Greek to me?

 (still working on new article and will have tomorrow now)

Acts 22 begins, [1] Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you. [2] (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,)

Paul is standing on the temple of the porch and the Roman soldier, who speaks Latin, is talking to Paul in Latin. Paul then speaks to the Hebrews in Hebrew. They hear him and "they kept the more silence," which is an interesting expression. How do you have silence and then more silence? asks Richard Jordan.

I've always thought of that verse in I Corinthians 14 that says the woman is to keep silence: [34] Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

 People say, 'They can't talk." Well, if that's what it means, how do you have "more silence"? See, the "camp" gives you all these ideas you're supposed to have. You get out of the camp, you don't know what to do. Paul speaks in Hebrew. Luke, writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, records Acts 22. You know what language he recorded it in? Greek.

Now if Paul spoke Hebrew and God the Holy Ghost takes about 20 verses and translates it into Greek, and puts it into this Bible and says, "That's my Word; thy Word is true," do you think that God was able to translate it fully, completely, enough for Him to say that's what He said? Must have been. If He couldn't have done that, what He would had to have done is put it in Hebrew. 

You say how different the way God does it is? Can I tell you the better way to do it is doing it the way God does it.  

*****

Greek was the universal language at the time Jesus walked the earth and was replaced by English, which represents the only other universal language in modern world history.

Scholars readily agree that the English language is in its structure, grammar and the way words are formed and ideas communicated comparable to the accuracy and power of the Greek language.

Gail Riplinger, author of several critically-acclaimed books on the infallibility of the King James Bible, writes, “Scholars agree that the English language did not become fixed until the King James Version. Earlier editions, like the Tyndale and the Geneva, although practically identical to the King James Version, did not always contain the built-in dictionary found in the King James Version.

"They did not need it, because they were written at the unusual juncture in history when English was becoming English; the root languages of Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin were still familiar. . .

“One secular lexicographer admits, ‘About the beginning of the 17^th Century, in the reign of James 1, our language had already begun to assume the form in which we now find it, and is from that date entitled to be called the English language.

"From the time the Bible was translated into English, and, by being printed and spread among the people . . . the language may be said to have been fixed.’ ”

***** 

Riplinger, in her 1994 book New Age Bible Versions, makes the point that while people in modern times like to comment, “Why can’t the Bible speak as we speak?” the answer is, “Because we are not speaking—GOD is speaking.”

She refers to this passage in Exodus 4: “And Moses said unto the LORD, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.
[11] And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?
[12] Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”

Riplinger writes, “God did not say to Moses, ‘Forget eloquence! Use plain talk!’ Rather, God said He would teach him eloquence.

“He truly did! Many linguists trace the origin of the alphabet to Mt. Sinai. (See Mysteries of the Alphabet by Marc-Alain Ouaknin, translated by Josephine Bacon, New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 1999.)”

*****

Appearing on Fox News the other day to talk about the Declaration of Independence and our Founding Fathers, conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin said that while leftists look to the teachings of Karl Marx, people on the right “stand on the shoulders” of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, etc.

Of course, it was Aristotle, the student of Plato, who said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” Yeah, right.

A quick look at World History for Dummies clues the reader in on why the vast majority of Christianity adopts the Greeks’ allegorical approach to the Bible.

Under the heading Replacing Homer with the Bible, it says, “Another reason why furious interpretations and counter-interpretations marked Christianity from the beginning: Look at the places where Christianity sprang up. Christianity filtered through a world marked by Hellenistic (Greek-like) traditions, by the Greek teachings that followed Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great’s empire.

“Early centers of the Church included Alexandria, Egypt, which was a capital of Greek scholarship, and Rome, where so many Hellenistic philosophies rubbed up against one another for a long time. . . As Greek thought shifted to Christian thought, the Bible took the place of Homer’s poems and the Greek-Roman pantheon as a general context for philosophical questioning.”

Jordan reminds, “Before the ink was dry on Paul’s epistles, efforts were under way to syncretize the truth he taught with Greek philosophy. The most influential school emphasizing this approach was Alexandria, Egypt. It’s the place where almost all of the corruptions of the Word of God available today originate from."

*****

The ancient Greeks were hyper-focused on how to accomplish the “summum bonum” (the supreme good) in life, or what they considered happiness, and in Acts 17:16, when Paul’s in Athens (the center of the Greek world and the intellectual center of the world of his day), it says “his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.”

Acts 17:18 reads, “Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.”

Of the disciples of Epicurus (B.C. 342-271), C.I. Scofield says they “abandoned as hopeless the search by reason for pure truth (cf John 18:38), seeking instead true pleasure by experience.”

Of the Stoics, the philosophy “was founded on human self-sufficiency, inculcated stern self-repression, the solidarity of the race, and the unity of Deity.”

