1 Peter 1:13, How To Gird Your Loins

Tuesday, May 6, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

//Ever wonder how to gird your loins? The phrase makes much more sense in a Biblical setting, where many men wore long robes. They would tuck the robes into their belt, thus “girding up their loins” so they could move freely.

The way the phrase is used here by 1 Peter probably is meant to bring Passover to mind. On the first Passover, God’s people were to be in a state of readiness, prepared to quickly flee from Egypt into the desert. Girding the loins “of your mind,” I would imagine, refers to being ready for the return of Jesus, so that we may quickly flee in the next “exodus,” from the next “Egypt.”

Book review: STABLE: The Keys to Heaven on Earth

Monday, May 5, 2014 in Book Reviews | 0 comments

by April Michelle Lewis

★★★★

April Lewis’s book is a pluralistic Christian approach to happiness. She notes that it is God’s will that we be happy, experiencing heaven on earth, and that virtually all religions promote common goals of love, forgiveness, altruism and healthy relationships … the very things which contribute to our happiness on earth. Lewis has apparently been through the wringer in life and learned some hard lessons (which she doesn’t discuss), but she eventually overcame them, with the help of God. She describes her success through the acronym STABLE, writing in a conversational, heart-felt tone that makes it easy to get to know her and to join in her journey toward heaven on earth. Here’s what STABLE means:

S.T. = Sound Thoughts, which is much more than just positive thinking. Lewis teaches that we should treat the harmful thoughts which pervade our brains as unwelcome enemies, to be chased away and replaced. Happiness is attainable, and one secret lies in the awareness of an afterlife, as it will someday offer us a feeling of incredible joy. This Lewis deduces from her research into near-death experiences.

A.B. = Always Believe, by which she means belief in God. Lewis thinks atheism is silly, that it is impossible for life to begin without a creator, and she assumes that this creator is a “loving intelligence,” a personal God interested in our well-being. STABLE depends upon faith in God, finding a deeper meaning and divine plan in every circumstance. The meaning of life can be summed up in one phrase–we are here to love and to help others–and God is our ever-present strength. Says Lewis, “I ask God for everything. I talk to Him about everything.”

L.E. = Life of Excellence, the result of focusing our life on others. The excellence in our lives is determined by how we treat each other, how we treat animals, how we treat the earth, and so on. It is a result of living as though heaven were on earth, and it is not merely a switch we can flip on. Practice, perhaps years of practice, is required. Lewis refers to the research of Dr. Martin Seligman, who finds that altruism, volunteering, donating to charities, and helping others is what leads to what he calls Authentic Happiness. It is by giving of ourselves that we achieve joy.

Lewis then begins to steer a bit off course, as she encourages us to chase our dreams as part of the Life of Excellence. The idea is that God has ordained a particular life for us from an early age, perhaps revealed to us by childhood dreams, and we should hold tight and pursue them. When heaven has a plan for you, God will not allow you to look back, so we must work toward our goals and achieve our individual purpose. To be honest, this new emphasis didn’t seem to me to fit the “live for others” mold of STABLE. Anyway, setting that aside…

Encouraging and inspirational, this is a book worth reading.

Inspiring Voices, © 2012, 171 pages

ISBN: 978-1-4624-0471-1

Luke 12:6, God Cares About Sparrows

Sunday, May 4, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 1 comment

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.

//When I read verses like this, I begin to wonder if Christians properly revere all that God cares about. The point of verses like today’s is to affirm that God cares about us just like he does the rest of creation. The same point is made a few verses later, about how God carefully tends to the wild flowers:

Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! –Luke 12:27-28

So I wonder: where do we get off thinking humans are the only life on earth that matters to God? Perhaps God’s care for all living things should more strongly affect our moral attitude toward animals? If animals are treated properly on God’s earth, would they be better able to share in glorifying our creator?

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. –Psalm 150:6

Luke 7:39, The Omniscience of the Gospels

Saturday, May 3, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

//It’s interesting to me that all four authors of the Gospels assume an air of omniscience. They know things that a mere eyewitness observer would have no way of knowing. In today’s verse, how could Luke possibly know what this Pharisee was thinking?

There are many examples of this sort of thing in the Gospels. Here are a few more that come to mind, from the book of Matthew, from the simple to the complex:

Then the man got up and went home. –Matthew 9:7

How would Matthew know where the paralytic man went after being healed?

The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ –Matthew 27:63

How would Matthew know what was said in this discussion between Pilate and the chief priests?

She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” –Matthew 9:21

This is the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. How would Matthew know what she was thinking?

