Category: New Testament
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Why Was Jesus Murdered?
Theories about how Jesus’ death dealt with our separation from God have come and gone throughout church history. The favored, traditional Christian doctrine is that Jesus was sacrificed on the cross to “forgive our sins”. This is believed to be crucial since those sins were holding us apart from God’s “justification” and, it is believed, our resultant ticket to God’s heaven when we die. More cynical observers say that this is simply the “Get out of Hell free” version of Jesus’s death. Just as there are sound, biblically founded reasons to accept this theory, there are equally valid reasons to…
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Jesus in Light of Paul in Light of Jesus
There has been a long-running tradition in scholarship of complaining that Paul tried to establish his own religion apart from the teachings of Jesus. I claim this is a position of ignorance, and perhaps academic agenda, not because Jesus’ and Paul’s words aren’t different – they are. But, rather, because they simply haven’t understood how the two messages interoperate within the context of the larger plan of God. In this larger context, of God’s redemption of Israel and the world to Himself, their messages were a duality, with one integrally supporting the other.
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Refuting Paul’s Attackers
The Apostle Paul has gotten a bad rap for centuries, mostly based on his antagonists’ misunderstanding/ignorance. Our purpose here is to review the attacker’s charges in some detail and demonstrate why they’re mistaken. In so doing, we’ll look at his criticisms in antiquity from both Jewish-Christian and Gentile-only factions of the early church, as well as from contemporary critics who contend Paul’s messages are counter to Jesus’.
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Forgiven, or Transformed to Righteousness?
For centuries, the traditional, Christian interpretation of Jesus’ death has been that it was an atonement for the sins of those who would choose to “believe” and follow Him. This scenario portrayed a kind of cosmic cleansing for those who believed, though no one told us what that meant. A common assumption is that having one’s sins atoned for/forgiven is having them excused. For the record, not everyone completely bought the cosmic cleansing story, citing texts (e.g. Luke) that didn’t completely embrace the sacrificial atonement theme.
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The Fraudulence of “Biblical Historians”
Just a quick note. Over the past many years in reading the work of “Biblical Historians” I have been struck by what, perhaps, should have been self-evident to me from the beginning. These “scholars” are not trying to understand why, for example, Jesus’ disciples all chose (with the exception of John who was exiled to an island to live out his life) to be martyred rather than renounce their faith — at least according to the accepted tradition.
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Learning the Real Paul (and Unlearning What You’ve Been Taught)
Scholars and expositors have been mangling Paul’s message in his epistles (particularly Romans) for centuries. If we are to see Paul’s true message, we’re going to have to dig much more deeply into the text, and then unlearn nearly everything we thought we knew. No small undertaking. But in so doing, we will also see revealed the true Gospel message of not only the entire New Testament, but the Hebrew Bible as well, as one grand story. And once you’ve seen this story accurately, it is doctrine- and theology-upending to the point that you will never again read your Bible…
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Unpacking the New Covenant Gospel
Many Western Christians [i] and secular individuals have misunderstood the core message of the Bible’s Good News for centuries. This analysis aims to clarify the true Gospel, obscured since the Reformation, by examining relevant New Testament and Hebrew Bible passages to determine whether they support or challenge what I’m referring to as the “New Covenant Gospel”, first proposed by Dr. Jason A Staples. This interpretation diverges from the traditional Gospel message fundamentally.
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What Does “He Emptied Himself” Mean?
Recently a very long-standing dear friend of mine asked my thoughts on Paul’s phrase “he emptied himself” in Phl 2:7. He said he had been considering the meaning of the phrase for some time. I confessed I hadn’t thought about it. But, as it turns out, many hundreds of bible scholars and theologians have ever since the formation of the very early church. Let’s see what we can find out.
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The Letters of James and Paul — Different?
