Posted in Authority • Bible • Comfort • Faith

Declaration of Interdependence

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I thought it would be appropriate today to list some of the facts behind our ultimate Declaration of Independence, or more properly Interdependence. All other government comes from God, God gives them permission to rule, and they are supposed to rule according to His Word. Sad for us that they mostly don’t. The U. S. was founded and has endured on many of His rules, but now we are in danger of passing into history because we have departed from them.

His book gathers His principles together and is like no other, ever.

    Written over 1,600 years by 40 different authors in three languages (not to mention the many languages spoken by the authors) representing three continents yet having amazing unity and continuity.

    Each testament is built around a historic section, a didactic section, and a prophetic section (past, present, and future or history, teaching, and proclamation).

    The Bible tells a single story of God’s people who still exist as a nation when all others have been relegated to the dust bin of history.

    All prophecy in the Bible though separated by time and distance forms an unbroken agreement on the future.

    The Word is unified like no other around the promise of God to provide a solution to the problem of sin and death and a return to a whole and right relationship with God the father in the person of our Messiah Jesus the Christ.

    The Bible has power greater than the sum of it’s parts to change lives, impart hope, soften hearts, and transform the world.

    It is unchanging, steady, and true. Many people have tried to destroy it and instead have been destroyed themselves. It is the best selling book ever produced in 6,000 years, and the only one which has had thousands of people willing to die to defend it and actually dying because of following and preaching it. Pascal famously said, “I prefer to believe those writers who get their throats cut for what they write.”

    No other religion or religious writing, from Atheism to Zoroastrianism, comes close to the wisdom, love, and peace of God’s living oracles. Every other religion imagined contains elements of God’s Word and testifies to some of His works but fail to answer questions of why we are here and where we are going. His writings give rest and direction to humble hearts willing to give up the false idea of their own godhood to acknowledge, worship and obey His.

Truly His Declaration will continue and lead us to real freedom in a kingdom without end ruled by a righteous, just and loving King of Kings Yeshua haMashiach. It is a rod of iron and a sword of steel to those who rebel, but life and health and all things good to those who humbly receive it into a heart of flesh filled with His Spirit.

Posted in Authority • Bible • Church • Daily Living • Faith • Fear • Hypocrisy

Take A Stand

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When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus. (John 12:9–11, ESV)

 

So not only were the religious leaders of the Jews plotting to kill Jesus, they also wanted to remove the evidence that Jesus was really who He said He was. There might be just a teeny bit of a reason for killing Jesus in the fact that He claimed to be equal with God and maybe some blindness on the part of the leaders is expected. And Jesus asks the Father from the cross to forgive them because they “know not what they do.”

 

However, this is not the case with plotting to include Lazarus in the festivities. The only thing Lazarus did wrong was coming out of the grave when Jesus told him to. Nothing in the Law could be used to persecute him; they just decided to do it anyway. Probably because they thought of themselves as doing a favor for God. This shows how the Law was typically used and abused by people without love. The hearts of the leaders were filled with hate and jealousy, so the use of the Law was false. They used it in a false way to condemn Jesus, and just ditched it when it didn’t suit their purposes. Either way, the Law was not in their hearts. We get a pretty complete picture of this in these three references close together in John 12.

 

So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” (John 12:19, ESV)

 

If love for God’s Word was in their hearts, they would’ve rejoiced that the world was going after Him. Instead, they were upset that no one wanted to listen to them. They were tweezed that they were losing “their place” (John 11:48). This explains why John the Baptist, though a priest, worked outside of the system in the desert.

 

Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. (John 12:42–43, ESV)

 

The leaders used the fear of being put out of the synagogue (life revolved around it more then) to keep people in line with their perverted version of God’s Word. Some of the leaders had a chance at something different. At this point they chickened out, but hopefully later they realized the error of their ways. Sooner or later we have to take a stand. We can’t let the bullies who threaten us with cutting off fellowship in whatever form keep us from saying and doing what is right. People with hate in their hearts, who twist the Word for their own purposes, even if they are in leadership positions in the church, have to be opposed. Take your stand on the Word at all times no matter what the risk.

