Church

In this series of posts, I am using the inmillennial prophetic model to interpret Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians. My last three posts mentioned a point N. T. Wright has made: Paul’s recognition of Jesus as the Messiah forced him to adjust three key elements of his Jewish theology—election, monotheism, and eschatology. A…

Last week’s post (here) introduced the idea that Paul had to rework his Jewish theology in three primary areas: election, monotheism, and eschatology. This re-evaluation shows up in the opening verses of 1 Thessalonians: his monotheism now has “the Lord Jesus Christ” on an equal footing with “God the Father”…

We have defined two terms Jesus used in Matt 16:17–19 in previous posts. Jesus used “my church” to mean the congregation that comprises those in covenant with God during the messianic age. Scripture speaks of local churches as “the church” by synecdoché, each one representing the whole. The “kingdom of heaven” refers…

What did Jesus mean when he said, “I will build my church”? In last week’s post (here), we defined the terms “church” and “kingdom” as Jesus used them in Matt 16:18–19. The church (Gk. ekklēsia) comprises all persons in covenant relationship with God during the messianic age. The kingdom is…

Jesus asked his disciples an important question. “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matt 16:13). Peter responded correctly: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!” (Matt 16:16 HCSB). Jesus then gave Peter a great revelation: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“I know that’s what it says, but that is not what it means,” said my red-faced father to my maternal grandfather. Grandpa Smith had a second-grade education but loved God. I often saw him read the Bible and pray with tears streaming down his cheeks. He was also a died-in-the-wool…