When approval becomes your fuel...

...exhaustion and anxiety are never far behind. - Lee Cummings

“I consider the principal enemies of the Gospel to be, not the pontiff of Rome, nor heretics, nor seducers, nor tyrants, but bad Christians.” - John Calvin

Praying for your ministers will be a manifest proof of you believing that though Paul plant, and Apollos water, yet it is God alone who gives the increase. - George Whitefield

Jesus and the apostles overwhelmingly look forward—not backward or to the present—to the Messianic reign. - Joel Richardson

“There can be no true and full preaching of the Gospel without explaining the mystery of Israel.” - Adolph Saphir

It's not our great missions strategies or organizations. It's mostly just the internet. Muslims are coming to the Lord en masse because "information for the first time in 1400 years is finally accessible." The real question is, into what redemptive narrative will these new believers be discipled? - John P. Harrigan

“If,” says the King of Glory, “If My Kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight” to prevent His crucifixion. We can fairly infer here that through the three years Jesus spent in itinerant ministry with His discipleship team leading up to this moment, He deliberately did not shape them with some brand of nationalism, either violent or peaceful. This has been misunderstood by many teachers and commentators in the years since to justify their misguided allegorization of promises made to Abraham, as if truth and beauty are singularly spiritual with no impact on physical creation—as if the Gospel of the Kingdom bears neither care nor jurisdiction over our bodies, or our living space. As if creation is not “groaning for the redemption.”  For this reason, we have abused the last conversation between these same disciples and Jesus before His Ascension with a wildly arrogant accusation against the apostles:

And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

 

Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

This conversation took place at the conclusion of forty days wherein the resurrected Jesus taught His disciples specifically “things pertaining to the Kingdom,” but pastors and theologians across Christendom have long surmised, “Those silly Jews just couldn’t get their eyes off the dirt, those foolish Zionist nationalists! Don’t they understand that the Kingdom is spiritual now??”

While it is true that nationalism is incongruent with the Gospel of the Kingdom, these men had reason to believe the Kingdom soon-to-be restored to Israel is the same Kingdom Jesus spoke of to Pilate just the month prior— it is this Kingdom that birthed their nation in God’s earliest promises to their father Abraham. This had a radical consequence on Abraham’s life, all his decisions, and even created the dust storm that is Middle Eastern geopolitics today, shaped by the hurricane that is the “controversy of Zion.” - Stephanie Quick, Promise and Pursuit: Abraham's Holy Dream

"Too many evangelical scholars operate within the confines of post-enlightenment unbelief." -Jim Hamilton

"You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary" - Jonathan Edwards

The OT prophets, the Olivet Discourse, and Revelation present a consistent pattern: 

(1) this present age gives way to 

(2) a global Day of the Lord, 

(3) that Day culminates in Messiah’s coming to earth, and 

(4) His appearing establishes His kingdom over the nations. 

- Michael Vlach

A passage of Scripture may mean more than its original author understood it to mean (due to the nature of progressive revelation), but it cannot mean less nor entirely other than he understood it to mean. This principle is sometimes violated by proponents of NT priority. - BA Purtle

Interestingly, we find ourselves in a unique moment in Western civilization: At once, the faith that fueled the apostles’ earnest expectation for a Kingdom restored to Israel is being scorned worldwide as carnal nationalism, while many who decry this testimony are themselves attempting to leverage the Gospel of the Kingdom for political power and influence in non-covenantal nations—as if God mandated all Christians everywhere to fight for a kingdom that is of this world. As if Jesus did not say what He did to Pontius Pilate. As if He did not allow the Romans to spit on Him, to lash Him, to beat Him bloody, or to hammer rusty nails through His body to hang Him in the air on splintered wood until He asphyxiated.

But He did, and He did so “for the joy set before Him.”[Hebrews 12:2]

That joy is synonymous with Abraham’s dream, the provisions promised to him that he pursued in faith all his days—breathing his last before being buried in Hebron never having seen his promises come to pass [Genesis 25:8-10]. The three provisions of the Abrahamic Covenant [Hebrews 11:8-16] include seed: making mankind eligible for redemption, land: that creation can be restored, and blessing to all nations ensuring all sons and daughters of Adam have access to the first resurrection and can live in the renewed heaven and earth.

