Posted in Daily Living • Gentiles • Hypocrisy • Music

Question

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“Why do we never get an answer, when we’re knocking at the door
With a thousand million questions, about hate and death and war?”

The Moody Blues rock band. I like a lot of their music because it is not superficial like the stupid music mostly puked out today. The lyrics above are from a song titled Question from about 1970. Most of the band’s music is thoughtful and sincere. In this case though, I laugh every time I hear the words. Not the rolling on the floor kind of laughing, but more of a sad laughter.

You don’t get answers to your questions because the answer is already there, you are arrogantly demanding answers, and you aren’t connected with God in the first place. The answer is screaming at you in the face, and you just skip over it and keep looking for something more along the lines of self-seeking. You arrogantly demand something from God, and He doesn’t have to give you anything. He doesn’t answer because you are not connected with Him in any sort of righteous relationship. You are a wicked, unrighteous person, and God doesn’t answer the prayers of unbelievers unless He sees fit.

The songwriter Justin Hayward was upset about the Vietnam war. He combined two half-done songs to get this whole one. The result is a nifty tune, but at the same time rather stupid. It’s usually frustrating to me to listen to stuff like this because the answer is so obvious. In a God-rejecting world hate and death and war are as inevitable as the sunrise. Separate yourself from the Source of Life and all you get is death. Duh.

Justin gets close to answering his own question in the chorus and final lines.

“Why do we never get an answer, when we’re knocking at the door? Because the truth is hard to swallow, that’s what the war of love is for.”

“The truth is hard to swallow.” Oh yeah. The truth is God’s Word, and He tells us that we are lost without Him, wandering in a desert of hate and death and war. We have to turn to Him and follow all of His Words, including the Word of life, Jesus the Christ. We cannot return to Him on our own, but many want to trade what flimsy righteousness they have for eternal life. But it’s just not enough. A sufficient sacrifice must be made, blood must be spilled, which was done when we executed Jesus on a board. Then we must live all of His Words with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Yeah, that’s pretty hard to swallow for most.

“When we stop and look around us, there is nothing that we need.
In a world of persecution that is burning in its greed.”

“There is nothing that we need.” That’s what most people think. They are self-satisfied being their own gods, and don’t want the bother of turning to the God of love. They don’t want to accept the blood of the only begotten Son that God offers as the only ticket out of war and death and hate.

So keep asking questions, worldly musical idiots.

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Authority • Bible • Continuity & Discontinuity • Cults • Daily Living • Relevance • Translational Bias

Literally Wood

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Tired old argument #24: The Bible is not to be taken literally.

I’m sure you’ve heard someone say that the Bible is not literal or not to be taken literally. If you disagree, as I do, that the Bible should indeed be taken or interpreted literally, this person will then drag out a few verses to prove his point. Usually the verses have something to do with what they think is a ridiculous comparison such as God as a rock or Jesus as a lamb. Obviously, they intone, God is not basaltic, sedimentary or igneous. Jesus is not actually a small fuzzy critter either. And so they dismiss the literal interpretation.

But did they ever look up the term literal in the dictionary? If they had, they might not be so dismissive. The online Merriam-Webster defines literal thusly:

1 a : according with the letter of the scriptures

  • adheres to a literal reading of the passage
b : adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression : actual

  • liberty in the literal sense is impossible
  • —B. N. Cardozo
c : free from exaggeration or embellishment

  • the literal truth
d : characterized by a concern mainly with facts

  • a very literal man

Literal is “concerned mainly with facts” or is “free from exaggeration or embellishment.” So dismissing a literal interpretation of the Bible is dismissing facts.

Dr. Walter C. Kaiser Jr. and others define literal as “the author’s intent.” God literally means what He says and says what He means.

God deals in facts. He communicates the fact that humans are lost in sin and must have a payment for sin. The fact is, He provided payment Himself in the form of the death of His only begotten Son on a chunk of wood. It is a fact that if we do not repent and accept this payment, we will not have enough to pay for sin ourselves and so will end up in a literal lake of fire. Does it matter if it’s a real lake or not? Either way it will be immersion in something painful and agonizing for a long, long time.

The Scriptures are literally God’s Word, as testimony if not His actual speech. Literally, God is a rock because He doesn’t change. Basaltic or igneous, it doesn’t matter. Did the rock come first, or did God make rocks so we would have a picture of His unchangeable nature?

What some people mean by literal is “wooden,” which is a literal term meaning they are inflexible when it comes to interpreting God’s Word. People are wooden when they attack the Word of God which allows them to relegate the parts they don’t like to the outer darkness. They start with a wooden interpretation of God as a rock or Jesus as a lamb so they can move on to getting rid of what to them are all the distasteful parts of God’s Word such as obedience, faith, Law, and salvation. It’s a slippery slope using faulty logic and ignoring facts that require a response.