There is an undercurrent of opinion amongst scholars of the early Church and Bible students that James, the brother of Jesus, and Paul the Apostle proclaimed two different gospels – that the book of James contains an authentic look into 1st century Jewish Christianity and what his brother, Jesus, taught, while Paul’s epistles lay out a completely different “religion”. Some of these also believe that, since Paul wrote first, that aspects of his letters were borrowed by the Gospel writers, thus propagating the Paul version of Christianity throughout nearly the entire New Testament. Is this viewpoint correct?
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Thinking About Jesus and the Crucifixion
For nearly as long as there have been people, they have been sacrificing animals to their gods. It has been a doctrine of Christianity from its formative days that Jesus was crucified as a sacrifice on behalf of all people. Is this doctrine correct? Or does it simply represent an adaptation of Jesus’ story to fit this ancient and powerful socio-cultural model? And, can we know?
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Jesus’ Fulfillments
In this piece, we’ll drill down into the claims of believers that Jesus, as the Christ – the Messiah, was the fulfillment not only of the Hebrew Bible’s Messianic prophecies, but further that He was the fulfillment of its “Law” and “the Prophets”, and, perhaps most controversially, of Israel itself, as well as inaugurating the New Covenant prophecies it proclaims.
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New Heavens and New Earth
What is the proper interpretation of the Bible’s passages describing the Eschaton — the end and resolution of the world? Most, for the last 1200 years or so, have believed that when they die, they will go to “heaven”, despite the paucity of biblical evidence for this view. But what happens at the end of all things? Surely it is a point in time beyond which all of God’s plans for His Creation are realized.
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Why Jesus?
God promised Israel a savior, a Messiah of the line of David. Having rejected God and suffered for centuries they expectantly looked forward to their ultimate vindication and redemption that he would bring.
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Does Paul’s Potter/Clay Metaphor Say What Christians Think It Says?
In Romans 9:18-23, Paul gives us a very sparse but dense (contextually) metaphor describing God as a potter working on “vessels” that in one case turn out “for blessing” and in others, turn out “for destruction”. Is Paul saying what traditionally has been believed he is saying? Let’s see.
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Did Jesus Say He Was YHWH?
In a recent video interview, Dr. Jason Staples presented the outlines of his argument that lexically, Jesus referred to Himself as YHWH in both Luke and Matthew. Now, if you’re comfortable with the whole “son of God” characterization, this may be a bit jarring
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Searching For (and Finding) the “Needle in the Biblical Haystack”: Following the Bible’s “Blue Thread”
Our premise in what follows is that there is a unified message permeating throughout the entire Bible: both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. That message represents God’s “signal” concerning how we are to treat Him (love and reverence), and each other (love, as we love ourselves). But His signal must penetrate through lots of modern distractions and Biblical texts that have little, if anything, to do with living in accordance with God’s will and with one another in love. Thus, they are “noise” obscuring His signal.
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Ruminate on God’s Word
Recently Steve Gregg visited my area and presented a message to a Christian fellowship here. His subject was the change that we are expected to undergo having committed ourselves to Christ. But it was a metaphor he used in his message that I thought was stunning in its clarity, and worth sharing with those both familiar, and not yet familiar, with Steve’s teachings.
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How Jesus Taught
When we read Jesus teaching in the New Testament, we know instinctively that He is speaking and teaching differently than we do today in the modern West. How is it different? What influenced His teaching “style” that we have become so familiar with over the years, but remains so distinctively “foreign” to our modern, Western ears. That’s what we’ll dig into and explain.
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Fishers of Men
There is an intriguing connection, as pointed out by my friend and Hebrew Bible teacher, Ross K. Nichols, between some of the Hebrew Bible’s prophecies, describing a regathering set off by phrases placing that regathering in the “latter”/”last”/”days to come”, and Jesus’ statement that He would make His Disciples (the fishermen Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew while they were in the process of fishing) “fishers of men” (Mt. 4:19). Question: Was Jesus simply using the obvious metaphor that those Disciples were vocationally already fishermen to connect the mission He was inviting them to take up? Or is there some…
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What Is God Waiting For?
