Category Archives: New Testament

Cultura Tres, Eschatology, Keep it Metal!, Luke, Matthew, Paul, Riddles, Salvation

And then I woke up

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Sunday last (27 May) I posted a tongue-in-cheek farewell message.

This is my final post. Why? Because the world ends today.

Come midnight, the world hadn’t ended. But there was still time … New Zealand is 12 hours ahead of GMT! I went to bed … and then I woke up. And the world was still here.

Was I surprised? No. I never thought for more than a moment that the world would end on 27 May 2012. Who would? Well, perhaps some of the visitors to The Prophesied End-Time Revealed. When I wrote my earlier post I thoughtfully kept a copy of the page as it was on 27 May. The opening paragraph read

The year 2008 marked the last of God’s warnings to mankind and the beginning in a countdown of the final three and one-half years of man’s self-rule that will end by May 27, 2012.

The opening paragraph now reads

The year 2008 marked the last of God’s warnings to mankind. The final countdown to the end of man’s self-rule began on May 27, 2012, and will end on Pentecost of 2013.

Now, that’s a bit dodgy. The end of the world isn’t nigh. It’s been indefinitely postponed. Since 2008.

In fact, Jesus says that no one will know at what hour the Son of Man will return (not even he does!), and Paul tells us that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When I looked up chapter and verse, I found that this message is repeated over and over in the New Testament. Really, it is inexcusable for a Christian to claim he knows the specific date of Christ’s Second Coming!

Matthew 24:36, 42-44 (NIV)

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

Luke 12:35-40 (NIV)

“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 (NIV)

Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

2 Peter 3:10 (NIV)

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

Revelation 3:3 (NIV)

Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Revelation 16:15 (NIV)

“Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.”

Matthew 24:3-5 (NIV)

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 (NIV)

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter —asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

Love, Paul

Love never fails

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If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (NIV)

Christian Libertarianism, Consciousness, Paul

Minimalist Christianity

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Here’s a snippet of a conversation I had earlier today.

C: You’re a christian, so of course you believe in a disembodied consciousness.

Me: That’s a non sequitur.

C: You’ve got me beat then. I’ve never heard of God having a body before.

Me: Heard of Jesus? (John 1:14)

C: Well yes, but God was around before Jesus.

Me: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:8)

C: And that’s supposed to tell me what? That God had legs? God was the creator of the Universe, apparently, so he was around before there was any need for legs, before there even was legs.

I find it hard to get my head around the idea of a disembodied consciousness. I’m pretty sure that my consciousness can’t be disembodied and remain … conscious. As for the mind of God … I have absolutely no idea.

But I reprise this snippet of a conversation to make the point that the label ‘Christian’ makes people assume all sorts of unwarranted things. It gets annoying after a while. I’m not given to angry outbursts and acts of homicidal violence, but please don’t push your luck with, “You’re a Christian, so you must be a socialist!”

Anyway, in an apparent synchronicity, blogger Glenn Peoples posted an excellent post today on something he calls minimalist Christianity. Here are a couple of paragraphs (but do make sure to read the whole thing).

A number of times the Apostle Paul warned first century Christians about getting into foolish controversies over doctrine. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t believe what they find most convincing about a whole range of things, but they were taking it further, making those things points of contention that threatened to divide the church. When writing to Timothy, a young church leader, Paul urged him no fewer than five times to stay away from – and to urge others to stay away from – unproductive quarrels over such things. But this is what really grabbed my attention recently, prompting this blog post: When Paul was in Athens preaching the Gospel, a number of philosophers asked him to come and speak to them because, here it comes, they wanted to know what the Christian faith was. They were accustomed to examining different worldviews but they had not yet heard of Christianity, so they said to Paul, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean” (Acts 17:19-20). Every evangelist and apologist reading this passage should be on the edge of their seat: They are about to get a bona fide New Testament example of what it actually looks like to sum up the Christian faith. And what does Paul say? I assume that Luke’s record is not intended to be verbatim, and only sums up what he thought was important (which in a way helps me to make the point even clearer). Here’s the whole talk as recorded in Acts 17

Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

Every time I have made this observation, I have been met with almost immediate misunderstanding, so let me labour the point: Nothing that I have said here implies that Christians should believe as few things as possible – or even that it’s a good thing to only believe the bare essentials. I think holding a lot of bad theology is bad for you. It has “knock on” effects into other things you believe and do. When I talk about theology at the blog and podcast, hopefully I make it obvious that I do care about what I believe – and what others believe too – beyond the bare essentials (just as a dietician cares about what you eat beyond the bare necessities needed to keep you alive). There is much growth, intellectually, spiritually and practically, in moving beyond the bare essentials of Christian thought and into the riches of biblical theology. But I have become convinced of this: The acceptance of the Christian faith does not require that anyone shares your convictions (however important they might be to you) on everything you believe that you have found among those riches.