*****

Jordan explains, “The Epicureans and Stoics divided the apostolic world and were the two dominant thinkers and culture-drivers of their day and the reason was there were two extremes on how to solve the contentment issue.

“For the Epicureans it was getting, acquiring, having, conquering, owning, achieving. They believed, ‘You get enough stuff and you’ll be satisfied.’ That was a big thing in the Roman Empire: ‘Go out and conquer, conquer, conquer and we’ll be satisfied.’ Of course, that’s the dominant thinking of the Western world. Certainly, it’s the way the West and America operates: ‘The more we can get, the bigger the better.’

“Now you know that doesn’t work because what you’re looking for keeps moving; it’s elusive.

“The Stoics were the other way. They said, ‘If you desire less and less, you can desire less and less until nothing matters. Just get disconnected from things.’ Now, that’s the Eastern thinking; the Buddhist mentality. ‘The way to get peace is to get less and less and be detached until it just doesn’t matter.’

“The Stoics’ big illustration was they’d take a valuable vase and break it and say, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ A child would die and they’d say, ‘It doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t hurt.’ It was just a grin-and-bear-it kind of a thing. That way it can’t impact you.

“But that doesn’t work either, does it? Somebody once said, ‘Stoics have made their heart a desert and called it peace.’ You can’t do that because things DO matter! God put a conscience inside of you and things do matter. Right and wrong does matter.

"In Chicago, a 12-year-old gang member shoots an 11-year-old kid and the commentary about it is, ‘How can you have children care nothing about life that they’re just willing to murder each other?!’

"That’s the Stoic mentality. You’re just more and more detached from anything that matters until nothing matters and so there’s no value in anything. But that just makes for more discontentment."

Scornful priests in Judah mock Isaiah for 'treating them like babies'

Here's an excerpt from last night's study at my church and will have a new article tomorrow:

In Ezekiel 23 are two sisters. One is a picture of the Northern Kingdom in Israel (Ephraim) and the other is a picture of the Southern Kingdom in Israel (Judah) and the sister in the Northern Kingdom corrupts the one in the Southern Kingdom and God says, "I'm going to whack both of them."

God uses the Northern Kingdom as an example to the Southern Kingdom: "Here's what happens when you go down that road; don't do that!"

Isaiah 28: [7] But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.

The warning is: "You've followed your wayward sister into Baal worship."

[8] For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
[9] Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
[10] For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

The way you teach babies is you have to repeat it over and over again. Verses 9 and 10 can be taken two ways and those two verses are often lifted out of the context and used as rules for studying the Bible. In other words, you just want to go very slow, you want to be repetitive and continuously going at it and careful.

I've actually read books that use those verses as an outline for teaching the Bible, but that's not what Isaiah has in mind when he's teaching because look what he talks about in verse 14: [14] Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

These are these priests and preachers in Judah who are hearing Isaiah talk and preach and they're scornful of what he's saying. What verses 9 and 10 are really talking about is that they're mocking Isaiah.

They're saying, "You're talking to us like we're a bunch of children, like we've not even grown up yet. You're saying the same thing over and over and over again and we don't need to be treated like babies because we're smart; we're proud."

That kind of explains what verse 11 is saying, which is, "Since you won't listen, you want to mock what I'm saying and you're scornful of the message . . . "

[11] For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

You won't listen to what the Word of God to you is when it's presented in baby talk, so God's going to talk to you in a foreign language. The foreign language comes from the Assyrians.

Isaiah 33: [19] Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand.

He's telling them, "The Assyrians are going to come in and they're going to talk to you in a foreign language because you won't listen to the Word of God in your language."

The Assyrians are going to come in to take them over since they won't hear and God's going to punish their mockery by doing that.

If you go to Deuteronomy 28 you see this is one of the signs that tells them that Fifth Course is taking place: [49] The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;

So when He brings that foreign nation in on them they know that that judgment God promised them is taking place.

Isaiah 28: [13] But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

[14] Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.

It's, "I gave the word to you, you thought it was gibberish, but I gave you precept upon precept, line upon line."

Nehemiah 9: [12] Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.

[13] Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes and commandments:
[14] And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:

He said, "I gave you precepts. I gave you the Word. It came from Moses and we've been giving it to you."

Daniel talks about Israel going into Babylonian captivity, going into the Fifth Course of judgment. He confesses the sins of his people in Daniel 9: [5] We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:

"I gave you precept upon precept, I just kept giving it line upon line and you wouldn't believe it," so Isaiah 28:13 says, "I gave it to you that you might fall and go backward and be broken and snared and taken."

He's saying, "I gave you the Word so that if you believed it, it would save you, but if you didn't it was going to destroy you."

