Preaching

Off madly interpreting

eejoseph

One of the verified crazy and unlikely ways to rightly divide – correctly handle – the text of the Bible is that of using the existing divisions Old and New Testaments.  Conclusions of this sort are elementary and shortsighted.   If one thinks that the Messianic doctrine was plastered over every page of the Hebrew Bible we must understand how our Lord’s contemporaries so profoundly missed it and having seen his marvelous work and heard his gracious words. Let me suggest that occasions for the correct handling of the Bible’s message happen in the verse and the the sentence.

Exhibit A

Yahweh is my light and my salvation even when I am stumbling in fear.

Do our thoughts stop being ours when they range far from God’s? Do we suppose that we have God’s thoughts and ways?

Exhibit B

Psalms 28:7

The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.

Consider the following two landmarks.

  • God lives in unapproachable light and that is why the ancients presumed that one dies on seeing God. 
  • There was never a time when God was not Life, Salvation, Shield and Strength

Or maybe we want to believe in a God who changes?

Purpose of life

eejoseph

A simple response to what our labour goals are should be “prayer”. I am not talking about what happens in church building at meetings. Since prayer is fellowship with God we urge everyone to learn how. Paul urged his disciples to keep watching for opportunities to pray.

To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, Ephesians 6:18-19

There is gospel beside grace through faith. Much of what most fills the air waves are no mystery.

Prayer and Proclamation

Rocky or Rickety

eejoseph

It is not an accident that the bottom line of Christian faith is an old dead and shallow maxim from Solomon. Since the law is the instrument of death you would have to be out of your mind to take Solomon’s word over Christ and John the Baptist. Faith and works are not partners in salvation. We are saved by grace through faith. Faith is not works, because our work is to believe in the Beloved Son and to believe him.

Not so smart after all

Ever heard that saying “believe by faith”? Who says stuff like that? I suppose it is time to start talking about loving by love, and being patient by patience. So ridiculous!

Jewish people had no incentive to follow Solomon, why should I? The will of God is not “wrapped up” in shady human performance, even when we think we have done our duties. First and foremost is eyes for Gid alone. Neither Solomon nor his people made it past the first commandment.

Self deception

Obedience is an outcome that succeeds only when we due to our illustrious pedigree and profession. Whether you are Jew or Gentile (there is no 3rd identity and all were born into sin), it is treachery, adultery, and demonic deceit to put the upward call of God on the same level as any heritage whatsoever.

Yeshua is not one of those guys

Few of our contemporaries in the 21st century find the grace and courage to say like Paul that the life in Christ to which we have come makes all the great and marvelous stuff we’ve known up to that point of meeting Christ seem as rubbish.

Consistent with Sinai and temple theology is death and desolation. Consistent with Golgotha and the throne of grace is life and abundance. To be grounded in Christ is to have his words as the source of life. Do we know that lifegiving saying of Christ? or are stuck with prophets, kings, and sages? Yeshua could not be psyched by the smartest of his contemporaries, and the high priest, oh man, he was woefully ignorant of God’s design. There is a lot of information in the Bible but the only there is the there of the stone refused.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. John 8:51

Is your house a rickety shack or a something built on the Rock?

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: Matthew 7:24