The post in its entirety is well worth reading. Thanks, Glenn.

Here’s some further reading.

I am a Christian
Jesus, Jesus, what’s it all about?
Contentious Christians (exploring the faith)
What if I strongly disagree? … (explorefaith.org)
Christian Agnosticism (Beliefnet Forums)

P.S. Don’t expect Paul’s advice not to get into “foolish controversies over doctrine” to be taken much notice of around here!

John

Rebooted

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Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (NIV)

Ayn Rand, Exodus, John

Was Ayn Rand a Christian? (Part 1)

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A mash-up is a combination of existing texts, graphics, audio or video files or animations that create a new work. Here’s the first draft of one I hastily mashed up … the Gospel of Ayn the Apostle.

And God saith unto Moses, ‘I AM THAT WHICH I AM; A IS A.’ There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

It is only the concept of “Life” that makes the concept of “Value” possible. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me; apart from me you can do nothing.”

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live.

It needs work … but in a nutshell, Ayn Rand chose life; and, in so doing, yes! Rand chose Jesus!

Unconvinced? I’ll pass the baton to blogger du jour Ann Barnhardt.

One of the hallmarks of Rand’s Objectivist philosophy is the supremacy of an individual’s capacity for logic and reason. Those two words, logic and reason, appear over and over again in all of Rand’s writings. Here is a quote from Rand herself, emphasis mine:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

The Christian reconciliation of all of this lies in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse one: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

In John’s creation narrative, he immediately identifies and establishes Jesus Christ as divine, co-eternal with God the Father, begotten, not made. Today, we simply say that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. But what we must focus on in terms of this discussion is the word that John uses to name and identify Jesus: John calls Him “the Word.” In the original Greek, the word John uses is “Logos.” The word “logos” in Greek is the same word used for the concepts of logic and reason. This Greek root is indeed the etymological source for the modern English word “logic.” What John did in the very first sentence of his Gospel is to specifically identify Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, as Logic and Reason Itself. Logic and reason are intrinsic, constitutive qualities of God. They are His essence. They are who He is. This is why Christ identified Himself as “The Truth.” Logic and reason are the process and mechanism by which statements are determined to be either true or false. A true statement is simply a statement that is aligned with God. 1+1=2. True. Why is this true? Because it is in alignment with the existential reality that is God Himself. Or, for you math buffs, consider Euler’s Identity, which I and many, many others consider to be the very thumbprint of God:

Here are the five great constants of mathematics: e, the base of natural logarithms; i, the imaginary number which is the square root of negative 1; pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter; the number one — the multiplicative identity; and the number zero, the additive identity. Now look at how simply and beautifully these numbers combine to form a true statement. That, dear readers, is God winking at us. Rand was right — reason is our only absolute, because Reason is God Himself. If one re-reads Rand making this simple, conceptual substitution, it will literally knock you to the floor.

Knock yourself out. Ayn Rand was a Christian!

Easy Listening, John

Space Cadet

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An ex-girlfriend once sent me a card. She wrote on the envelope, “To my space cadet.” Naturally enough, she meant it in the nicest possible way!

I was talking to someone the other day, who was not a Christian as such, but who was well familiar with the Gospels, who described John as a “space cadet”. That struck me as very apt! Absolutely, the Gospel of John is “space cadet” material. It’s completely mind-blowing, in fact. And, naturally enough, my favourite Gospel!

Here are some very apt words from the Gospel of John the Space Cadet.

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you… If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you… because they do not know Him who sent Me.” (NKJV)

“These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.” (NKJV)

“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” (NKJV)

“Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” (NKJV)

John, King James Bible, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Pink Floyd

Jesus, Jesus, what’s it all about?

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The title of this post has been lodged in my head since 1983. It’s the start of the lyrics to the Pink Floyd song The Hero’s Return. The question is essentially the same as one(s) which my co-blogger Tim raised in a comment on another thread.

I would like to know with what urgency do you go about preaching the Gospel of Grace? Is the Gospel the most important truth to you as a Christian? or is being a Christ[ian] merely like being a member of the ‘Rightest’ philosophy/book club?
What[‘s] more….according to your teaching of annihilation… the atheists are right. ie when you die…you die! *That is what they expect* thus what you call Gods judgement is nothing more than what the atheists already expect. Ie it equates to *no judgement* at all.
Me I expect to be judged by the very words of the King James Bible.
For me I can barely sleep at night with concern for the Importance of evangelizing the lost for Christ.
Question: Would you Die for the sake of the Gospel?

According to Wikipedia, the Gospel

is the message of Jesus, the Christ or Messiah—God’s ruler promised by the Scriptures—specifically, the coming Kingdom of God, his death on the cross and resurrection to restore people’s relationship with God, the descent of the Holy Spirit on believers as the helper, the resulting promise and hope of being saved for any who believe and follow Jesus, and through this, a healing of the brokenness of the entire created universe.