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” –Matthew 26:39

How would Matthew know what Jesus prayed? Jesus was whisked away immediately afterward to be crucified.

Book Excerpt: Revelation: The Way It Happened

Friday, May 2, 2014 in Book Excerpt | 0 comments

“Jesus sits on the throne?” Matthew queried. “I thought God sat on the throne.”

Samuel grimaced. “I don’t know. John’s vision sometimes confuses me,” he admitted before quickly continuing. “Around the throne, the elders and living creatures each hold a lyre and a bowl of incense.”

Matthew laughed. “How can anybody play the lyre while holding a bowl? Do they have three arms?”

Samuel frowned again. “I don’t think that’s the point, Matthew. It’s not only Jews who use a harp in temple worship to accompany hymns. Have you seen the artwork in our neighbors’ homes of Apollo holding a lyre and a bowl in a libation scene?”

“Libation? What does that mean?”

“It’s a ritual pouring of a drink as an offering to a god, like we do in the synagogue.”

Matthew squinted. “John’s vision should remind us of Apollo? You mean even the god Apollo will worship Jesus?”

“Even Apollo,” Samuel affirmed, not yet ready to reveal who on earth played the lyre and thought of himself as the Greek god Apollo, and before whom the kings of the earth bowed and laid down their crowns in obeisance.

Matthew lowered his chin into his hands, thinking aloud. “Twenty-four elders pretending to be kings lay down their crowns before God’s throne. Then along comes Jesus to sit with God on the throne. Now, the elders pretend to be Apollo, hinting that even the gods will worship Jesus.” Quietly, still averting his eyes, he said, “Father, the Sanhedrin judged Jesus correctly. This is blasphemy.”

–Revelation: The Way It Happened, 2010, pp. 21, by Lee Harmon

Book review: Judas of Nazareth

Thursday, May 1, 2014 in Book Reviews | 0 comments

by Daniel T. Unterbrink

★★★★

Yes, Jesus lived, he’s no myth … but he’s not who you think. Daniel Unterbrink is a retired forensic auditor who “turned his analytical prowess” to uncovering the real Jesus.

In this fascinating, controversial study, Daniel equates Jesus with Judas the Galilean (not Judas the betrayer of Jesus), and he equates Paul with Saul the Herodian, both from the writings of Josephus. The Fourth Philosophy that Josephus writes about is what we scholars refer to as the Jesus Movement. The famed Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus’s Antiquities is authentic, but it’s not about Jesus; it was originally about the death of Judas the Galilean. These corrections to our understanding shift parts of the Gospel story back about a decade, and shift other parts forward a couple generations to the time of the war of Jerusalem in 67-73 CE.

Unterbrink leans on the combatant tone of some of Paul’s letters toward the Jerusalem Christians as he builds his theory. He escalates the known friction between Paul and the “Judaizers” (primarily James, the brother of Jesus/Judas), presenting it as deadly antagonism. He notes how the book of James opposes Pauline writings, and suggests that the “enemy of god” in James 4:4 is none other than Paul, who once was a follower of the Jesus Movement (the Fourth Philosophy) but strayed … or was ousted. He sees two distinct churches that share little commonality: the Jewish Jesus movement centered in Jerusalem with James in control, and the Pauline Christ movement among the Gentiles.

So if the Jesus story is founded on Judas the Galilean, where did the gospel story come from? Unterbrink suggests it may have been dreamed up by Paul, who was actually still alive after the war of 70 CE. Paul contributed to (or perhaps himself wrote) the Gospel of Mark, and the other three gospels built upon Paul’s foundation. The evidence? Much of the Jesus story sounds more like Paul than any other historical character. Here’s an interesting twist that comes about when the Bible is read this way: when the crowd calls for the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus, they are calling for the release of Judas Barabbas, and selecting Jesus (Paul) to be crucified. Paul sounds a little whiny about the whole thing in his letters, but he does come out on top … thanks in no small part to the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 CE.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke were likewise written by followers of Paul, who reworked the story of Mark’s Gospel to fit their audience. Unterbrink suggests that Luke wrote his gospel with Matthew in hand, and that the contradictions between Matthew and Luke (such as birth narratives and resurrection appearances) merely reflect Luke’s willingness to change the story willy-nilly as needed for his own agenda. This negates the need for a Q document.