It's life to them that believe and death to them that don't.

*****

From an old study:

The purpose of the Jewish priesthood was literally to teach the people doctrine out of the Word of God. II Chronicles 15:3 reveals the priesthood became corrupt and “for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.”

“What happened is the priests forgot the doctrine but kept the ritual. Now, where’ve you ever seen that before? Most every Sunday, if you go to the wrong place," explains Richard Jordan.

“Malachi 2:7-9 demonstrates the priesthood’s failure to do what God told them to do in teaching the Word: ‘For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

[8] But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.
[9] Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.’

“From this passage you see the function of the priest and what he’s supposed to be about. It says ‘the priest’s lips should keep knowledge.’

“If you wanted to know what God’s Word said, that guy’s job was to always have and maintain the Word and have it ready for you when you needed it. People were to be able to come to him and get it.

*****

“Another passage on the corruption of the priesthood is in Micah 3:11-12: ‘The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.
[12] Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.’

“Do you see it says they ‘teach for hire,’ and the prophets ‘divine for money,’ but ask piously, ‘Is not the Lord among us?’

“The were doing it for money, position, fame, reputation, and yet they were always real pious to say, ‘Is not the Lord among us?’ Nuts!

“These guys are thinking, ‘None evil can come upon us,’ but God’s going to destroy them. What the priests had done—they had become a part of Satan’s policy of evil against the Word of God.

"You see it in operation there when you see these 'judges' of the people doing it for money; the priests teaching for money and the preachers preaching for money, not for the Lord.

“Do you remember that scribe over in Jeremiah 36:12 who’s actually got a special chamber all to himself in the king’s palace? Well, what’s the man of God doing in the king’s palace?!

"That fellow belonged down in the temple. He was supposed to be writing out and copying that Book, and taking care of that thing, teaching it. What in the world’s he doing in a king’s palace? Money.

“Later in the chapter, we see that the king begins to cut up the Word of God with his pen knife and destroys it. The king’s destroying the Word of God and yet he’s got a scribe living in his house with a special room to himself!"

THE great mystery out in the open

Here's one more outtake from a study on Ephesians 3:

[1] For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,

[2] If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to youward:
[3] How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
[4] Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

I’ve always loved that verse where he says, "If you’ve heard." That means there’s some people there who hadn’t heard, says Richard Jordan.

Paul spent years in Ephesus ministering and now he’s writing back to them about "if you’ve heard this." I think about that all the time. How many people do you know that haven’t heard? Well, it’s a lot bigger than the crowd that HAS heard.

How are you going to understand this knowledge in the mystery of Christ? You’ve got to READ it. You’re not going to sit under a tree and say, "Oh, Lord, show me what you’re saying."

I sat a whole hour with a preacher not too long ago where we went through some things in the Scripture, and I drew out the "right division" chart, and he said, "Well, brother, I’ll pray about it." I said, "Dude, you don’t need to pray about it! You need to believe it or don’t believe it but there it is. You don’t have to pray and ask is that true. Read the verse and tell me whether it’s true or not!"

Paul says in Ephesians 3: [5] Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

There’s that which is spoken by the mouths of the holy prophets since the world began (prophecy) and that which was kept secret (mystery). A six-year-old kid who flunked kindergarten can get the difference between those two things.

Preachers who’ve been to seminary and know Greek and Hebrew and all kinds of systematic theology go, "Huh?" You know why that is? Because it just takes simple faith in what the verses say and what all that other "higher learning" does is tell you how you don’t have to believe it.

You don’t have to know anything about Greek or Hebrew, or have a college education or a preacher who does have all that stuff. All you got to do is take a King James Bible and read Acts 3:21 and Romans 16:25-26 and you can get it IF you want it.

Acts 3: [21] Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

Romans 16: [25] Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,

[26] But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:

When you read those verses and say, "I don’t get it," it’s because you don’t want it! You see, God’s Word "discerns the thoughts and intents of your heart." This stuff’s too clear. You can’t miss it unless you WANT to miss it. That’s just the long and the short of it. I might as well be honest with you.

In Ephesians 3: 4 Paul tells you the way you get this is you READ, because as you read what he wrote, you get his understanding about what God’s doing; about "the mystery of the Church the Body of Christ." You and I are so completely, thoroughly identified with the Lord Jesus Christ that we bear His name.

When Paul talks about "my knowledge in the mystery of Christ," he’s talking about the church the Body of Christ and he calls it "the mystery of Christ" because, well, when God looks at the Body of Christ, He says, "They're mine. It’s done." The Body is one in Him.

The Body of Christ IS the great mystery Satan didn’t know about "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed in his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit."

You read that and you think, "How could anybody miss that?!" Well, because they WANT to. That’s the only explanation.

