A People for His Name

A Parable about Music

March 23, 2011

A team of archaeologists makes a stunning discovery. While excavating a desolate site, they stumble upon a vast collection of documents that employs unfamiliar notation. The archaeologists reason that the collection must be of great importance because of the painstaking efforts that were taken to preserve it.

After months of secretive examination by leading scholars, the documents are finally deciphered as ancient music notation. A whirlwind of secretive activity ensues. A team of leading musicians from around the world is secretly chosen and collaborates for months to examine the documents.

Finally, all the documents are deciphered and analyzed fully. Upon rendering the music into modern notation and having it played by the world-class musicians in the team, everyone is stunned by the extraordinary beauty, majesty, and grandeur of the music. Practicing for months, they prepare for an international debut for the music that all the major networks in leading countries agree to carry.

They choose to debut only the instrumental music that they discovered. The rest of the music is kept under very tight security.

The worldwide response to the music is phenomenal. Music experts everywhere deem the music to be among the finest music ever produced. Somehow, the source of the instrumental music remains a tightly guarded secret throughout the entire process.

Many leading Christian musicians who hear the music write beautiful lyrics to accompany selections from the collection. Numerous churches worldwide use the music in their worship services.

A year later, in an international press conference, the team who produced the music then makes known its identity. They reveal that this was the music used when Nebuchadnezzar demanded worldwide worship of his image. They then release the rest of the music, which is immediately enthusiastically received all over the world.

Having accepted the music enthusiastically and used it in worship, what do the Christians who did so do now upon learning of the origin of the music? Do they reason that the music itself is still fine to use, in spite of its original ancient use?

Does the fact that the music was specifically used originally for the worship of a man forever taint this instrumental music that was of phenomenal musical quality? If it were known whether the pieces of music in the collection were composed specifically for that occasion or not, would that change anything?

In CCM, Discipleship, Music, Parables Music, Parable

Apostolic Evangelistic Emphases

March 22, 2011

The biblical record of apostolic evangelism reveals key emphases in their evangelistic doctrine and practice. The following table reflects my current understanding about apostolic evangelism by presenting pairs of key truths concerning the content of their evangelistic message.

Apostolic Evangelism
Name of Jesus Christ	Kingdom of God the Father
deity of Jesus as the Christ	agency of Jesus as the Christ
Jesus as the God-sent Savior	Jesus as the God-appointed Judge
crucifixion	resurrection
faith	repentance
profession	baptism
forgiveness of sins	the gift of the Holy Spirit
salvation	judgment

At least in much of what I have observed in evangelism, heard preached in evangelism, and read about evangelism, the elements on the left have tended to be overemphasized. In some of these pairs, the disparity has been quite marked. The elements on the right, however, are vital as well and should not be neglected.

Whenever possible, our evangelism should emphasize fully what the apostles emphasized.

In Evangelism Evangelism

What Jesus Wants the World to Know Through Us

March 21, 2011

John 17 provides a marvelous record of Jesus’ praying to the Father. Jesus explicitly speaks six times of the Father’s sending Him (17:3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25):

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.

He defines eternal life in terms that include knowing that He is the God-sent Christ (17:3). He speaks of His own disciples’ believing (17:8) and knowing (17:25) that the Father sent Him.

Concerning the world, He first parallels His sending His disciples into the world with the Father’s sending Him into the world (17:18). He then adds two explicit statements that make known His praying to the Father that the world would believe (17:21) and know (17:23) that the Father has sent Him and has loved them, as He has loved Jesus (17:23).

In these statements, Jesus teaches that it is through the unity of the believers in the Father and the Son that the world will believe and know that message. His greatest concern, however, is not the unity of the believers as an end in itself; that unity is for the higher purpose of a worldwide proper knowledge of His being sent by the Father and of the Father’s love for the world, even as He has loved Jesus.

Jesus’ prayer to the Father greatly highlights His agency as the God-sent One. For Jesus’ prayer to be answered fully as He desires, our doctrine and practice must make known to the world His agency.

In Interpretation Interpretation

Divine Mercy to Animals

March 20, 2011

The book of Jonah reveals the great mercy of God through its record about Jonah and God’s dealings with him because of his unwillingness to deliver His message to the wicked city of Nineveh. Jonah was unwilling to deliver God’s message because He knew the merciful character of God and did not want the Ninehevites to receive mercy (Jon. 4:1-3). By subjecting Jonah to great affliction, God finally brought him to willingness to deliver that message to them. After Jonah did so, God dealt with him about his ungodly lack of compassion.

