2017

This post will continue tracing Paul’s thoughts as he persuades the Hebrews to stay true to their profession of faith in Christ. They must not cling to the Temple-based worship instituted by Moses but embrace the word God had now spoken through his Son. Paul presents his arguments in a…

Paul wants the Hebrew believers—and us—to know that Christianity excels Judaism. Our previous posts examined his two opening arguments: Christ excels the agents—angels (Heb. 1:4 – 2:18) and Moses (Heb. 3:1 – 4:13)—through whom God gave the law. This post will examine Paul’s next step as he argues that Christ…

We are tracing Paul’s arguments in Hebrews that show how Christianity excels Judaism. We contend that Inmillennialism supports his reasoning well. This will hold true as he takes the next step: Christianity excels Judaism because Christ excels Moses (Heb. 3:1–4:13). Paul supports his argument in ways that affect our prophetic…

We are exercising our prophetic model, inmillennialism, in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. The apostle argues for the superiority of God’s revelation in the “last days” of the Mosaic age over others, especially the law. One reason is the superiority of Christ as the agent through whom God gave the…

Paul shows the superiority of the Messianic covenant to the Mosaic in Heb. 1:4 – 2:18. He does so by comparing the agents through which God established the covenants. The Mosaic covenant—also called “the law”—came with a prominent display of angelic ministry. Israel “received the law by the disposition of…

We have completed the inmillennial prophetic model. Future posts will add other details, but the basic structure is now available to help us interpret Scripture. We will begin doing so with a series of posts dealing with the letter to the Hebrews. The identity of the author of Hebrews is…

We are constructing a model of biblical prophecy that, we hope, will allow Christians to better understand the Bible. We are almost ready to show the usefulness of our model by applying it to extended passages throughout God’s Word. A little tidying up of our reasoning will prepare us to…

Jesus gave the Olivet Discourse on Tuesday of Passion Week. It seems appropriate to finish our analysis of it on the 1,987th anniversary of that day. Jesus ended his discussion about the Temple’s destruction with a fifth warning, this time referring to the sheep and goats judgment. Like the other…

Before writing our post The X-Factor in the Olivet Discourse, I knew of no writer who describes the Olivet Discourse as a chiasmus. While preparing for our last post, I rejoiced to read the following by John F. Hart: “From a literary point of view, Matthew structures these as a…

Jesus provided the answers requested of him without admixing elements of some distant event. The signs (Matthew 24:4–31) and timeframe (Matthew 24:32–36) he provided dealt with his original prophecy—the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:1–3). Nothing in the Olivet Discourse forces an unbiased reader to postulate a complicated series of…