Eternal Perspectives

As I mentioned in my previous post on this matter, the purpose of this brief series is to reduce the judgmentalism of some Christian Pharisees – or at the very least to draw them out – and to comfort some who have suffered as a result of divorce. My first post sought to establish the fact of God’s marriage to the unified nation of Israel in preparation for discussing His subsequent divorce from the northern part of the then-divided kingdom.

The evidence of God’s divorce comes directly from the prophets Hosea and Jeremiah. The former declares, (more…)

There are truths in Scripture that are presented almost casually or as an aside that I, for one, sometimes breeze over and fail to grasp. Only through my repeated readings of a passage is God able to get my attention and cause me to notice what I have heretofore missed.

This is what has happened in my reading of Ezek 6. As I mentioned in my last post, what started out to be a quick reading of the least well-known of the major prophets has stalled at chapter 16 and especially at chapter 6. Recalling one of my old soldiers – a Bible that has been set aside for a newer, crisper Bible that I just couldn’t live without – I began reading chapter 6 again and noticed that v. 9 was not only underlined but highlighted:

Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations.”

This verse appears in a passage that describes the lengths to which God will go to make His people understand that He, and He alone, is God. But Yahweh also gives us a truth in this verse that He does not repeat in this chapter: He has been hurt. God has been hurt by the adulterous, idolatrous hearts of His people.

That is simply an unbelievable truth to me.
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Jeff Miller of Trinity Bible Church (Richardson, TX) has graciously allowed me to post his Bible, Theology, and Apologetics Assessment Test. You can download the test for your own use at Biblical Studies Foundation’s site.

It’s not supposed to be an open-book test, so see how you do without help first. The answers are here.

Bible, Theology, and Apologetics Assessment Test

By: Jeff Miller , Th.M.

Old Testament
Multiple Choice

1. The man who wrestled with an angel at Peniel was:

a. Jacob
b. Joshua
c. Noah
d. Samuel

2. The life of Abraham is found in the book of:

a. Judges
b. Exodus
c. Genesis
d. 1 Kings

3. The man whose donkey spoke prophecy was:

a. Jacob
b. Balaam
c. Ephraim
d. Jephthah

4. The following item lists events out of chronological order. Which letter indicates the order in which the events actually occurred:

a. Isaac to be offered as a sacrifice by Abraham
b. Joseph is made a ruler in Egypt
c. Sodom destroyed
d. Jacob wrestles with the angel
e. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good”

a. b,e,a,c,d
b. c,d,e,a,b
c. d,a,c,b,e
d. c,d,a,b,e
e. c,a,d,b,e

5. Which of the following is NOT a book in the Old Testament:

a. Obadiah
b. Hezekiah
c. Zephaniah
d. Ezra

6. “Have you but one blessing my father? Bless me, even me also, O my father.”

a. Cain
b. Jacob
c. Esau
d. Joseph
e. Isaac

Matching

7. ______ One of the twelve tribes of Israel.

8. ______ The fourth king of Israel.

9. ______ The man who did not experience normal death.

10. ______ King of Judah who came into power at the age of eight and about whom the Scriptures say, “He did right in the eyes of the Lord.”

11. ______ One of Eli’s two sons who was punished by death.

12. ______ The first judge of Israel, following the period of Joshua’s leadership.

a. Othniel
b. Phinehas
c. Samuel
d. Josiah
e. Rehoboam
f. Gad
g. Bartholomew
h. Matthias
i. Enoch

True/False

13. T F Ruth was the great grandmother of King David.

14. T F Habakkuk is classified as a minor prophet.

15. T F Manasseh is remembered as one of the good and faithful kings.

16. T F Gomer is the unfaithful wife of the prophet Joel.

17. T F The ten plagues against the Egyptians are recorded in the book of Exodus.

18. T F The first king of Israel was David.

19. T F The man who assumed leadership of Israel after Moses was Joshua.

20. T F The ten commandments are recorded in Exodus.

Arrange the persons or events in chronological order by placing an “a” before the earliest, then a “b,” etc.