In the final scene of the book, God rebukes Jonah for his displeasure at His sparing the Ninevehites. He first points out how Jonah had pity on a plant when it perished, even though he had not labored for it or made it to grow (4:9-10). In the final words of the book, He then rebukes him by saying, “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?” (Jon. 4:11).

This great verse reveals the heart of God in a wonderful way. Through a rhetorical question that expects a positive answer, God made known that He should spare a vast multitude of people in that wicked city who in some manner did not know which hand was which. To me, this statement provides a basis for believing that babies, small children, and people who are severely mentally handicapped go to heaven when they die.

Interestingly, God does not stop with his statement about the people that He wanted to spare in Nineveh. His final words reveal that He held that He also should have spared the abundant cattle that were in the city.

Why did God inform Jonah of this fact? He apparently wanted to make known to Jonah (and to us) that His great mercy extended even to animals that would have perished.

Jonah’s message brought about the repentance of the Ninehevites (Lk. 11:32), a repentance that resulted in the sparing of many helpless people and animals. Christ has commissioned His people to proclaim repentance and remission of sins to all nations (Lk. 24:47). We know that He commissioned that message because God desires that no one would perish (2 Pet. 3:9). From what we know about God’s dealings with the Ninehevites, should we understand that Christ also intends that the proper reception by all nations of His commissioned message would be a means of providing divine mercy in some manner to many animals?

In Interpretation Interpretation

The Oldest and Most Persistent Doctrinal Denial

March 19, 2011

Derek Kidner’s comments on the first doctrinal denial bring out truth that all generations of believers must make continual efforts to keep before God’s people:

After the query, the flat contradiction: Ye shall not surely die (AV, RV). It is the serpent’s word against God’s, and the first doctrine to be denied is judgment. If modern denials of it are very differently motivated, they are equally at odds with revelation: Jesus fully affirmed the doctrine (e.g. Matt. 7:13-27). (Genesis in TOTC, 72-73)

Ever since physical death first occurred, denial of death altogether has no longer been possible. Denial of eternal death, however, abounds and will do so until the Lord finally destroys the evil supernatural source of all such denials of the doctrine of judgment.

The doctrine of eternal judgment is a foundational truth of the doctrine of Christ (Heb. 6:1-2). Countering the attacks on this foundational truth has been one of the reasons that Jesus has commanded the preaching and testifying to all that He is the One appointed by God as the Judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; cf. Mk. 16:16). Proclaiming that message faithfully perpetuates the message that God Himself announced in His first declaration of judgment after the Fall of man:

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, ‘Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel (Gen 3:14-15).

By obeying Acts 10:42, we imitate God in announcing to all what He has ordained will surely happen one day through the woman’s Seed. Doing so, we do our part in countering the oldest and most persistent doctrinal denial.

In Discipleship, Quotes

The Good News for All!

March 18, 2011

God has put a conscience in every man that condemns him when he sins. He knows our secrets and one day will judge them. Our hearts condemn us. We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He has weighed us in His balances and found us wanting. We all know that we are worthy of death, the wages of our sin.

Death is not some impersonal, automatic consequence of our sinfulness that mechanistically takes place in a godless universe. Death is the work of God as Judge. Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the body. The second death, eternal death in the lake of fire, awaits all who die in their sins because they refuse to repent and turn toward God, doing works fitting for repentance.

All our lifetimes, we fear death. Because it is appointed to man once to die, and then the judgment, we all are in desperate need of good news.

The good news is that God the Father anointed the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was also the Son of God, with the Holy Spirit and with power. As the Anointed One, the Christ, He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him. He is the Christ who died for our sins, was buried, rose again on the third day, and was seen by many trustworthy witnesses.

Christ died and rose again so that He might be the Lord, the Judge who has authority over all who are dead and alive. Having been raised by the Father, He now sits in heaven at the right hand of the Father, who has set Him as the King.

He is the Son appointed by God as the Judge of the living and the dead. He has authority in heaven and earth to forgive the sins of everyone who believes in His name. One day, the Son will judge the secrets of men and condemn unrepentant sinners to eternal punishment.

The Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son in order that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honors not the Son honors not the Father who has sent Him. Truly, truly, Jesus says to all, “He who hears my word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and will not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life.”

These things Jesus says that you might be saved. With the Son of God on your side, no one else will ever be able to condemn you.

To be blessed, you must serve the Father with fear and rejoice with trembling. You must also submit to and trust His Son. He has the keys of death and hell. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who believes not will be damned.

God made His Son, who never sinned, sin for you that you might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus will save you from your sins if you will repent toward God and believe that God has raised Him from the dead.

