Churches are not often concerned about false Jews today. If someone identifies themselves as a Jew, people do not ask for verification. And they shouldn’t. In John’s day, a unique historical situation made “false Jews” a threat to the churches. This category did not arise from a person’s ethnicity, but…
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One of our readers made a mild objection to our last post, Can God’s Kingdom Grow?. His two observations are correct: the terms “church kingdom” and “creation kingdom” do not occur in the Scriptures and there is only one kingdom. This post will explain why we introduced these terms. For…
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Jesus taught parables that show the kingdom of heaven changing. For example, it grows like a mustard seed becoming a tree (Matt. 13:31–32). But can God’s kingdom grow? Our first answer might be that it cannot grow: God’s domain already includes heaven and earth. He exercises absolute rule everywhere. God…
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The message is hard to avoid: Caesar is Lord! Coins circulate throughout the Roman Empire proclaiming the Emperor’s divinity. The “divine” power has increased since Julius, the first Caesar, established the Empire in 49 BC. One of his successors, Nero, now uses it in every area of life. In the…
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John the Baptist was a metaphorical civil engineer. Isaiah had predicted his construction of a divinely ordained highway. He would cry out “in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isa. 40:3; Matt. 3:3). The Baptist prepared the…
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Revelation’s bookend time stamps raise important questions. If we interpret them as literal truth statements, what profound event(s) happened soon after John saw these visions? What fulfilled his about-to-be prophecies? The answer depends on another important question: When did John see these visions? Most conservative scholars limit the possible date…
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My Webster’s Third World International Dictionary weighs a whopping 13 pounds. It requires strong bookends to keep it upright. Supports too weak would allow this large volume to fall, with the potential of knocking other books off the shelf, not to mention the possibility of doing bodily harm. John’s book…
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Background information lends texture to many biblical statements. Rarely does that information determine orthodoxy or even how we should apply the lessons of Scripture to our lives. Still, knowing the context in which a writer sends forth his sentences sometimes helps us appreciate the nuances of divine inspiration. Let’s consider…
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“You blew it up!” So concludes the Planet of the Apes (1968). After years of space travel at near the speed of light, Astronaut George Taylor has crash-landed on an unknown planet in the distant future. He discovers a shocking truth: the earlier inhabitants had blown their civilization to oblivion.…
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The visiting Christian brother did not suffer from dementia, but his 90 years had removed many inhibitions. We learned this in a somewhat humorous way. Our small congregation sometimes sang Samuel J. Stone’s hymn, The Church’s One Foundation. On the day of his visit, when we sang the verse Yet…