What is this great mystery? Ephesians 3: [6] That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

Down in verse 9 he calls it ‘the fellowship of the mystery.’

[9] And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

What you and I share together in the one Body is we’re "fellowheirs"; we’re the same body and we’re partakers of His promise. You and I share together everything that God has for us in His Son. It’s a fascinating thing about that.

*****

Here's a post explaining what happened to Israel:

"The fig tree in the Bible is a type of religion. In Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve sinned, they made aprons out of fig leaves.

“Operation Fig Leaf was man’s attempt to cover himself up before God. Operation Fig Leaf is really Operation Religious Cover-up.

“There are four trees that represent the nation Israel, three of them good—the vine, olive and fig. God gave Israel special duty as a nation (the vine). He gave them special duty as the olive tree—the scriptural aspect of the nation, meaning access to God—and then He gave them special position as the fig tree; a religion in the earth.

“Over and over, you’ll see where He talks about, for example, in Isaiah 5, God planted a vineyard. That’s the nation. You’ll see the parable in the vineyard and in it He had a fig tree. He’s got a nation with a religion in it.

“So when Christ comes to the fig tree (in Matthew 21) there’s a lot going on here than just Jesus getting mad at a tree out there. He doesn’t just get mad at trees—‘Well, I don’t like fig trees!’

“When it says He ‘saw a fig tree in the way’ and ‘found nothing theron,’ the issue there is He came seeking fruit from the fig tree and found none so He cursed it. His (earthly) ministry was about coming and seeking fruit from Israel’s religious activity and since He found none, He curses it.

“People make the mistake some time and identify the fig as representative of Israel the nation. You know, a couple of chapters over in 24, Jesus talks about, ‘Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
[33] So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
[34] Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.’

*****

“Supposed scholars will tell you, ‘Well, the budding of the fig tree was the establishment of the nation Israel in 1948,’ and you’ve got people who’ve done all kind of goofball things with that. One guy made $3 million in 1998 with that. But error makes money; we’re going to see that in Galatians.

“The error there in trying to make the budding of the fig tree the establishment of Israel in 1948 is the fig tree doesn’t represent the nation. If it did, what does that verse 19 (in Matthew 21) say? If the fig tree represented Israel as a nation, you could never have the nation again. Because whatever it represents, it’s over with; never to bear any fruit!

“God did away with Israel’s religious life, did He not? Hebrews 7:11 says, ‘If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?’

“In other words, God has ‘disannulled’; He’s set aside the old Mosaic Law covenant and replaced it with a new Messianic covenant. So, the old religion He gave Israel is done away with. It became ‘the Jews’ religion’ because they couldn’t do it.

*****

“Notice Paul in Galatians 1 is talking about that ‘Jews’ religion.’ It’s interesting he calls it that, because by this point he understands that what that thing was was a bunch of dead works that really wasn’t accomplishing anything although he thought it was.

“Paul writes in Galatians 1:13, ‘For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it. And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.’

“There’s two good reasons there for you to understand why Paul didn’t get his message from the saints in Jerusalem. No. 1, he persecuted the Pentecostal Jerusalem church beyond measure and wasted it.

“What was the attitude they had toward him? They didn’t trust him; they feared him. Verse 22 says he ‘was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ:
[23] But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.’

“Their attitude was, ‘Hey, that guy’s our enemy! He’s persecuting us!’ and they literally were afraid of Paul.

*****

“In Acts 9, after Paul got saved and tried to talk to them, they didn’t want to talk to him. Acts 9:26 says, ‘And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple.’

“And this (occurred) at least three if not four years after Paul’s been saved. It says ‘when Saul was come’ and that’s going to be down in Gal. 1:18—‘after three years I went up to Jerusalem.’

“They were all afraid of him and, believe me, when Paul was going around and ‘breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,’ if you look back at Acts 9:1, notice what he’s wanting to do. He’s wanting to destroy these guys!

“In Acts 22:3, Paul says, ‘I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.’

“Gamaliel taught binding, punishing letters. When Luke recorded it, he just kind of gave you a general summary, but when Paul talks about what he was doing, he says, ‘I persecuted them unto the death!’

“As he testifies in Acts 26, ‘Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.
[11] And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.’

“He was involved in killing some of these people; martyring them. It says ‘he wasted it; he persecuted the church beyond measure.’ He did it to men and women—nobody’s safe! He went to Damascus; he had letters. He had warrants issued by the government of Israel to go and extradite these people from Damascus and bring them back to Jerusalem.

“Now, when you carry government warrants and go execute them, you are an official of the government, are you not? Can you understand why the Apostle Paul would call himself in I Timothy ‘the chief of sinners’?!

