I believe that Jesus is the Christ, Israel’s promised Messiah, in the line of King David (Matt. 1:1-17; 16:13-20; Rom. 1:1-4). At His baptism, Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the King of Israel and declared by the Father to be the Son of God (1 Sam. 16:1-13; Matt. 3:13-17; Luke 3:21-22; [...]
Archive for the 'Kingdom' Category
Jesus as the Christ
November 17, 2007The kingdom and oaths
June 17, 2007I’ve been slowly working my way through the Sermon on the Mount. Once again in this section we see Jesus going straight to the heart of the issue.
”Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ [...]
The kingdom and divorce
June 10, 2007I grew up in a pretty conservative Baptist church that taught that divorce is never an option. They held that divorce in all circumstances is a sin. This view might seem harsh to some people. However, the Bible does teach God intends for marriage to last ’til death due us part. The Bible also teaches that divorce is never what God really [...]
The Kingdom and lust
June 6, 2007This might be one of the most challenging passages in the Sermon on the Mount. Lust can be such a devastating force in the life of a Christian man. Our culture is just obsessed with sex. And Jesus in his wisdom dealt with the issue when presenting his kingdom agenda.
27“You have heard that it was [...]
Better Righteousness Again?
June 4, 2007I’ve been doing some more thinking about what Jesus meant in the Sermon on the Mount when He said that your righteousness needs to be better than the Pharisees if you’re going to get into the kingdom. This is a hard statement for some folks.
Probably the main reason why this bothers some folks is because they [...]
A Better Righteousness
May 25, 2007In the previous section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his disciples that they were to fulfill Israel’s vocation of being “salt and light” to the world. What’s more is that kingdom people ae expected to do a better job of that than the Pharisees and the teachers of the law did with that. [...]
The rest of the story
May 24, 2007Imagine if you only knew about the first two books in The Lord of the Rings trilogy–The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. The story would be pretty incomplete, right? There would be no ending, no climax to the story. You wouldn’t know if Frodo destroyed the ring or if Aragon became king. The Return of [...]
Beatitudes
May 23, 2007The Beatitudes flip the world upside down (or right side up, depending on your perspective). The Beatitudes announce that God is giving out blessings to the most unlikely sort of people. The world thinks that the most happy folks on earth are the strong, the rich, the famous, and the attractive. But it doesn’t take very [...]
Sermon on the Mount
May 22, 2007I started to read George Ladd’s The Gospel of the Kingdom this week. So far it’s been a pretty interesting read. One of the main questions that he seeks to answer is, “What is the kingdom of God?” (BTW I think that it’s pretty obvious that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven are the same [...]
Scot McKnight and preterism
May 22, 2007Recently I found this article by McKnight on Matthew 24-25, a difficult passage indeed. McKnight is a preterist on this text. Interesting article. Check it out. He tells a pretty funny story about Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill.
