Israel after the flesh

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…

  We are working our way through 1 Thessalonians to show how inmillennialism affects our understanding of Paul’s words. My last two posts introduced the fact that he has re-thought three elements of Jewish theology: monotheism, election, and eschatology. This change appears in his salutation. Last week’s post (here) discussed how…

“Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone [of the Temple] shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.… Then they crucified Him.… He is risen from the dead” (Matt 24:2; 27:35; 28:7 NKJV).  Peter W. L. Walker makes an important observation about these events. “The…

A previous post (here) showed Jesus’s first-last parable (Matt 20:1–15) was about kingdom transfer. The exchange happened at the end of the Mosaic age and the beginning of the messianic age. In Matthew 21, Jesus reinforced that message in five ways—by three symbolic actions (Matt 21:1–22) and two parables (Matt…

We are using our prophetic model (inmillennialism) to interpret selected passages in Matthew. We have come to a passage (Matt 13:46–52) that contains two sayings of Jesus. The setting is important. Jesus gave them in the “last days” (Heb 1:2) of the Mosaic age. He was about to take the…

The New Testament gives a surprising report of Roman centurions. It mentions six, each a “commander of 100 men in the Roman army.” They all had a positive connection to the kingdom of heaven. Matt 8:5–13 presents the New Testament’s first centurion. His perception of the kingdom caused Jesus to…

The post The Seven Vials — Part 2: Our Vision caused interesting reactions. One reader suggested I am smoking a hallucinogenic drug. Speaking of his younger days, he said, “none of us had the wild visions you have had and/or [sic] still having. Perhaps you would send me some of…

Our title comes from the opening words to Revelation’s sixth vision: “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore” (Rev. 17:1; emphasis added). But, this…

We now come face-to-face with an evil triad. The Seven Mystic Figures vision has already revealed the Dragon (Rev. 12:3–17) and the Sea Beast (Rev. 13:1–10). Now John introduces us to the Land Beast (Rev. 13:11–18). “This second beast completes the triumvirate of evil—the dragon, the sea beast, and the…

We need to chat about prophetic beasts. Our interpretation of Revelation using the inmillennial model requires it. They will play a major role in the rest of Revelation’s drama. In an earlier post, we saw how the Seven Mystic Figures vision describes the generation between Jesus’s birth and the destruction of the…