21. _____ The giving of the law on Sinai.

22. _____ The building of the temple by Solomon.

23. _____ The call of Abraham.

24. _____ The Babylonian captivity.

25. _____ The Exodus from Egypt.

From which book: Write the Old Testament book from which the quotation comes. A book may be used more than once.

26. __________________ “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked …”

27. __________________ The Ten Commandments (name one of the two books).

28. __________________ “When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged.”

29. __________________ “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

30. __________________ “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.”

31. __________________ “Seventy sevens are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression.”

32. __________________ “There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.”

33. __________________ “One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.”

34. __________________ “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before you.”

35. __________________ David’s sin with Bathsheba.

36. __________________ “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”

37. __________________ “This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.’”

38. __________________ “I charge you, do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”

39. __________________ “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

40. __________________ “For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.”

New Testament
Multiple Choice
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A Pew(ny) Commentary

It was approximately 40 days ago that I began this commentary on the Book of Jonah, the same amount of time that likely has passed since our patriotic prophet first began preaching in the streets of Nineveh. The climax of the events in the book seems to have already been reached: Jonah was called to preach, refused, was called again and obeyed, and the people of the city repented and judgment was spared. Happy ending; end of story.

But it does not end with three chapters, instead spilling over into four and alerting us that there is more to the book than just a chronicling of a prophet’s adventures in ministry. In Chapter Four we are allowed to view the heart of the prophet and, far more significantly, the heart of God.

1 But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry.
2 He prayed to the LORD and said, ‘Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.
3 ‘Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.’”

In order to appreciate Jonah’s attitude, it is necessary to re-read the last verse of Chapter Three:

10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

There is a striking contrast between God’s mercy and compassion in His dealings with the Ninevites and Jonah’s unhappiness and anger. When God sees the repentance of the people, He responds by not destroying them; when Jonah observes that same repentance, he burns in anger.

What Jonah says next sheds light not only on his petulance but on the entire book: his flight from God suddenly makes sense given his unloving attitude. Jonah had a clear and proper understanding of God’s character; his Theology Proper was pristine. The problem was that the prophet did not have a corresponding heart of love and compassion. God is about to cure that in this chapter.

Jonah knew what God was like and what He was likely to do: he describes God as gracious, compassionate, longsuffering, full of lovingkindness, and forgiving. He not only knew God to be this way through his education but also through his experiences, for God had demonstrated these very virtues in His dealings with Jonah in the first three chapters of the book!

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A Pew(ny) Commentary

It was my contention, in a previous post of this series, that Jonah’s prayer to God fell short of biblical repentance. Whether or not you agree with my position has little bearing on the messages of Chapter Three of this remarkable look into the life of a patriotic, petulant prophet sent to preach a message of judgment to a wicked city in an evil country.

Before reading this present chapter, it is important to understand the difference between a missionary and a prophet. Missionaries, both in biblical times and today, were sent to deliver a message of good news and salvation to people in various places. They brought with them hope and the prospect of life.

Not so with the prophets. These mouthpieces for God, usually sent to God’s own people in Israel, Judah, or both, were sent to deliver a message that was unwelcomed by its recipients. Prophetic messages typically announced God’s displeasure and pending judgment on the people and the land. To have a prophet suddenly show up in your city or town was a bad tiding, indeed.

Chapter Three

How much time has transpired since Jonah was – literally – thrown up on some shore of the Mediterranean is not known. There is no reason to conclude that the prophet immediately went northeast to Nineveh; in fact, it is likely that he instead went to Jerusalem to pay the vow he had made upon his deliverance from the storm via the great fish (Jonah 2:9).