“When Paul said that, he didn’t mean, ‘I’m the worst profligate. I’m the nastiest, raunchiest, filthiest-mouth-inhabited guy you ever met.’ In Philippians 3, he said, ‘In touching the law I was blameless.’ What he meant was, ‘I was the leader.’

“And when you think about him leading the world’s rebellion against Christ, and you realize he literally was the official representative of his nation in persecuting (Christians) . . .  When Christ stopped him on road to Damascus, the hymn writer says, ‘He stopped my wild career.’

“The words Christ said were, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ He hated Christ and he hated those who named the name of Christ. Now, there’s somebody in the Bible who’s also going to do that in the prophetic program. He’s known as ‘the man of sin; the son of perdition,’ the one who becomes the personification of the Lie Program.

“And as soon as you’re sitting in that chair tonight, the Apostle Paul understood that if God had not interrupted that prophetic program back there in time past, chances were very good that he could have been a prime candidate to have been that man himself! Now that’s a scary thing for a fellow! Paul understood just how deceived he was.”

'Church history' = history of 'anti-church'

(working on new article and will have tomorrow for certain)

It was in the 16^th and 17^th centuries that theologians began to think about how the soul and spirit interplay in the inner man, developing what they called the “doctrine of the kenosis.”

Of course, kenosis (meaning theology) is as old as Philippians 2; Paul thought about it originally.

After the 6^th and 7^th centuries, there was no doctrinal development inside the institutional church for almost a thousand years. It wasn’t until the 15 and 1600s, with the Reformation, that the great topic in theology called Soteriology (salvation) emerged.

“The issue of salvation in the Reformation was really the issue of the application of redemption,” explains Richard Jordan. “Romans 1:16 says, ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.’ If you don’t get the proposition straight, the rest of that verse won’t help you . . .

*****

“I don’t know if you’ve ever read any of the writings of Pope John Paul II; I have. This man talked constantly about Christ dying for his sins, about Jesus Christ being resurrected, about Him being ‘God in human flesh come to intercede in the sufferings of humanity.’

“He was schooled, and he genuinely filled his mind with all that information on a daily basis, it seems. But Romans 1:6 doesn’t say that’s how you get saved. It says the way you get saved is by relying exclusively on that information.

“See how close you can get to it and miss it?! You can get real close! It can look—you can have all the Is dotted, Ts crossed, the doctrinal statement exactly right and look like you’re there but miss it.

“Because having it or not having it isn’t in organized religion’s theology; it’s in the Bible. It’s understanding that the life is ‘Christ in you the hope of glory’; not how shiny your doctrinal statement is.

“Romans 1:16 is a verse of Scripture you need to get clearly fixed in your understanding about the clarity of the gospel. That issue of the proposition—and that’s where the ‘Lordship Salvation’ comes in, that’s where the ‘Easy-Believism’ stuff comes in—all that confusing stuff you hear comes in from just a failure to make the issue the issue, and the issue is relying exclusively on faith; no works involved.

“And it’s not just knowing all about it—people say, ‘Well, they didn’t really have saving faith; they weren’t really . . .’ Listen, faith is faith is faith! There isn’t but one kind of faith and that’s just faith!

*****

“ ‘If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater,’ says I John 5:9. If you know how to trust somebody who tells you, ‘We’re going to meet at a certain time at a certain location,’ and you follow the map, and come that day because you took their word for it, you know how to have faith.

“That’s how you have faith in God. The thing about God is, though, He’ll never lie to you. I might. God won’t make a mistake; I sure will. God won’t let you down. The witness of God is greater, deals in greater things—eternity.

“But faith is faith. There’s no value in my faith; the value’s in what I’m trusting. And what God says is, ‘You have to trust me exclusively—nothing else.’ And that’s what quote ‘saving faith’ is. But that’s a Calvinistic term because they think that there’s a bunch of merits and different kinds of faith, and that’s this theology business.

“Do you think anybody understood justification by grace through faith before Martin Luther? Sure they did. Where do you think he heard about it?! We’re going to see there are people all through church history . . . For 1,600 years there’ve been people preaching it. Luther was just a guy with a lot of political clout who came to believe it and made the headlines.

*****

“The only visible, organized religious system that God ever established was the nation Israel. That’s why if you can’t identify the difference between Israel and the Body of Christ, you’re never going to get straight the issue of where the real life of the Body of Christ really is.

“Institutions, councils, crusades, church boards, worship services, images, clerical garb—all that stuff is not the issue. That’s focusing on things that aren’t the issue. The issue is sound doctrine, truth, I Timothy 2:4: ‘Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.’

“So, to study real church history, what are you going to study? Well, you’re going to study what is the real issue, aren’t you? Which would be people, saints and sound doctrine. It would be the outworking of sound doctrine through God’s people, not the institutions of ‘religionized’ Christendom.