About 2000 years ago, Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, prophesied by Zechariah (9:9) of Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, and hailed by His followers with “Hosanna[i]”. In keeping with God’s plan for His Creation, Jesus was murdered, buried, and then arose from death only to reappear to the Disciples and many who knew Him. During His ministry, He repeatedly taught about the immanence of God’s Kingdom on Earth (i.e. “at hand”, “in your midst”, etc.) The Bible says that for His act of sacrificial obedience, Christ was given all authority in Heaven and on Earth. Yet, here we sit, 2000…
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The “Fulfillment” of Scripture
Luke 4:[17] And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, [18] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, [19] to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [20] And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes…
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Jesus and Paul
Dozens of books and hundreds of scholarly papers have been written on the subject of the differences in the ministry messages of Paul and Jesus. Some gloss over the differences in their attempt to maintain a united Christian front. But others use the differences to claim that Paul, not Jesus, is the real founder of Christianity and its “through grace by faith” message and that this Christianity is unfaithful to Jesus’ authentic version. The purpose of this note is not to reconcile these differences but rather to pay attention to the historical context into which they were each proclaimed. In…
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John’s Identification of Jesus
The book of John is the fourth of four Gospels of Jesus Christ and is unique among those in its portrayal of the story. John doesn’t so much focus on narrating a history of what Jesus did, as is common in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but on proclaiming who Jesus was, and what His life, death, and resurrection meant. In this note, we’ll briefly look at how John saw Jesus in relation to God, typically identified as “God the Father” in our English translations.
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Freedom, in Paul
Countless words have been spilled analyzing and debating Paul’s intended meaning of the phrase “works of the Law”, and his theological treatment of the Law itself. In contrast, far fewer words have been spilled analyzing and exploring Paul’s concept of the “freedom” he ascribes to those “in Christ”. Our intention here is to show the relationship between these two concepts and, in so doing, dispel some pervasive misunderstandings, at least among evangelicals.
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The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
One of the most obscure parables Jesus related to His Disciples is found in Luke 16:1-13. The average Bible reader is left scratching his head as to what on earth Jesus is doing in this parable in which He lauds what seems to be deceitful behavior by the discredited manager of his rich master’s accounts. But once the reader sees the intended lesson, he is convicted by its message. Let’s see if we can’t unpack that message here.
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The Bible Explained
Do you know how the stories of the Bible fit neatly together into an integrated whole — the story of God’s interactions with His created humanity? If not, this may help.
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What is the Christian’s Calling?
There are three polar opposite popular opinions these days as to what it is the Christian is called to do. The first is that the Christian calling is to do essentially nothing. This is the view held, in whole or in part, by the vast majority of those who identify with the Reformed Church tradition, convicted as they are by the doctrine of God’s Grace. These folks’ understanding is that God is in complete control of the outcome of society, and so they are at best incidental to His Sovereign decision. Some who hold this opinion share it only up…
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Searching for a Consistent Biblical God
I wonder how many people have been thrown off of their inevitable search for God by what they perceive as not just the inconsistency of the characterization of God in the Bible’s Old Testament compared to His portrayal in the New, but by His seemingly severe, some would say immoral, characterization in the Old Testament. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could find and describe one, integrated, consistent whole of the Divine Nature across the entire Bible? Imagine being able to perceive God’s essential God-ness through a new lens, and so enable others to see beyond their personal prejudices. Looking…
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Christ’s Cultural Revolution
Most people including self-professed Christians have no inkling of the enormity of the transformation of their everyday existence Christ prescribed. His prescriptions so thoroughly upended the culture of first-century Jews that they concluded He had to be eliminated.
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New Life in the Kingdom of God
In the second three chapters of Ephesians, Paul casts his revolutionized view of human life and interrelationships that, as much as any portion of his epistles, brings into sharp focus the life transformation that followers of Christ should both expect and strive for.