Confess that Jesus is the Lord and He will give you the gift of eternal life. Call on the name of the Lord and be reconciled to God today!

In Evangelism, Gospel Evangelism

God Made Jesus Both Lord and Christ

March 17, 2011

In my dissertation, I presented a close comparison in English and Greek between several verses in the Septuagint and Acts 2:36. Here is a somewhat expanded version of that comparison (highlighting used to help make the comparison clearer):

Gen 27:29 And let nations serve thee, and princes bow down to thee, and be thou lord of thy brother, and the sons of thy father shall do thee reverence; accursed is he that curses thee, and blessed is he that blesses thee.

Gen 27:29 καὶ δουλευσάτωσάν σοι ἔθνη καὶ προσκυνήσουσίν σοι ἄρχοντες καὶ γίνου κύριος τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου καὶ προσκυνήσουσίν σοι οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ πατρός σου ὁ καταρώμενός σε ἐπικατάρατος ὁ δὲ εὐλογῶν σε εὐλογημένος

Gen 27:37 And Isaac answered and said to Esau, If I have made him thy lord, and have made all his brethren his servants, and have strengthened him with corn and wine, what then shall I do for thee, son?

Gen 27:37 ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ Ισαακ εἶπεν τῷ Ησαυ εἰ κύριον αὐτὸν ἐποίησά σου καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ ἐποίησα αὐτοῦ οἰκέτας σίτῳ καὶ οἴνῳ ἐστήρισα αὐτόν σοὶ δὲ τί ποιήσω τέκνον

Gen 45:8 Now then ye did not send me hither, but God; and he hath made me as a father of Pharao, and lord of all his house, and ruler of all the land of Egypt.

Gen 45:8 νῦν οὖν οὐχ ὑμεῖς με ἀπεστάλκατε ὧδε ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ὁ θεός καὶ ἐποίησέν με ὡς πατέρα Φαραω καὶ κύριον παντὸς τοῦ οἴκου αὐτοῦ καὶ ἄρχοντα πάσης γῆς Αἰγύπτου

Gen 45:9 Hasten, therefore, and go up to my father, and say to him, These things saith thy son Joseph; God has made me lord of all the land of Egypt; come down therefore to me, and tarry not.

Gen 45:9 σπεύσαντες οὖν ἀνάβητε πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ εἴπατε αὐτῷ τάδε λέγει ὁ υἱός σου Ιωσηφ ἐποίησέν με ὁ θεὸς κύριον πάσης γῆς Αἰγύπτου κατάβηθι οὖν πρός με καὶ μὴ μείνῃς

Acts 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Act 2:36 ἀσφαλῶς οὖν γινωσκέτω πᾶς οἶκος Ἰσραὴλ ὅτι καὶ κύριον αὐτὸν καὶ χριστὸν ἐποίησεν ὁ θεός, τοῦτον τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὃν ὑμεῖς ἐσταυρώσατε.

Notice that Genesis 27:37, 45:8, and 45:9 all contain the same verb (ποιέω; “made”) as Acts 2:36 and the same word for Lord (κύριος). In particular, Genesis 45:8-9 compared with Acts 2:36 allows the Bible to interpret itself and helps us understand what Peter said: As God had exalted Joseph to a position of authority that he never had before, God has exalted Jesus to a position of authority as Lord and Christ that He as the God-man never had before.

This comparison shows that Peter’s statement does not primarily signify that God has announced to people that Jesus is the Lord and the Christ, that is, Jesus is both God and Messiah. Rather, Peter climaxed his gospel message at Pentecost by emphasizing that all the house of Israel must know that the Father has glorified Jesus to a position of supreme authority as Lord and Christ. We, therefore, should urge lost people to believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead and acknowledge that God has exalted Him as Lord (Rom. 10:9-10; cf. 1 Pet. 1:10-12; 21).

In Biblical Greek, Interpretation Interpretation

Did the Gospel Change From Samaria to Corinth?

March 16, 2011

Consider the following information about gospel preaching by the apostolic company:

Philip preaches the gospel in Samaria: kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12)
Paul preaches the gospel in Corinth: death, burial, resurrection, and appearances of Christ (1 Cor. 15)
Paul preaches the gospel for three months in Ephesus: kingdom of God and the word of the Lord Jesus (Acts 19:8, 10)
Paul preaches the gospel for a three-year period throughout Asia: kingdom of God and repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21, 24, 25)
Paul preaches the gospel for two whole years in Rome: kingdom of God and Jesus (28:23); kingdom of God and the Lord Jesus Christ (28:31)

Given this information about apostolic gospel preaching, did the gospel change from Samaria to Corinth from a message about the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ to a message just about Jesus?