Unterbrink relies heavily on a controversial document known as the Slavonic Josephus, which, when first discovered, was thought to be a translation of Josephus from Aramaic, but which few modern scholars any longer consider genuine. Unterbrink recognizes that the book is a Christianized version of Josephus’s Antiquities, dating to the eleventh or twelfth century. Nevertheless, he does find some fascinating and relevant passages in the SJ to further his research.

My thoughts on the whole matter? I have a few difficulties with Unterbrink’s portrayal of Paul and his beliefs. For example, Unterbrink thinks the virgin birth stories in Matthew and Luke reflect Paul’s methodology, but it seems clear to me that Paul never imagined a supernatural birth. And for all the devious, dastardly deeds of both the Saul/Paul movement and the Jesus movement, we somehow wound up with a pretty compassionate set of scripture. I loved studying all the comparisons, but I’m not sure they are more convincing than the similarities to other historic figures uncovered by other scholars. The focus on Judas and Paul as Jesus’ doppelgangers is entertaining, but it seems to me that if we are going to go looking for parallel figures, parts of the Jesus story could just as easily be founded on Jesus, son of Ananus (another figure from Josephus who prophesied against Jerusalem), or the healer Hanina ben Dosa, or any of several pagan gods. The scriptures are a great mystery.

I believe this is a five-star book which repeats itself for emphasis a bit too much. Too scholarly for an easy read, Unterbrink could probably put more trust in his readers to study carefully, and condense the book by about one third. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the read.

Bear & Company, © 2014, 365 pages

ISBN: 978-1-59143-182-4

Exodus 29:7, Anointing in the Bible

Wednesday, April 30, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him.

//Today’s verse describes how the temple priests were to be anointed. Kings were also anointed. Jesus was anointed. Indeed, the title Christ is the Greek version of the Hebrew Messiah, and both merely mean anointed.

Have you ever noticed how often anointing happens in the Bible? Why is this such a big deal, and who wants oil poured over them?

Answer: It is a gesture of purification, with a practical, sanitary value. It did indeed lift the recipient above his peers to be anointed. Daily village life in these times would have been a bit smelly, before the invention of soap. There was no running water or sewage systems, there were pack animals in the street and animals even in the same house with their owners. Anointing covered the day-to-day smell, masking one’s humanity and lifting him closer to God.

Jeremiah 18:4, Marred in the Potter’s Hands

Tuesday, April 29, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

//Today’s verse is a little parable presented by God as a lesson to Jeremiah. While we often think of the clay as being us as individuals, flawed and in need of remaking by God, this isn’t really what God was saying. God compared the clay vessel to the nation of Israel, not to individuals.

God was saying he would ball up the clay and start over, forming a new Israel. But is a corporate (rather than individual) understanding enough to explain how the vessel could be marred in God’s hands? Isn’t God perfect? How could there be a mar in the shaping of Israel, if God is doing the shaping?

I’m not a potter. But I understand foreign substances can get in the clay, causing imperfections which, when the pot is fired, will cause it to crack. A potter who recognizes this after beginning to throw must remove the foreign substance and start over. But this just doesn’t seem to fit the analogy. Instead, Jeremiah observed a very common routine: the potter begins, doesn’t like the way it is turning out, balls it up, and begins again … perhaps several times on the same vessel.

If Jeremiah is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians as the “starting over point,” then God did indeed ball Israel up and begin anew, after his first attempt was flawed. But this hardly acknowledges an omnipotent God.

Book review: Things That Must Take Place: A Commentary on Revelation Chapters 4-22

Monday, April 28, 2014 in Book Reviews | 0 comments

by Tony Kessinger

★★★★★

This is a verse-by-verse commentary on everything in Revelation outside the letters to the churches. As a writer about Revelation myself, I must begin by pointing out how differently Kessinger and I read the Book of Revelation. Please pardon my upcoming rant–anyone who submits a book about Revelation to The Dubious Disciple can expect some critical analysis, ha–because Kessinger really does provide solid research, and I don’t want to leave the impression that it’s unscholarly. Tony holds a Ph.D. in religion, has “taught more than 1800 pastors and church workers on five continents,” and has published twice before.

Kessinger subscribes to a premillennialist view. He bemoans the way some scholars interpret Revelation too symbolically, and encourages us to “read the words literally unless they cannot be taken as such.” But if I follow his advice, noting the repeated promise that all would be fulfilled immediately, it would destroy Kessinger’s theme of “things that must take place,” replacing it with “things that took place as promised,” or maybe “things that were promised but failed to take place.” See verses 22:7, 22:10, 22:12, 22:20, 1:7, 3:11, and 11:17 plus a host of verses written in a tone of urgency to a first-century audience. A common promise made by Christ in Revelation is “Behold, I come quickly.” Kessinger largely ignores these, except to point out that since a long period of time has already gone by, our interpreters–who all use words like “quickly” or “soon” or “pronto” for the Greek word tachy–should substitute “suddenly,” as this word at least preserves the possibility of a 2,000 year wait. This odd substitution appears to me unwarranted, given the way the word tachy is used everywhere else in scripture. So, it’s hard for me to take the timing of Kessinger’s interpretation seriously.