But the Gospel is not just a message, it’s a call to action. For me, what’s most important in the Gospel are not its truths but its imperatives.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (NIV)

There’s a war going on between the forces of good and the forces of evil. (Hadn’t you heard?) Life is the battleground. To become a Christian is to enlist and become a soldier in God’s army.

The first commandment is a call to pledge your allegiance to God.

The second commandment is the battle plan. The details are sometimes a bit sketchy. Which is why it helps to pray

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done … (KJV)

Tim is right that atheists expect to die. After decades of atheism I’ve grown used to the idea of personal annihilation. The hope and promise of eternal life played no part in my conversion to Christianity. Partly for this reason, saving souls seems somehow of secondary significance to me. Of course, an army needs recruits, but it also needs specialists. Some will specialise in recruitment, but we all have different callings.

That’s what I think it’s all about. I’ll add that my views on the matter are subject to change. Of course, the question which is the title of this post wasn’t addressed to me, it was addressed to Jesus. He has the answers (here, here, here and here), and we should defer to Him accordingly.

Would I die for the sake of the Gospel? It’s a bit late to ask that now, I already enlisted!

John

John 10:14-18

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“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (NIV)

Little Church by blakemate11

Ayn Rand, Consciousness, Exegesis, John, Keep it Metal!, Lamb of God, Philosophy of Mind, Semantics

Are you lego or logos?

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Are you lego or logos?

And man became a living being.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Philosopher Nicholas F. Gier explains the Logos Christology of the Gospel of John.

The famous prologue begins: “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God.” The standard English translation of logos is Word, following the basic meaning of lego as to say or speak. In other words, God is the author of the logic of the world, and his son is the expression of this logic. Furthermore, in the Genesis account of creation God speaks, or as Leonard Bernstein has suggested, sings the structure of the world into being. In Christian theology Christ is the one who orders the world; he is the one who puts it together, gives it meaning, and then redeems it from its fallen state. As Paul states: “For in him all things were created . . . and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17).

The etymology of the logos, the Greek word behind “reason” and “logic,” shows that the idea of synthesis is at the origin of these words. The Greek logos is the verbal noun of lego, which, if we follow one root leg means “to gather,” “to collect,” “to pick up,” “to put together,” and later “to speak or say.” We already have the basic ideas of any rational endeavor. We begin by collecting individual facts and thoughts and put them together in an orderly way and usually say something about what we have created.

There are three Reasons that I prefer Andrew Sullivan’s translation (and mine) of λόγος.

In the beginning was Reason, and Reason was with God, and Reason was God.

[Proudly powered by LOGOS™.]

Fish, Luke, Mark II, Matthew, National Party, Privacy, Sheeple, Socialism

Privacy = Information Sharing

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Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Did you follow through? Good catch? Jesus wants to know how you’re doing.

Submit a follow-up report. Doesn’t have to be much. A picture says a thousand words.

Empty catch? Oh. Well, never mind. Here’s one from one that got away, atheist Mark Hubbard.

These National Socialists Love Their Doublespeak: Privacy = Information Sharing.

Another piece where I need say little other than shine the torch of liberty down the new tunnel being built to the Police State: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technol…

The new Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill.

Privacy = Information sharing. Just as in Orwell, war is peace, et al.

Right. Got it.

The article doesn’t State the SS officer in Wellington behind this one, but it smacks of Frau Collins, fresh from her victory of having destroyed one of the central planks of a free press: the right of a journalist to protect a source from the (largely incompetent) storm troopers at SFO: http://www.solopassion.com/nod…

Anyway, the new affront, and by now routine assault on our liberty under the brute fist of the Nanny State and her crony capitalists:

The Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill reduces the threshold under which information can be disclosed if there is a risk to public health and safety or threat to the life or health of an individual.

It also allows the sharing of personal information between agencies if done in accordance with approved information-sharing agreements.

So government departments can now share information about me, including with private sector cronies, on grounds of public health and safety. You don’t even need to have read Orwell, just watch the six o’clock news, to know there is nothing that can’t be justified somehow under the catch-all ‘public health and safety’.

As fast as the previous Labour Socialist Statists financially raped and plundered the productive with their envy taxes, these National Socialist Statists are destroying individual liberty at a similar breath-taking pace. This State we live in, behind the IRon Drape, is huge: there’s no where you can hide from it, and that’s just how they want it, sorry, you. That’s just how they want you, your life and bank accounts available to them at all times. And the sheeple go ‘bah bah, get Mark Hotchin, tax the rich pricks, redistribute, redistribute’.

Fools and simpleton dolts.

Thanks, Mark, for keeping the torch of liberty burning. (Aren’t you supposed to be on holiday?)