1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying,
2 ‘Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you.’
3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three days’ walk.
4 Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’”

Jonah is sometimes pointed to as evidence of a “second chance” that God in His grace grants to rebellious children. That may be: it is true that Yahweh does forgive and offer additional opportunties to do the right thing, but it would be presumptuous for any true believer to sin now with the intention of obeying later. God is under no obligation to extend a second chance and frequently chooses someone else if we balk or refuse. Just because Jonah got a second chance does not give us any assurance that we will have a similar chance. To play now and pay later is a risky course of action to pursue.

As alluded to previously, Jonah may have been in Jerusalem when Yahweh commissioned him again and commanded him to go to Nineveh to announce His judgment. I, for one, would like to think that God waited for the prophet to return to the temple and fulfill the promise made while covered in the slime of gastric juices from the belly of a fish. (more…)

A Pew(ny) Commentary

In the first installment of this study, I looked at the first chaper of the Book of Jonah and provided some of the historical and cultural background necessary to properly understand this remarkable member of the collection we call the Minor Prophets. Before beginning this second post, I will summarize the first and include a few additional observations.

Before God called Jonah to a ministry in Nineveh, Assyria, the prophet had enjoyed success and (undoubtedly) some fame as a prophet in the land of Israel. It was Jonah who announced that, under the leadership of Jeroboam II, the nation would expand and once again enjoy great prosperity (2 Kings 14:23-27). This, of course, came to pass as the Assyrians weakened in power and withdrew their military influence from the region.

Told to preach a message of judgment to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, Jonah ran – and sailed – in the opposite direction. He boarded a ship to Tarshish only to be tossed overboard and to become chum for a large, man-swallowing fish. Chapter One ends with our anti-hero swimming in the digestive juices of this fishy agent of God.

As will be revealed more fully in Chapter Four, Jonah ran because of his love for his country and his hatred of its enemies. We see in Jonah’s disobedience the same root we find in our own: it is not because we do not understand what God wants from and for us that we run away, but because we understand quite clearly what He desires. Like Jonah, we knowingly and willfully disobey God.

Living in a democracy, as many of us do, lures us into having the same sort of inflated, grandiose view of ourselves and our beliefs as Jonah seemed to have entertained. God, however, does not ask for either our opinion or our agreement: He tells us what He desires, gives us the grace and power to do it, and then promises to reward us if we obey. But I – and you – sometimes choose not to do so.

Paul discusses this struggle in his first letter to the church in Corinth. Reflecting on his own ministry, he says, “For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me” (1 Cor 9:17). Either way, Paul is saying, our obedience to God is reflected in what we do and not merely in what we say or how we feel. Grudging obedience is better than honest disobedience.

Chapter Two

This chapter is a record of Jonah’s prayer and psalm to God from inside the fish that God prepared and sent to save him from certain drowning. Many commentators find a cry of repentance in these words, believing that the prophet has learned his lesson and is now willing to follow God no matter where the path might lead.

I, for one, have never understood Jonah’s petition in this manner.
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A Pew(ny) Commentary

Preface:

The Minor Prophets, so named because of their brevity rather than their importance, are timely reading for Christians today. These dozen men spoke powerful messages to their nations and leaders during times not too dissimilar from our own: materially prosperous, the countries of Israel in the north and Judah in the south were floundering spiritually.

It is profitable, therefore, to understand (1) what the message was to the people at the time and (2) to glean what these prophets may be saying to us thousands of years later. Their messages are generally disturbing; we, being comfortable, are in desperate need of disturbance.

The Book of Jonah is somewhat unique among these records. First, Jonah’s ministry in this book is to a foreign nation and not to either Israel or Judah. Second, instead of the focus being on the message God entrusted to him, this book examines the behavior and attitudes of the prophet himself. It is a valuable lesson, therefore, for Christians living in a time of national pride and patriotism.