If so, did the gospel change again from Corinth to Ephesus, Asia, and Rome?

Alternatively, has the gospel message always been the preaching of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, and 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 was never intended to be used the way that many use it to define the gospel as a message solely about Christ?

In Evangelism, Gospel, Interpretation Evangelism, Gospel, Ministry

The King’s Words about Everlasting Fire

March 15, 2011

One day, Jesus will return in glory as the Son of Man (Matt. 25:31-46). He will be the King (25:34, 40) who will judge all nations. He will separate them into the sheep and the goats (25:32-33). His dealings with both groups provide us with significant information concerning the Bible’s teaching about the everlasting fire in which unrepentant sinners will ultimately suffer.

The King will command the sheep on His right hand to enter into glory: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (25:34). This statement by the Judge is striking in what it teaches.

First, it says that the Father is the ultimate agent (perfect passive participle [εὐλογημένοι] with a genitive noun for the ultimate agent [τοῦ πατρός]) who has blessed the sheep so that they will inherit the kingdom (τότε ἐρεῖ ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῖς ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτοῦ, Δεῦτε, οἱ εὐλογημένοι τοῦ πατρός μου, κληρονομήσατε τὴν ἡτοιμασμένην ὑμῖν βασιλείαν ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου). The King thus is the judicial agent of the Father who will authoritatively call the sheep and direct them to enter into the kingdom.

Second, the King will specify that the kingdom has been prepared for the sheep (dative of advantage) from the foundation of the world. Saying this, the King will testify to the eternal benevolent purpose of God for them.

The record of the King’s statements to the goats, however, differs, from His address to the sheep in important ways. To the goats, the Judge says, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (25:41). Unlike His earlier statement concerning the sheep, the Judge does not say that the goats are cursed of the Father. Although the Father through His King will ultimately consign the goats to their terrible place of punishment, the King does not say that they were cursed by the Father.

The King also does not say who has prepared the everlasting fire. Of course, it is clear that God is the One who has prepared the fire, but the Judge chooses not to say so in this statement.

Moreover, instead of specifying that the fire was prepared for the goats, the Judge specifies that the fire was prepared for the devil and his angels. This facet of His end-time judicial pronouncements is worth pondering deeply. Why does the Judge not specify to the goats that the fire was prepared for them? Why does He make known, instead, that it was prepared for the evil spirit beings that rebelled against God?

These differences in the King’s dealings with the sheep and the goats suggest that even at that decisive moment when their eternal fates are finally made known, God will reveal something about His heart for mankind. His not saying that He cursed the goats and prepared the fire for them from the foundation of the world may be implicit final testimony to all who are present at that solemn occasion (as well to all who read or hear this teaching but may not be present at that occasion) of His essential eternal benevolence toward mankind.

Whether this interpretation of His final saying to the wicked is correct or not, for us who are alive now, the King desires that we repent toward the Father and believe that He has raised His Christ, the Lord Jesus, from the dead. Confessing that Christ as the Lord and calling upon Him now while there is yet time, we one day will be with Him in eternal glory in His Father’s kingdom!

In Biblical Greek, Interpretation Interpretation

Right Values in Tough Times

March 14, 2011

In spite of our time of great economic difficulty, God still calls us to show that we believe in the supreme value of His Word by devoting time to think deeply on what we read. Dr. Michael P.V. Barrett explains the importance of meditating on what we read from Scripture:

The amount of blessing we receive from the Bible and the degree to which we understand the Bible will be in proportion to how much time we meditate on what we have read. Very simply, meditating is thinking . . . Thinking takes time; thinking is work . . . Many Christians get nothing from the Bible not because they are ignorant but because they are thoughtless. . . Although our tendency when we read Scripture is to skip over the parts we don’t understand immediately, it is important just to pause and think and ask the Teacher, the Holy Spirit, to explain. Don’t give up too quickly. . . Take the time to pray and think over the open Bible. Time is like money in that we don’t have much of either to spend. But one way or another we seem to have money to spend on the things that we really want, and we seem to have time to spend on the things that are most important to us. If we truly agree with the Psalmist that God’s Word is more precious than gold, we will want to devote as much thinking time to it as we possibly can (Beginning at Moses: A Guide to Finding Christ in the Old Testament, 11).

To profit fully from our time in Scripture, we have to meditate on what we read. Doing so, we will show to God that our value system is what He wants it to be.

In Discipleship, Quotes

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