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Paul’s Apocalypse of Christ
In his letter to the Ephesian church, the Apostle Paul reveals that for millennia God had knowledge kept secret that suddenly, through Christ, had been revealed, first to Christ’s Apostles, and then to those to whom they preached. The revelation of this secret, this μυστήριον mustḗrion, was for Paul the life- and reality-shattering apocalypse of Christ.
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Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
Most will recognize this title as one of the most famous admonitions of Jesus of Nazareth. But most of us don’t have much experience in fulfilling it. How can we turn this around?
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A Defense of God’s Character From Calvinists
Calvinism defames and assaults the character of God. Here’s how.
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Don’t Waste God’s Time
Few understand what being called into the life of Christ means to them or requires of them. Fewer still understand, having answered this call, how such a life is even possible, let alone what that life looks like as it is lived out. And very, very few know that answering that call and living that life is what God expects of all of us.
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The Law of Faith
Paul in Romans 3:27 says: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. Unfortunately, Paul never explicitly tells us what this law is that he is referring to (this is the only occurrence of the phrase not only in Romans, but in the entire Bible.) In order to understand his meaning, we’re going to have to do a bit of exegetical work on the argument he is waging in Romans 3 and preceding.
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The Obedience of Faith
In this note we’ll look at this imperative of obedience to Christ as portrayed in the Bible, and uncover some insight into what the Bible means by “obedience” and “believe”.
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Recovering the Gospel – II
Here I want to look at, to the degree we can, how Jesus Himself thought about the Gospel He was bringing. What did He think the Gospel was that He was bringing, and, more importantly for our present situation, how did He see it being enacted?
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Recovering the Gospel – I
When you hear the term “Gospel”, what story or message comes to mind? When you hear the statement “Believe and be saved”, what does “believe” mean to you? And when you read: “For by grace you have been saved through faith”, what is your understanding of what “faith” looks like?
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A Fresh Look at Paul
What was Paul teaching us in his epistles? Ever since Martin Luther and the Reformation he inspired 500 years ago, we’ve thought we knew. However, in the last 30 years, a different understanding has been proposed as the result of research to understand Jewish thinking on their relationship to God in first-century Israel, so that Paul’s messages could be interpreted within this context that surrounded him.
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Biblical Love
In the Bible the people of God are commanded to love Him (Deut 6:5, 11:13, 30:6, Mt 22:37) and love their neighbors (Lev 19:34, Mt 22:39-40), whether those neighbors are love-able or not. But what is Biblical love? And how do we get it, and give it away[i]?
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The Parables of the Treasure and Pearl
What did Jesus intend for His audience to understand from these similes?
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Living Christ
This note focuses on the sincere Christian desiring to live the life he has been called to live in Christ — to live your life as Christ would live it if He was you.
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Creation: A Design for Glory
Did God “know” the future “before the beginning”? Or did He simply design it?
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Hearing the Good News
Most modern western Christians miss what the Bible has to say about its good news – the Gospel of Christ. It’s right there in black and white. But somehow they miss it – read right past it. How does this happen?
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Being a Disciple
Not many self-proclaimed Christians these days would claim the mantle of “Disciple”. They think those were the twelve guys who followed Jesus around (or were they Apostles?). Most have no idea what the term means and what is, therefore, involved in actually becoming one.
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God’s Calling to Himself
When you read something in the Bible, perhaps for the umpteenth time, but suddenly it communicates something new to you, you pay attention. Such was the case when I ran across (on my way to researching a completely different topic) these verses in Hebrews 3:7-8:
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Christianity for Dummies
What is Christianity, really, and what do Christians believe and how do they live? There are lots of platitudes and stereotypes around, but very little real understanding. The purpose of this note is to try to cut through the misunderstanding and answer these and other related questions in simple, direct and common language.