“You understand when you read a church history book, most of them are really giving the history of the ‘anti-church’? The false church?

“There’s a guy who calls us ‘hyper-dispensationalists.’ You haven’t lived until you’ve been called an ‘ultra-dispensationalist.’ I got a friend who responds, ‘Well, if I’m a hyper, you’re a subtra.’ In other words, ‘If I went too far, you didn’t go far enough.’

*****

“What I wish I could make the people who dismiss me as a ‘hyper-dispensationalist’ understand is that, according to the Bible, Believers will one day participate in the running of the government of the heavens and our job assignments will be based upon our grasp of the Word.

“In II Timothy 3:7, Paul warns about those who are ‘ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ In heaven, people will always be coming to more and more knowledge about the truth.

“Just as one event in your life leads to another event and to another event, and causes maturity and growth, and understanding and expansion of knowledge, everything God wants you to know is already in the Book, but you’re going to have an eternity to learn about it.”

God's two-part advice

“There are two types of knowledge. One is knowing a thing. The other is knowing where to find it.”--Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer, poet, playwright, essayist, biographer, lexicographer, sermonist

Paul writes in Philippians 3: [13] Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
[14] I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

People have asked me over the years, “Well, if he says there’s one thing, why does he list two?” says Richard Jordan.

The answer is it’s really two parts of the one thing; in order to have the one thing you need the two parts. God uses these devices to make you think.

Really there are two things you have to do to accomplish that one thing of pressing toward the mark.

One is a negative (things I forget) and one is a positive (things I reach unto). One is the “putting off” and the other is the “putting on” and it takes both of those things to be able to press toward the mark.

So if that’s the goal in the passage, and it is, verse 12 is a powerful verse: [12] Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Paul knew that he never was going to be able to plumb the whole depths of what’s in Jesus Christ. He would never be able to apprehend in his life, to possess in his life, the infinite greatness and completeness God had given him in Christ.

Even the great apostle that he was, he didn’t ever feel like, “I have reached the pinnacle and I have no further realms to conquer in my spiritual life.”

I learned early on in adult life never to consider yourself a scholar; always be a student. A scholar is someone who’s assumed to have arrived, and once you’ve arrived you don’t need to keep studying.

The basic assumption in being a student is that there’s something more for me to learn; that is, there’s something right now that I don’t know. What a thought.

Here’s what I do: “I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”

Paul said, “I want to get a hold of it. I want to apprehend; I want to reach out and grab and hold on to that which Christ reached out and grabbed me for. I want to bring into my possession, into my experience, the very things God saved me to possess.

“I don’t just want to know in letter that I’m complete in Christ; I want to know in my experience. I want to have it living in me, that fulfillment of life, of being a whole, complete person. I am that in Christ; I want to bring that into my experience.”

Verse 11: [11] If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

That’s literally what God apprehends us for. Verse 20: [20] For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

God has this plan in His universe. It’s a thrilling thing to me—I think about creation. God, when He created, He didn’t say, “Hmm, let me just throw spaghetti on the wall and see what happens.”

He had a plan. He had something He was doing. He prearranged the plan. Like the great architect designed it, then when Jesus Christ goes out and begins to create, He’s creating off of the blueprint.

Because church history says 'Eww' to us 'Paulicians'

Given the continued steady readership of last week's posts (August 6-13) on the controversy surrounding dispensationalism (per Tucker Carlson's recent podcast interview with evangelical pastor J.D. Hall on 'Christian Zionism'), I found this outtake from Richard Jordan at Shorewood Bible Church's 2018 summer Bible conference to be too apropos not to write up:

The (sent in) argument I like the most and the one that I think is the silliest: "So apparently no one was a Bible student until 1830. Dispensationalism originated in the 1800s. What evidence do you have that other people interpreted the text in that way prior to the 1800s?"

Well, the first answer is, "What evidence do you have that they didn't?" You know everybody that taught everything?

Where do you think you and I are going to show up in the pages of church history? You think church history is going to have a blazing page: "BIBLE CONFERENCE IN CHICAGO IN 2018"? 

You're not even going to be a little bitty blip of a footnote, because the people who write church history are Roman Catholics and Roman Catholic sympathizing Protestants and they don't put us in it.

Go read church history. Go read contemporary church history from the last century, and if you get mentioned, you get mentioned with a "Ugh-eww."

Have you ever gone into church history and read about the "Paulicians" who started in about 600 and go to about 1200? I wrote an article in the Grace Journal about the Paulicians and I got letters from grace preachers and from college professors saying the Paulicians were heretics. That's what Rome said; they're in agreement with them. Of course they weren't heretics.

