Article archive
10/29/2018 07:01
So Paul’s mission goal, as apostle to the Gentiles, was to present the gospel to Gentiles and incorporate them in the believing church. As Paul discovered, incorporating them into the church was a struggle. A clash occurred with the Jews who often misunderstood their heritage and its Law to be...
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10/22/2018 08:31
We begin now our last section of Romans—Section 6: Ending Comments. In the first part of this last section, Paul discusses his travel plans. But he begins in verses 14 through 24 of chapter 15 with a transition, explaining the reason he had written to them and how that interacted with his view of...
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10/14/2018 08:46
In our atonement series, we failed to discuss the particular role or emphasis of the Bible on the blood. Verses such as Hebrews 9:22, which tells us, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” indicate that an intricate and seemingly necessary relationship exists of blood shed to the...
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10/01/2018 07:00
Before continuing on with our Romans 14 discussion, there is another point regarding the atonement that I want to clear up. We understood God to forgive us (our spirits) for sins we have committed, but the cross was required to cleanse our essence (what I have consistently called our physical...
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09/24/2018 06:17
Regarding the righteousness involved with New Covenant living, Paul had seemed to start his discussion of interchurch relationship in the first half of chapter 12. He moved from that to those outside the church (last part of chapter 12) and then to duties to the state in chapter 13. He seems to...
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09/17/2018 07:29
The picture—the image—of what occurs in the Day of Atonement sacrifice informs our understanding of Christ’s sacrifice. The goat upon which sins are placed is not scorned or punished. In fact, nothing is done to the goat (indicating that the goat’s body and blood are not the focus of the symbol....
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08/27/2018 05:18
The Christian understanding of the atonement, then, has suffered from the confusion of the world’s faulty ideas. Both progressives and evangelicals (biblically conservative Christians) assimilate those wrong death-gift-for-blessing ideas. So the progressives shun the whole idea of sacrifice as a...
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08/20/2018 06:14
In our last discussion, we learned that redemption and forgiveness have a close relationship. Regarding the former, as evidenced all through the biblical record, redemption rescues material possession. Therefore, because of the curse on our essence, our redemption involves rescuing our essence from...
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08/13/2018 05:32
Ruth is the Bible’s extended metaphor for the idea of the Kinsman Redeemer, and the Kinsman Redeemer, of course, in the actual sense for world restoration is Christ. Therefore, in this metaphor we see each of the characters symbolizing the various players in the overall redemptive history of the...
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07/30/2018 06:47
We often hear that the bruising of the heel and the crushing of the head involves Satan himself. Satan bruises Christ’s heel by driving him to the cross, but Christ destroys Satan in a stunning turnaround as the cross and resurrection defeat Satan and death. However, my conclusion was that it was...
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