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The Jewish and Christian God
Jews and Christians have almost nothing in common except their God. He is one and the same God. Jews believed they were chosen by God for special blessing, that this blessing was an inheritance due to their birthright, originating with their father Abraham if they would only faithfully live by His Law (discussed, below). They didn’t concern themselves with “going to heaven” (at least until the advent of their Pharisees in the first century BC), but were very concerned about their survival from hostile surrounding nations. And so, to them, God would “save” them, His chosen people, from these earthly…
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Seek First the Kingdom of God
Not all Christians experience the same quality of spiritual life. For some, their lives are joyful, full of confidence, full of assurance of their acceptance and eventual reward, and full to overflowing with the Spirit of God, to the point that they feel compelled to give it away to those around them. For others, life is more measured, perhaps a bit more stressful, containing more concern, at least to a degree, for some of the things in their lives, resulting in worry. They are somewhat discouraged by the lack of spiritual “fruit” in their lives. They want to love, and…
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Belief, and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
There appears to be in the Christian church today a profound misunderstanding of the working of Salvation in the Christian’s life. On the one hand, we have the tried and true fundamental statement of salvation found in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians (2:8): For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. When one hears and receives this glorious proclamation, he breathes a groaning sigh of relief. “I no longer have to strive to please God…
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“in Christ”?
What does it mean to be “in Christ”? How do I know if I am? The Apostle John tells us this: 1 John 5:20 (ESV) [20] And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. To John, the condition of placing our faith in God and His Son, the Christ, was synonymous with being “in him”.
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Free Will?
If God decided the destiny of every person that would ever live before the foundation of the world, why bother exhorting people to change their lives? If God directs every (significant) action and outcome of everyone’s life, why tell them to change? They’re just doing what God specifies they do. If God didn’t provide humans with free will, why then spend many Biblical books appealing to those same wills to change what they think and believe, telling them what they should choose to think and believe instead?
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The Grace of God
The grace of God is widely misunderstood by Christians today. I misunderstood it for decades, to my humiliation. So I can easily understand why and how others can be misled. In searching for a definition, the one that I feel best describes its efficacy is provided by Dallas Willard: “Grace is the action of God in our lives to accomplish what we cannot do on our own.”
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Thinking About the Trinity
Don’t make it hard. Don’t overthink it. “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One”
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Israel as Metaphor
Those familiar with the Jewish Bible — the Tanakh — or what Christians call the Old Testament, have puzzled for centuries over the meaning of the failed history of the Israelites, culminating in the destruction of their Temple and Jerusalem in 70AD, and their destruction or banishment from their homeland in 136 AD following the Bar Kokhba revolt. What exactly does it mean that God chose the Israelites from all the peoples of the world, led them, gave them a homeland and, for a time at least, heaped blessings on them only to have them nearly universally turn their backs…
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Redeem the Time
I recently watched this message from Dallas Willard delivered to an audience at Westmont College in 2011. Most of what Willard has to say in all of his books and talks rivets my attention. But this one particularly grabbed me. It is definitely worth submitting it to careful review, particularly as we commemorate this Easter week.
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Should I Believe This, and If So, How?
God has endowed us with minds and logic. We look at the assembled evidence concerning a question, and we draw conclusions using them based on the criteria, deep down, of “What’s best for me?”
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The Bible
Is the Bible itself an evidence for God? Well, one would be hard-pressed to find another 2500-year-old document that continues to influence the moral behavior of millions of people daily. Why do you suppose that is? Is it because standing against the cultural tide is somehow trendy? Or that dying to yourself so that you can live for God is somehow ‘cool’? Or, is it more likely that the Bible actually is God’s instruction for us, and that as a result, he has seen to its preservation for these millennia?
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The Christian Message and Its Story of God
So what is this Christian message, and why, for growing numbers of people today, has it been either ignored or judged irrelevant?