Everything you know about the Paulicians come from their enemies. They said, "Oh, these dreaded Paulicians, they followed Paul and nobody else in the Bible."

Anybody said that about you? Well, you know, see. The Paulicians didn't worship relics, they didn't baptize, they didn't keep sacraments. I say, "Boy, who are those people? I need to know them; sounds like some people I . . ."

They said about them, "They didn't believe anything was inspired before Paul's epistles." Now, I've had people say that about me. It's not true, but you begin to realize, "Boy, there's some things going on . . ."

Pastor Bryan Ross did a study during our men's meeting about the Paulicians and you look at them and you think "Woah," and you begin to realize why the people writing church history didn't like them.

They were a key element of the preservation of God's Word through the Dark Ages. And you know who they were? They were little groups of people just like you and me all through that period of time that believed in salvation through grace plus nothing. 

They had an understanding of the Bible dispensationally. They might not have had all the light that you and I have, but God help us if we don't stand on their shoulders and learn more than they knew. Shame on us if we don't.

But, you know, church history is not where you get this stuff. You know where it started? Paul. It started in your Bible.

*****

Now, I love this criticism: "Even dispensationalists like Dr. Thomas Ice readily admit that dispensationalism came about in the 1930s with John Nelson Darby. It's just a fact."

Now it is true that the use of the term "dispensationalism" really got popular approach in the 1930s with Darby, but what Darby did is just put a modern name to something that's gone on all through the Bible.

One of the most maligned, most misunderstood concepts in the church today is dispensationalism. Many abandoned it, used to be there, aren't there anymore. Others seek to redefine it in "progressiveness" and so forth. 

You have people like R.C. Sproul who call it and label it "heresy." J.C. O'Hair's statement was right. When you abandon it, you see the results; the craziness that you get.

Look at Ephesians 3: [2] If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to youward:

[3] How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
[4] Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

I want you to understand how important it is what we do when we stand for God's Word "rightly divided." When we stand for the clarity of the distinctive ministry of the Apostle Paul, what people have identified as "Mid-Acts Dispensationalism."

I don't really like that term because Acts 9 is not "mid-Acts," but it's not Acts 2 and it's not Acts 28 and you want to be between those two things.

The point is, with the distinct ministry of the Apostle Paul, understanding that there came--listen, it's important to teach and understand and maintain that and we may be apparently small, but you don't know everybody who's out there.

We meet in our meetings constantly people we never heard of. A pastor just recently from out West (we never heard of him and he never heard of us) came to understand God's Word "rightly divided" and has a church where he's teaching right division and he just ran across one of our YouTube videos and saw, "Hey, there's somebody else teaching this stuff!"

A pastor down in Florida who led his Baptist church out of being Baptist, quit water baptizing, didn't know there was another soul in the world who did that and he did that based on studying Romans 6.

There are people out there that you don't know and I don't know--don't just think you know everything there is to know. God has His people.

Jesus Christ can take care of the Body of Christ. I'm glad I learned that years ago. It's not my job; my job is to take care of where I'm at in the Body, but the Body of Christ belongs to Him and He can take care of it and He does, thank God.  

*****

Here's another post on the subject:

From the 6^th century to the 12th century, there were followers of the Apostle Paul, i.e., preachers of Paul’s truth, who were completely unplugged from the religious system and dubbed by their enemies as “Paulicians.”

“They accused them of pretty much the exact same things they accuse us of, but the wonderful thing is it’s not about us; it’s His inheritance and we get to participate in what God’s has for Himself,” explained Richard Jordan in a Sunday morning sermon. 

“If you just relax and see that, it will blow your mind. We’re ‘fellowheirs,’ equal participants in this inheritance in which God’s forming a spiritual body of Believers through whom the Lord Jesus Christ MANIFESTS Himself.

“We’re fellow partakers of His promise, meaning ALL that He’s planned to do in His Son, it’s ALL by the gospel, and that’s why Paul says in Romans 16:25, ‘Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.’

“Everything God does today is based upon the Crosswork of the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul says in Ephesians 3, ‘Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.’

“Paul says, ‘That’s what I’M made a minister of.’ Kind of an odd thing when you read through the passage is how Paul keeps returning to this PERSONAL issue.

“He talked about it back in verses 1 and 2. He addresses HIS place in this ministry, and how he’s been placed INTO the ministry of this great truth.

“Verses 7 and 8 are sort of like a personal moment for Paul. He’s talking about this great stuff and then he says, ‘And you know what He did? He made ME the one to tell people about it!’

“Paul writes, [8] Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

“When I read that, I go, ‘Wow, God took a proud, religious, scholarly, rabbinical rabbi and turned Him into a servant! You talk about a change of mind!’