Chapter One

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying,
2 “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.”
3 But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

To understand Jonah’s behavior it is necessary to understand the times in which he lived. According to 1 Kings 14.23-27, Jonah was a prophet in Israel during the time of Jeroboam II. Though a wicked king, Jeroboam II was successful in expanding the territory and restoring prosperity to the nation to an extent not seen since the days of Solomon. This was a good time to be an Israelite.

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Almost two weeks ago, I posted “Where’d That Come From?” in which I wondered about the immune system in Adam and how – and when – it came to be. Looking at the perfect creation in which Adam and Eve lived, I didn’t see any need for an immune system.

I meant to follow up on the post but forgot. Fortunately, Martin LaBar at Sun and Shield did not forget: he posted a response to my question. I owe him thanks for several things: first, he corrected me (I called it our “autoimmune system;” he pointed out that it was actually our “immune system”); then, a couple of days ago, he posted “The Fall and the immune system,” which contains a lot of information and has triggered some thoughts; finally, he indirectly reminded me that I needed to follow up my original post.

In his post, LaBar mentions a couple of things that I’ll comment on here. The first is the possibility that there was death prior to the Fall; the second is the gap theory which sees (usually) a vast span of time between Gen 1.1 and 1.2.

I, too, believe there was death before Adam’s Fall, but not the same way that LaBar proposes. He sees it as a necessary adjunct to life in a pre-Fall world. My hypothesis is different:

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I have a question; here’s the background.

According to most conservative theologians, Adam (later including the add-on, Eve) was created in the Garden of Eden. He was a perfect creation of God, albeit not-yet proven, possessing latent or underdeveloped righteousness. As long as he obeyed God, he continued to grow in righteousness. He was born without sin: no imputed, inherited, or personal sin. Nice set up.

He was placed by God in a perfect environment: no sin, no death, no decay. Nothing bad. It was a paradise: a genuine, real paradise. No danger to Adam’s health or well-being as long as he obeyed God. Sin had not yet entered the cosmos.

But, of course, Adam did not obey. And the consequences are well-known to everyone with even a modicum of theological knowledge: death, disease, decay, social problems, psychological problems, pain. A lot of things we pray about now.

Here’s my question, in case you haven’t guessed it:

Where did Adam’s autoimmune system come from?

Did God “install” it when He created Adam since He foreknew that sin would occur (like spiritual airbags for the inevitable wreck)? Or was it something He tossed in later, as some kind of heavenly factory recall? Did the “covering” God provided after the Fall include the first autoimmune system? Is that what the original audience would have heard from Moses?

(”And Yahweh gaveth the man and the woman a covering,” sayeth Moses to the people around the campfire. Jed nudgeth Izzy and whispereth, “Hey, I bet that’s where our autoimmune systems came from!”)

How do we reconcile or resolve this? How do you resolve it?

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has been going back and forth for awhile with (it seems) Christians and non-Christians who regard intelligent design as an untenable explanation for the physical universe.

This debate is part of a larger, on-going fracas between people who do not believe in a Creator – which is not the same as unbelief: you can be a Christian and not adhere to every doctrinal position – and those who do believe in a Creator – which is not synonymous with Christianity: other faiths believe in a Creator, too, e.g., Judaism. This debate, in turn, falls into the more generalized category of the tension that exists for many between their faith and the seemingly incontrovertible facts of science.

Such discussions, when characterized by light rather than mere heat, serve a variety of purposes. First, the interactions are educational and provide ballast for those of us who are seeking more information and viewpoints about a particular issue. Second, they tend to be heuristic and/or dialectic: one thought gives rise to another, and various thoughts often merge to create a different and sometimes better idea. Third, engaging people with opposing or disparate views can result in “iron sharpening iron,” something many of us duller folks could use a bit more of – or, should I say, “something of which many of us duller folks could use a bit more”?

As usual, however, I want to take this to a different level. (Valuable tip to new bloggers: when you lack sufficient information, sophistication, or intelligence to participate in these kinds of dialogues, shift the focus. This makes you (a) look as though you’re really wise, and (b) look like you’ve already considered all these points being made, have dismissed them, and have moved on to the really important issue that normal people can’t perceive but you can.)