 

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. (John 16:1–4, ESV)

Posted in Bible • Church • Fruit • Relevance

Relating to People in the Bible

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There are different Bible people I identify with at different times. But probably the one I most identify with is John the Baptist. He was “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” and called out for repentance saying “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Matthew 3; Mark 1; Isaiah 40). There is no record of him healing anyone, or raising the dead, making blind people see or casting out demons. All he did was preach the Word and baptize. Out in the desert. With funky garments and a slim diet of grasshoppers and wild honey (imagine arguing with killer bees for THAT). I could stand to go on a diet, but grasshoppers and wild honey?

I might not be eating the same stuff or wearing the same clothes, but I definitely feel I’m out in the desert preaching repentance to rocks. But the message needs to go out. And Jesus is coming, and I think coming soon. The church I think is by and large succumbing to philosophies of men so somebody has to do it.

So which biblical figure do you relate to, and why?

Posted in Bible • Daily Living • Humility • Reading • Whole Bible Christianity book

The Word is a Mirror

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Some try to peddle the falsehood that because there is some “bad stuff” in the Bible that it is God who is promoting or responsible for it. Bad stuff is different for different people. Some don’t like God’s judging of homosexuals. Some think that because bad people did bad things like rape or murder it must be God’s fault because He didn’t stop it. But every person who makes this kind of judgment gets it wrong. They blame God when they should be blaming people for not following what God, the source of life and love, commands.

If a person thinks God is hard, or mean, or unjust, or approves evil, it’s because those things are in their own hearts. The Bible merely reflects what is inside. Since God doesn’t sit or roll over or jump through hoops or bark on command like a circus dog for them, they pass judgment on His methods and motives as if they were in His place. Secretly they buy into Satan’s vision of “be like God,” and judging Him is one way of trying to get there.

People have one of two reactions when they read His Word – humility or pride. The prideful heart looks in the mirror, rejects the reflection of his own heart, judges God and says, “I will not accept what you are saying about me.” The humble heart sees his evil reflected and says, “Father, have mercy on me a sinner. Forgive me for the sake of your Son’s sacrifice.”

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isaiah 66:2, ESV)

Posted in Authority • Bible • Church • Daily Living • Feast and Festivals • Hypocrisy • Whole Bible Christianity

Who is Whole Bible?

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Since we started using the name whole Bible Christian in the early 2000’s, we’ve gradually seen somewhat of an increase in other groups who use the name too. Some use it for sermon titles, while others claim the designation for their church. A church in the UK uses a website address of wholelifewholebible. There’s a church in California (led by a former friend no less) that uses a tag line of “The whole Bible, a whole Christian, the whole World.”

Of course, whole Bible is not a new concept. A.W. Tozer for instance gives us a famous quote that “nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.” Lots of people and groups have thought of themselves as believing in the whole Bible through out history.

Pharisees are an obvious example of a group practicing “whole Bible” belief. Except while they “believed” the whole Bible they still crucified the Messiah. Lots of people want to use the name “Christian” too but having the name tag is as far as it goes.

Using the term is not enough. Just like using the name “Christian” is not enough to make it into the kingdom (nor is claiming “Jewish” ancestry). To be “whole Bible” is to do everything God speaks. It is to abide in every word from Him. Whole Bible belief includes whole Bible behavior. It means looking for reasons to do what He says as we discover it rather than making up excuses, or holding to a belief in men’s doctrines according to the elemental spirits of the world (Colossians 2). It includes repentance when we falter, and renewed commitment to eat His body and drink His blood (take in His Words and do them) on a daily basis.

It makes sense that people would want to claim this term for themselves. If one person says they are “whole Bible Christian” then that implies that there are people who are not. No one wants to be pinned down to a “part Bible” belief, though it might be prominent in their lives.

