Joseph Thayer

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). This verse causes some readers to doubt inmillennialism. For…

  A skeptic of inmillennialism might lodge an objection based on Jesus’s Great Commission. After his resurrection he said: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of…

This post continues our answer to a reader’s objection to our Miraculous Gifts post. There we dealt with 1 Cor 13:8–10 and said “that which is perfect” (1 Cor 13:10) refers to the messianic age.  If our identification of the “perfect” is correct, Paul was showing the Corinthians when God…

Metaphors matter. The Scriptures use them to give a full-orbed description of the “last days” of the Mosaic age (e.g., Heb 1:2; Gen 49:1). God gave Israel a “new birth” through Christ’s resurrection (1 Pet 1:3; Eph 2:6). Christ then began to reign in his kingdom after Israel’s “regeneration” (Matt…

  A valued reader disagrees with our interpretation of “that which is perfect” in 1 Cor 13:10. In our post The Miraculous Gifts we said the “perfect” stands for the messianic age in which we now live. Our reader says “this ‘perfection,’ teleios, to which Paul refers, is the eternal…

The long-awaited kingdom of heaven was coming. The disciples had heard John the Baptist announce its approach (Matt 3:1–2). They had listened when Jesus confirmed this message as he preached the gospel of the kingdom (Matt 4:17, 23; 9:35). Jesus had taught them the ethics of the new age in…

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). This verse causes some readers to doubt inmillennialism.…