Two observations: one about the difficulty of believing the Bible; one about the difficulty of believing the Bible. (Another free tip: whenever possible, speak in paradoxes or contradictions. People will think you’re really smart, a misperception or deception that is invaluable for those of us who aren’t actually smart.)

The difficulty in believing the Bible is itself twofold. There is, it seems, within non-Christians as well as Christians what naturalist Thomas Nagel, in his book The Last Word (pp. 130-131), has termed a “cosmic authority problem:”

“In speaking of the fear of religion, . . . , I am talking about . . . the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself. . . . I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that . . . My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind” (emphasis mine).

This is a philosophically insightful exposition of Ps 14.1a: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Sin has conditioned us to resist God: we may find other gods or faiths appealing, but apart from the grace of God no one genuinely seeks for the true God. There are no “seekers” (Rom 3.10-12), only people being drawn (“seekees”?).

Even for Christians – not to mention non-Christians – submitting to the ultimate authority of God is not easy. We suffer from this “cosmic authority problem” that causes us to balk at absolute truth that has been revealed to us and need only be believed. It is an affront to our esteem to have our reasoning powers and creativity take a back seat to anyone, even if the Anyone happens to be omniscient.

When it comes to cosmogony, the author of Hebrews tells us how, how, and how. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb 11.3). How did the universe come into being? it was created by God; how did He do it? by His word; how do we know this? by faith.

Ultimately, it seems to me, the issue of whether or not there is intelligent design is a matter of faith, both for the non-Christian and the Christian. The former, not having faith, is left to his or her own devices to makes sense of the universe; the latter, not having enough faith, is also left to his or her own speculations and conclusions. Who can fault the non-Christian for doing the best they are capable of doing given their limited perspective?

This does not make these non-ID Christians bad or disobedient. It just means that, at least in this one particular area, it is hard for them to exercise faith. Should they quit investigating? Of course not, but at some point they will have to address the faith component of the issue. In an earlier post, I mentioned that it is hard for me to get my mind around a physical kingdom of God on earth: my faith is weak at this point. Who can say they have no doubts are areas of weak faith?

The problem is usually not lack of information; if anything, we tend to have too much information. Reading the objections and perceptions of others may change our minds, but more often than not it only results in a further polarization and hardening of the attitudes.

The resolution of the tension between science and Christianity, I think, comes down to faith, as does the resolution of our “cosmic authority problem.” Fortunately, knowing God or knowing Him better is the solution to both.

Old Testament

1. a
2. c
3. b
4. e
5. b
6. c

7. f
8. e
9. i
10. d
11. b
12. a

13. T
14. T
15. F
16. F
17. T
18. F
19. T
20. T

21. c
22. d
23. a
24. e
25. b

26. Psalms
27. Exodus or Deuteronomy
28. Esther
29. Ecclesiastes
30. Judges
31. Daniel
32. Exodus
33. Job
34. Malachi
35. 2 Samuel
36. Proverbs
37. Jeremiah
38. Song of Songs
39. Jonah
40. Genesis

New Testament

41. a
42. d
43. d
44. c
45. d
46. b
47. e
48. a
49. a
50. b
51. d
52. d

53. T
54. F
55. F
56. T
57. T
58. T
59. T
60. F

61. h
62. b
63. g
64. f
65. a
66. c
67. e
68. d

69. Romans
70. John
71. Acts
72. Galatians
73. John
74. Luke
75. 2 Timothy
76. 1 John
77. Revelation
78. 1 Peter
79. Romans
80. 1 Corinthians

Theology/Apologetics

81. a
82. a
83. b
84. c
85. b
86. d
87. b
88. d
89. c
90. c
91. a
92. d
93. b
94. a
95. a

96. F
97. F
98. T
99. F
100. T