Like the UK church or the one in California, a woman told me she was whole Bible but “not like you.” She meant that she “believes” the whole Bible but that she didn’t observe God’s holy days or modify her diet according to God’s living oracles as I do, among other things. How she manages to say this with a straight face I’ll never know. She, like many, sits in judgment on the Word using the fruit from the tree of knowledge to pick and choose what she’s willing to accept from Him. Unfortunately, this is how she looks at the whole Bible, too. Her attitude of picking and choosing is also apparent in her practice of mercy, justice and compassion. She wants to sit at the table, but is fastidious in her choice of bread and wine. She wants to be at the banquet, but doesn’t want to wear the clothes (Matthew 22:1-14). Lots of people are like this. There’s another ancient name we can use for them too, besides Pharisee.

Hypocrite.

Posted in Authority • Bible • Church • Salvation • Whole Bible Christianity

Non-Essential Doctrine

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I’d like to know: What the heck is a non-essential doctrine? I keep hearing this from all different kinds of people about all different kinds of biblical teaching. We especially hear this when telling others about the wonderful blessings of including His Law in the believer’s daily walk. It seems that to the non-essential people “salvation” is the only essential doctrine. Salvation, of course, is defined by raised hands and going forward in a church or tent meeting, and then giving money while attending their church. That’s it. That’s their “essential” doctrine. Essential for keeping the money flowing, I guess. Essential for making notches in their Bibles or on the crucifix at the front of the church. Essential for building the pastor’s job into a multimillion dollar empire with a vacation house in the Bahamas and a nice Mercedes to go back and forth to church.

I’ve looked and looked in the Word, and I can find no “non-essential” doctrine. God doesn’t have one. I can find “weightier” and “lighter” commands, but the Bible says they are all important. Essential even. Every single word from His mouth as near as I can tell is “essential.” What possesses people to sit in judgment on God’s Word and label much of it non-essential?

Now, there are many doctrines of men I could count as non-essential, including the doctrine of non-essential doctrine. So much of what men teach sandbags God’s Word and directs us away from it. It’s time people ask, “What is essential about the drivel you are teaching and preaching from your high and mighty God’s-Word-denying pulpit?”

Posted in Bible • Bible Verse • Church • Faith • Holy Spirit • Riddles

What Will You Say?

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But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the churches and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. (Luke 21:12–19, ESV)

One word in the above verses has been changed. Can you guess which one it is? And does it make a difference in how you think? Why or why not?

Posted in Bible • Continuity & Discontinuity • Hermeneutics

Continuity Central to Whole Bible Belief

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A big issue addressed in the book Whole Bible Christianity is that of continuity. There are those who teach that the Bible is a series of starts and stops in the plan of God. They see Israel and the church separated, the Law stopped and grace started, and so on. Their version of God appears to routinely change His plans because of man’s lack of cooperation. This is called discontinuity.

We see continuity in God’s plan. He doesn’t have a series of starts and stops in His work because He can’t figure out what man is going to do next. He’s always been on top of things, has one plan (He calls it a Promise) one Body, and one faith. That faith is delivered to us in plain language, repeated over and over, hasn’t failed yet, and will not fail. The Body has been around since the beginning and we are privileged to have many outstanding members such as Ruth, Rahab, Noah, David, Daniel, Isaiah, Huldah, Paul, Andrew, Matthew, and all the others named and unnamed. The Promise is Jesus the Messiah, who made possible a reunion (a union broken in the Garden by disobedience) with God by His death and resurrection. The message is clear: abide in His Word and live. Reject it and die.

The only discontinuity is in a break with God. We see discontinuity because it is in our heart. Continuity resumes when we restore our union with Him by His grace through faithful abiding in every word out of His mouth.

Posted in Bible • Diet • Dogma • Judgment

Shadows and a Soft Heart

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Following the whole of the Word of God is not about rules and regulations. It’s about a soft heart. A real believer cannot sit in judgment on the Word, calling some parts of it “shadows” and some parts “small things” not worth doing, and still claim to be following the big things. I’m sure Adam and Eve had a similar attitude when they decided that the dietary command concerning the tree of knowledge was a shadow, a small thing, and not worth doing.