“By the way, he didn’t say, ‘Unto me who am less than the least of all apostles.' He would never say that! In II Corinthians 12 Paul states, ‘I don’t come one whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles.’

“Paul would NEVER say that about his office. He said, ‘I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my office,’ meaning this POSITION Christ gave him to proclaim this new message. Paul never minimized that. Whenever he thought about himself, he had what he calls that ‘humility of mind,’ because he knew it wasn’t anything about him.

“In Philippians 3:4, Paul says, ‘[4] Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: [5] Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
[6] Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. [7] But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

“Paul’s saying, ‘Listen, I can strut my stuff. I can be a high-minded rabbinical scholar and tell you all of my pedigree.’ But, he says, ‘I counted loss all those things that I could brag about--that I spent my life pursuing so that I could have status.’

*****

“He tells you in Galatians 1:14 that he ‘profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.’

“ ‘They were gain,’ he said, ‘but I counted them loss for Christ. I found something in the Lord Jesus Christ that was far more to be treasured than all those things.’ He says in Philippians 3:8, ‘Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.’

“When he says, ‘Yea, doubtless, and I COUNT,’ he’s saying, ‘I didn’t just meet Christ on the Road to Damascus and realize, There’s reality! I’ve learned day by day to count all those things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffer the loss of all things.’

“When I read verse 8, I’m conscious of the fact we’re getting to look into the heart of the Apostle Paul here. That’s the only time he ever uses that terminology.

"The Lord Jesus Christ had captivated his heart, and when Paul got a good look at Him, it gave him a good look at himself, and he realized he had someone, not in himself, but in Christ, to treasure. He came away from there with a ‘humility of mind,’ as he calls it--a thinking process that could only say, ‘It’s not I, it’s Him.’

*****

“When he talks about being a minister, look at what he writes in I Corinthians 4: ‘1] Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

“Paul says, ‘When you think about me, don’t think about my pedigree, all my standing. Don’t go around telling people I got my Ph.D. at the feet of Gamaliel; tell them I’m a minister of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God.’

“The he writes, ‘Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.’ You see it doesn’t say ‘successful’? Doesn’t say ‘popular.’ It doesn’t say ‘the crowd’s hanging on my words.’ It says ‘faithful.’

“The ministry of Christ and the ‘steward of the mystery’ are two ways of describing the same thing. So, what’s a steward?

"In Luke 12:42 Jesus told a parable about a steward. It says, [42] And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?’

“Notice what a steward is. They don’t own anything. A steward is a servant of his master and he takes his master’s goods and gives it out to others. He’s not the owner, he’s not the boss. He takes the orders from the boss, the master, and goes and gives that . . . he doesn’t decide, ‘I think I’ll give you this, I like you better; I’ll give you that.’

“He says, ‘The master says you get this, and the master says you get that.’ He’s saying, ‘I’m just the guy handing out the stuff.’ That’s why he’s got to be faithful. He’s got to be faithful to what the master said.

*****

“I Thessalonians 2:4 says, [4] But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.

“He says, ‘I’ve been allowed of God.’ Grace is an underserved favor. Paul’s saying, ‘I’ve been given by God this undeserved privilege to preach this. I’ve been allowed of God to be put in trust; He’s taken His goods and entrusted them to me, and then I give them out as a wise steward. I’m just a minister. I’m just a servant. I’m just the pipeline. I’m not the issue; HE’S the issue! The message is the issue.’

“Ephesians 4: 7-8 says, [7] But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
[8] Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

“Paul’s not talking about salvation; he’s talking about his ministry that was given to him as a gift of grace. He’s saying there’s a ministry privilege that’s given to YOU and ME! Every one of us has this grace! We have the privilege of being part of a ministry of the truth of God.

*****

“In Galatians 2:9 Paul reports, [9] And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.

“These men saw the special privilege given to Paul to preach this special message to the Gentiles. That’s what Galatians 2 is all about, by the way.

“Paul went to Jerusalem and communicated the gospel, which he was preaching among the Gentiles to the Jerusalem saints who didn’t know it. He brought them up-to-date and they PERCEIVED that unto Paul ‘who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.’

“There’s two ways to take the word ‘unsearchable.’ The word means ‘untraceable.’ When you can’t trace something, you can’t search it out. Jesus said, ‘Search the scriptures for they are they which testify of me.’

“Here’s a truth you can’t search the Scriptures and find. That’s interesting. But when it’s unsearchable, it means you can’t find it; it’s too wide, too deep; it’s too broad. You go on down in chapter 3 and it says it ‘passes understanding.’ You can’t get your mind around . . . He prays that you’d comprehend it because it’s just so big. It’s as big as God.

“Paul says, ‘I’ve got this message and I’ve been given the privilege of preaching it,’ and that changed his whole thinking process.’ ”