would remark upon the ambiguity with which spiritual expositors interpret the names Israel, Judah, and such like. These words may have three meanings. They may mean the literal Israel, or they may mean the visible Church, or they may mean the real spiritual chosen of Abraham. Now, what we remark is, that many expositors mix up these three meanings, so that sometimes one of these is meant and sometimes the other, according as it suits their interpretation. They lay down no rule for fixing the signification of these words, so as to determine exactly when they mean one thing and when they mean another. Prophecy, under such a system, is a mere mass of confusion and uncertainty. 

To say, as is often done, that when they refer to the Christian Church they must be spiritually interpreted, is such a begging of the question, that we wonder how any one could seriously advance such a statement. The very point in dispute is, whether they do refer to the Christian Church. How are we to rid ourselves of the inextricable confusion in which we are involved by not knowing what Israel really means? When we quote some strong passage of the prophets in proof of the restoration of the literal Israel, we are met with two explanations. At one time we are told that such a passage does not refer to the restoration, but to the conversion of the Jews: and, again, at another time, we are told, and often by the same people, that these prophecies do not allude to the Jews at all, but to the Christian Church. In this manner, Scripture is recklessly tossed about from one interpretation to another, till the Infidel scoffs at men pretending to confute him from prophecy, who yet do not themselves know whether the prediction refers to Jew or Gentile. Some, however, seem inclined to fix the meaning of most passages to the Christian Church; not to the merely visible Church, but to the really spiritual Israel. But here we do feel at a stand. These prophecies speak of the conversion of those called Israel, that is, of the conversion of those who are already converted! They were entitled to the name of Israel because they were believers, or converted men; and yet of these it is foretold that they shall be converted in goodly numbers in the latter days. What a maze! - Horatius Bonar

 "Israel’s history, both past and future, occupies no narrow region, either in the purposes of God or in his written Word. Besides, the prophecies concerning Israel are the key to all the rest. True principles of interpretation in regard to them will aid us in disentangling and illustrating all prophecy together. False principles as to them will most thoroughly perplex and overcloud the whole Word of God.

...In all cases, then, we are bound to adhere to the literal until we can show reasons for departing from it. These reasons ought to be well weighed and found sufficient before we venture to disturb the plain meaning of God’s own words. For instance, the Unitarian departs from the literal meaning of those passages which speak of our Lord’s incarnation and divinity because he cannot understand how such a sense is reconcilable with other Scripture statements respecting the unity of Godhead. But is that a valid reason for turning those passages into figures? The common sense of a man tells him that this is perverting, not expounding Scripture. If all strong expressions are to be set down as Orientalisms, which may be interpreted as we please, what becomes of inspiration?

But, I am told that the literal sense is often so carnal that it must be departed from. Perhaps in some cases it may be so; but every passage must first be brought separately to the test. A literal fulfilment is often just as spiritual as any other, and it is a strange misapprehension of the true scope of Scripture to suppose that because some interpret literally, therefore they do not interpret spiritually. Besides, with the comparative value of the spiritual over the literal, we have, in the first instance, nothing to do in interpreting Scripture. We have simply to ascertain the real meaning of the words, whether that meaning be literal or spiritual. - 

Take the prophecies regarding the incarnation of Christ. Before that event took place, there might be a controversy as to whether they were to be literally fulfilled or not. A Jew might have argued with much apparent force against a literal meaning. What! Is God to take upon himself the form of a man? Is Jehovah to become an infant of days, nay, to be born of a creature—to be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief—to die and be buried, as men die and are buried? 

Impossible! the very idea is carnal beyond endurance. These prophecies cannot be interpreted in their literal sense; they must have some figurative, some spiritual meaning. So might a Jew have argued before Messiah came; and truly, when we think what it was that he had to believe regarding his Messiah, we could not have wondered, had he found much difficulty in receiving such prophecies as literal; our wonder is at the strength of that faith which, in spite of difficulties so vast, could take in the idea, and believe in the reality of that stupendous fact which the literal interpretation of prophecy involved! The fact, the glorious but stupendous fact, made known in the fulness of time, proved not only that the literal was the true sense of these prophecies regarding Messiah’s first coming, but also established this truth, that the literal interpretation and fulfilment may be the more truly spiritual of the two. Take, as another illustration of the point in hand, the doctrine of the resurrection. That doctrine appeared to some in the first ages such a carnal doctrine, that they denied the literal accomplishment of those Scriptures which speak of it. Of these were Hymenæus and Philetus, mentioned in the Second Epistle to Timothy. They maintained that a literal resurrection was such a carnal thing, that those passages which refer to it must mean something spiritual,—the resurrection of the soul from sin. They 'erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection was past already.' Here, also, the literal was the more spiritual of the two interpretations. - Horatius Bonar

Be willing to drop your fixed opinions of others, and make allowance for them to have grown over time.

After all, you believe that you have grown, and you desire for others to receive you as you are today — not as you were ten or even five years ago. - Nick Uva

The hopelessness of realized eschatology - podcast by Joel Richardson

"The next meal of Jesus with his disciples will be the Messianic meal on a transformed earth... Jesus will drink the wine ‘new,’ ... To be ‘new’ is a mark of the redeemed world and of the time of salvation, of the transformed creation." (Jeremias, Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 217)

Biblical Christianity: Jesus will return to reestablish the throne of His father David and thus the royal Jewish monarchy.

Gnostic Christo-platonism: Jesus has already spiritually restored the heavenly throne of David, thus we Christians are co-ruling a spiritual kingdom now. 

-Joel Richardson

The Lord's Prayer is not a magic formulation of words that Jesus invented to get God to really hear prayer.

It's a shortened form of the Amidah, a Jewish prayer that Yeshua prayed growing up, and that my Jewish brothers and sisters still pray today. - Joshua Hawkins

"In the morning, while the dew is on the grass, let grace drop upon the soul. Let us give to God the mornings of our days and the morning of our lives. Prayer should be the key of the day and the lock of the night" - Spurgeon

May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward. - Psalm 129:5

Theology 101: Theologians need to overcome the urge to answer questions nobody is asking or to ask questions nobody can answer. - Dr. Michael Svigel

Without foundation in the unchanging revelation of the Torah through the Jewish people, the entire Christian edifice is subject to constant revision and reinterpretation, usually trailing the moral consensus of the mainstream by a decade or two. - Daniel Thomas Lancaster

"'The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent,' would stand out as a beacon-light to all mankind on their way, burning brighter and brighter … till in the fullness of time 'the Sun of Righteousness' arose 'with healing under His wings!'” —Alfred Edersheim

One of the coolest things in the book of Isaiah is how his theology of the new heavens and new earth (65:17) is tied to the death and resurrection of the Suffering Servant in chapter 53.

The renewal of the entire cosmos hinges on the shed blood and resurrected body of the Son of Man. - Travis M. Snow