Kessinger could come clean about the immediacy of Revelation’s message and its first-century setting if he wished; he just doesn’t. For example, he discusses how Antiochus IV serves as a typology of the antichrist to come, showing his appreciation for the historical setting of the book of Daniel, but neglects to do the same with Revelation’s ancient nemesis. The Beast of the Sea, according to the best Revelation scholars both conservative and liberal, is primarily identified as Roman emperor Nero Caesar. 666 = Nero Caesar, NRWN QSR, in the cryptology often used in religious writings of the first century. Much of the book of Revelation is about Nero Caesar. He’s the antichristic figure of the first century, the hated enemy of Christians, and the immediate threat John was warning about back then. This is all well-known today, and since no scholar of Revelation could possibly be unaware of Nero’s role, Kessinger’s refusal to even mention Nero betrays his one-sided interpretation.

In another example, Kessinger notes how Revelation chapter 9 is reminiscent of a volcanic eruption. Well, of course it is! Revelation was probably written just after perhaps the most famous volcanic eruption of all time; an eruption near Rome that buried an entire city (Pompeii) and spread famine for thousands of miles. An eruption so extreme that it happens somewhere on earth only about once every thousand years. How could any first-century Mediterranean apocalyptic book not be influenced by the eruption of Vesuvius?

Of course, Kessinger doesn’t consider Revelation to be apocalyptic. He considers all the other books like Revelation, written in the same time period, to be apocalyptic; just not Revelation. It’s special I guess … “from the mind of God,” Kessinger decides, not the mind of man, I assume because it eventually snuck into the Christian canon. This insistence that Revelation is in a genre of its own creates a problem. Kessinger’s research is deep and illuminating, but his modus operandi contains a weakness, which nearly cost him a five-star rating: He ignores a great deal of extra-canonical Jewish writings which can shed a lot of light on Revelation’s nuances. (I also felt like dropping one star when he asked us to tell our families about their fate of being eaten by birds if they don’t repent, but one isolated bit of hellfire evangelism can be forgiven, ha! This is, after all, the book of Revelation!)

Now on to the good side. Though Kessinger’s approach is blatantly canonical and futuristic, I nevertheless enjoyed it a lot. The insights are fresh and well-presented; not merely a rehash of other publications. The discussion of Antiochus IV as a typology was particularly well-done, and the comparison of the plagues of Egypt (from the book of Exodus) to the tribulations of Revelation is fascinating. As much as I’ve studied Revelation, I’ve never carried the comparison to Egypt’s plagues as far as Kessinger, so it definitely helped my understanding. Kessinger’s in-depth study of the Church as the Bride of Christ was also helpful (though it’s not emphasized as such in Revelation).

Though I hope this isn’t the only book you read about Revelation, I definitely recommend it for a premillennial view! Very good, if a little confusing about the timing of events in places. (Kessinger recognizes Revelation’s confusing order, and presents a chronological order of events in an appendix.)

CrossBooks, © 2013, 295 pages

ISBN: 978-1-4627-3432-0

1 John 17:14, Paul Contradicts Jesus, part III of III

Sunday, April 27, 2014 in Bible Commentary | 1 comment

I have given them Your word;

//In today’s verse, Jesus seems to imply that he reliably passed on to us all we need to know. Yet Paul considerably enhanced the “word,” adding instruction that he obtained in one or more visions of Jesus. Doctrines such as Original Sin, Total Depravity and Unconditional Election stem primarily from Paul’s writings. But would Jesus have thought this way?

For your consideration, here is one last collection of “superficial differences” between Jesus and Paul:

Paul: As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;” –Romans 3:10

Jesus: A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things –Matthew 12:35

Paul: The night is far spent, the day is at hand. (indicating that the day of Jesus’ return was near) –Romans 13:12

Jesus: Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time has drawn near.’ Therefore do not go after them. –Luke 21:8

Paul: It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. –Romans 9:16

Jesus: Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. –Matthew 7:21

… and because I can’t resist it, my own refutation of “original sin”:

Jesus: Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. –Mark 10:14