jesus
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Let me make it unmistakably and superabundantly clear that this post is not about a general desire for more of the Presence and Witnessing-Power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Praise God for the atmosphere in many Christian circles in which there is a general desire for more of the Presence and Witnessing-Power of…
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I wish every Christian in the world would read Preston Sprinkle’s Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire. I highly recommend it as hands down the best exposition of Biblical political theology I have yet to run across. One foremost strength is his approach: letting the unfolding of the Kingdom of God through redemptive…
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The Kingdom of God is an actual Kingdom and Jesus is its actual King. When we ignore the politics of Christ’s Kingdom we are missing the main point of Messiah’s political revolution. Much of the key terminology in the New Testament is deeply immersed in political imagery and evocations of that day, for example: The Bible’s reappropriation…
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This post intends to be the second in a series: We previously saw that there are about as many senses of the Greek word “apostle” as there are for the English phrase “sent one.” The type of apostles we are concerned with in this series are those who are sent, authorized, and equipped to lay…
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This post intends to be the first in a series: In Koine Greek an “apostle” is a “sent one,” the same idea as expressed in the Latin word “missionarius.” In particular, the sender sends out an “apostle” to fulfill a specific task, authorizing and equipping them however necessary to do so. Perhaps the point that…
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Any student of the Holy Bible knows that Israel is at the center of God’s relationship with the nations of this world, His-Story of global affairs. Being “firstborn” carries both privilege and responsibility. So let’s start there: In sum: All the countries of this world are stupid and evil. Thank you for your attention to…
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It is not hard to find support for the idea that the Bible intersects politics. What is difficult, however, is to find any consensus on what the political implications of the Bible properly are. A wide spectrum of possibilities offer themselves regarding the potential relationship between religion and government: Count me among those who consider…
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I’m fascinated by what appears to be a renaissance in Biblical hermeneutics that has been semi-quitely underway for the last generation or so. Most of the activity has been limited to academic circles, but facets of it have begun emerging in more lay-level websites such as BibleProject, AlephBeta, and the Theopolis Institute. There are a…
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God placed His image-bearing living-icons in the original Edenic garden-temple and commissioned them to participate as helpmeet in His creative work by extending and globally disseminating the “goodness” He had set in place through six days of providing structure and fullness to overcome the chaotic emptiness and void. Note well(!) that even before the Fall,…
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The church of Acts was characterized by (what theologians call) an eschatological urgency. The end of all things was at hand. The Son of David had come to usher in the Kingdom of God. The Second Adam had fathered a new creation which would finally fill the earth with the glory of God through His…
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It is hard for the rich and powerful to find true love. The question will always be: do they love me for me or just for my stuff? God is the Ultimate rich and powerful Being and so He faces this problem to a degree immeasurably beyond any human tycoon or royalty figure. Ezekiel 16…
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the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. … and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” Revelation 13:3-4 provides two descriptions of the actions of the earth-dwellers with respect to the beast: (1) they worship it, and (2) they say words that show their…
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A straightforward reading of Romans 11 indicates that Israel and the Church in some sense “should be” one people — Jew and Gentile united in Messiah, and indeed ultimately will be one. But due to various forms of disobedience there is lopping and pruning and grafting which occur in the meantime, such that the unified…
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Given the reality of loss of lampstands, how shall one move forward? This is probably the question which has remained most at the forefront of my concern for several years. The Christian life and ministry are “Not by [human] might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of Hosts. How then shall…
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We need apostles. To complete the Great Commission task Jesus left His church to occupy herself with until His return, we need apostles. To truly reach the Muslim world with the genuine gospel message, not the distorted message of historic Christendom, but the true gospel of forgiveness and new life in Christ as we eagerly…
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If possible, please view the fully hyperlinked and better formatted pdf version of this post instead. Greetings! Shalom aleichem = Peace be upon you = As-salamu alaykum. Zekeriya Harrıs here writing to you today from İzmir Province in Türkiye, site of ancient Ephesus — prototypical city of lost lampstands. To friends and to prospective friends.The…
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Constantine’s goal in convening the Nicene council was to resolve some disputes among Christians, in order to attain ecclesiastical unity, in service of (presumably his ultimate goal) of political unity within the empire. One problem with that program is that ideas about Jesus (e.g. homoousios) are not what bind the body of Christ together. Rather,…
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It is important to understand the times in which one lives. These, I propose, are the days of Elijah and Moses. Many of Revelation’s commentators have noted that the “two witnesses” in chapter 11 have clear parallels to Moses and Elijah. “Power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall” and “power over the…
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Christianity today is not the 29th chapter of Acts. A better label for us might be Acts chapter 47, or something like that. Since the time of Paul’s house imprisonment in Rome some paradigm-shifting things have happened in this world and the spiritual realm which bear significant effects on the outworking of the dynamics of…
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Because God Himself is a perfectly happy society of mutually loving Persons, when He reconciles a throng of men to Himself He thereby simultaneously reconciles all of them to each other in One Holy and Harmonious Society. The good news that God has made a way to redeem mankind into joint membership in the “Society…
hasteningthecomingofthedayofGod 