This is the Kingdom for which Jesus shed His blood; these are the provisions He secured the day Pilate sentenced Him to a criminal’s execution. Abraham staked his entire life—and that of his covenantal son—on the dream given to him through promises: the city whose builder and maker is God. John the Beloved saw this city in his own dream, the “wife of the Lamb,” the new Jerusalem which will descend “out of heaven from God.” He is her builder; He is her Husband. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth: the City of the Great King. Her gates will never be shut, yet no immorality will ever be permitted to enter her jurisdiction. It is from this city the law of the LORD will go forth, the knowledge of the LORD will “cover the earth as waters cover the seas,” and from this city the healing of the nations reach even the very ends of the earth, teaching mankind to unlearn his ways of war and Cain. This is Abraham’s city—and it is Jesus’ city. This is what the apostles asked Him if He would ignite two thousand years ago. - Stephanie Quick, Promise and Pursuit: Abraham's Holy Dream

My teaching on "the Rock", "Building his Church", "the Gates of Hell", and "Binding and Loosing" from Matthew 16:18-19. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

Theology 101: When God established fellowship with His image-bearers, He didn't open a doorway to heaven; He planted a garden on earth. - Dr. Michael Svigel

Theology 101: Looking into my heart or examining my works for assurance of my salvation leads not to faith but to doubt. Looking to the person, work, and words of Christ alone gives me assurance. - Dr. Michael Svigel

Jesus’ identity as the true and ultimate Israelite means the eventual salvation and restoration of the nation—not Israel’s irrelevance. The Representative Head restores the corporate people. See Isaiah 49:3–6; Romans 15:8. - Michael Vlach

“What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.” Matthew 15:18

It’s like vomit. The sickness was already there. But now it’s all over your clothes. - John Piper

Zacharias’ prophecy (specifically called a prophecy by Luke...) is a stunning reaffirmation of the hope of Israel as articulated in the Hebrew Scriptures. This, despite its appearance in the New Testament. - Nick Uva

Theology 101: If your church’s sanctuary is perfect for putting on a concert but lousy for observing communion, you got it backwards. - Dr. Michael Svigel

Supersessionism, covenant theology, fulfillment theology, the Church as the “new Israel”, call it whatever you want, is and will always be incoherent and contradictory. You can’t have the literal curses upon national/territorial Israel but not the blessings. - Travis M. Snow

This correspondence of language and imagery suggests that Paul viewed the anticipated resurrection, transformation, and assumption of those who are Christ's to occur "at the last trumpet of God" (1 Thess 4:16; 1 Cor 15:52) upon Christ's descent from heaven (Phil 3:20; 1 Thess 4:16). Further, it appears that Paul viewed this transformation and assumption as the actual means by which Christ will rescue or save believers from the coming wrath (1 Thess 1:10; 5:9). In the Old Testament, the sounding of the trumpet is always pictured as preceding the period of judgment known as the Day of the Lord (Joel 2:1; cf. Jer 4:5, 19, 21) - Dr. Michael Svigel, The Fathers on the Future, p. 203

"Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3-4)

Paul isn't doing "prophecy math" and saying that Jesus "checked all the boxes". He's emphasizing a pattern. 

The Torah and Prophets speak of

• Israel's eschatological suffering (Deut 4:30; Jer 30:7-8; Ezek 38-39), 
• a removal of any remaining power or hope (Ezek 37:11; Dan 12:7), 
• and a glorious resurrection and restoration by God alone (Deut 4:31; Jer 31; Ezek 37:12-13). 

Paul's point is that Jesus walked this same path in solidarity with the Jewish people. He's not redefining "the gospel" as "Jesus' life, death, burial, and resurrection". Instead, he's *affirming the same gospel* that was preached through the Tanakh, by John, and by Jesus.

What is that gospel? The same as it's always been: that God will bless the nations through the ethnic descendants of Abraham. Death, sorrow, crying, and pain will be no more. Creation will be restored. A son of David will rule the earth from Jerusalem in righteousness.

So we wait eagerly, imitating the same pattern that Messiah himself demonstrated. We seek to obey the words of Jesus and emulate his manner of life. If we are maligned, misunderstood, or even martyred for it, so be it - this was his path. Resurrection is the guaranteed end! - Josh Hawkins.