Literal doesn’t mean wooden. It means that the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression from God is the truth and demands we adhere to that truth. God literally means we have to conform to His Word, all of it, in every respect. If we don’t, we will literally end up separated from Him forever.

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Book publishing • Church • Clean & Unclean • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Faith • Fear • Feast and Festivals • Feast of Tabernacles • Feast of Trumpets • God • Gospel • Grace • Holy Spirit • Humility • Hypocrisy • Identity • Israel • Law • Love • Marriage • Messianic Movement • New Covenant • New Testament • Old Testament • Paul Teachings • Whole Bible Christianity book

New Audiobook!

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We’ve now produced an audiobook for Whole Bible Christianity. It is available on Audible, Amazon and iTunes. I narrated it myself and it sounds very good. I did the narration because I don’t think anyone else could’ve really given the project the right tone except the guy who wrote it. It’s about 16 hours long but I don’t know what the pricing will be. Just check with Amazon under Whole Bible Christianity when you want a complete reference for Whole Bible Christianity to listen to in your car or while you are trying to go to sleep!

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Law • Love • New Testament • Old Covenant • Old Testament

Law, Restated

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Just put a new article up on the website titled Law, Restated. It’s about the imaginary restriction some people put on the Law that it is not restated in the New Testament. Therefore it is not something we “have” to do. I beg to differ. In the article we look at the many ways the Law is stated and restated in different forms throughout the Old Testament. Then we’re ready to look in the New and see if the Law is there. The conclusion is that yes, the Law is restated in the New Testament.

So now what?

Posted in Authority • Church • Comfort • Daily Living • Demons • Faith • Fruit • Hypocrisy • Salvation

Of Pigs and Men

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Jesus meets a demon possessed man near a herd of pigs in the country of the Gadarenes or Gerasenes as recorded for us in Matthew 8, Mark 5, and Luke 8. He commands the demons, who call themselves Legion, to leave the man, and Legion’s last request is that Jesus allow them to go into the nearby pigs. Granting Legion’s request, they leave the man and enter the herd of about 2,000 which immediately rushes downhill and drowns itself in the Sea of Galilee.

Whenever I read these accounts, one of the first things that puzzles me is that the people ask Jesus to leave the area. Why, I wonder, would they send away such a powerful miracle worker, one who had returned one of their brothers to them? Why would they not rejoice that a local travel hazard was removed? What if the demons left that man and infected others?

Some teachers say that the expense of the pigs was a factor. Jesus had just cost someone (or maybe several someone’s) a lot of money. Others say that these people weren’t supposed to be growing pigs for market because pork was not to be eaten according to the Mosaic Law. I get that these were possibilities, and perhaps they can stay in the mix for explaining the incident. But they just are not that satisfactory to me. Wouldn’t the loss of the pigs be worth removing a hazard like a man who could break chains and attack people? I’d think so. Were the citizens Jews, who would care about the Law, or were they gentiles, who wouldn’t? The ESV study Bible says that they were Gentiles, but there must’ve been some Jews around too. And Jews aren’t exactly known for always sticking with all of the Law anyway.

I was able to make a great deal of progress understanding this situation as I read further in Mark and got to the rich young man of Mark 10, and the question on the authority of Jesus in Mark 11. Now how, you may ask, did I connect the people of Gennesaret unwilling to allow Jesus to stay in the area with a rich man unwilling to give up his riches and the unwillingness of the chief priests to answer Jesus about whether the baptism of John was from heaven or from man? I’m glad you asked that. (You might be guessing at the same conclusion as I because of the way I phrased the question.)

The chief priests could not answer a simple question, because they refused to acknowledge that the authority of Jesus was from God. If they did it would mean that their authority was from man, and they would have had to give up their cushy positions. The rich man knew that Jesus was a “good teacher,” but not so much that he was willing to suffer economic harm to follow Him. The Gennesaret people knew Jesus was at the very least a holy man of God, but were not willing to suffer further economic harm in order for Him to have stayed in the area.

In other words, none of these people wanted to go all the way. They saw the miracles done by Jesus, acknowledged His power and authority, recognized that He was from God, but didn’t take the next step of risking everything to follow Him.

In modern times we find the same sorts of attitudes. We hear people saying “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” all the time, in song and prayer and sermons. We see regular attendance at a church service, with many an “Amen” during the preaching. There are bumper stickers and hats and T-shirts proclaiming that the wearers “know Jesus.” Mega-churches abound, pastors have carved out positions with nice paychecks claiming to speak for God, and television stars rake in the bucks while hawking their latest books and trinkets.

Very few will see the Kingdom of God because the ticket into the Kingdom costs a lot more than simply raising a hand and “going forward.” Faith is putting your money where your mouth is, like the rich young man refused to do. It is the willingness to give up possibly everything you have to follow Him, like the people of Gennesaret could have done. It is submitting your will to His, and giving everything to welcome Him into your heart unlike the chief priests, Pharisees, and other religious leaders then and now.

Jesus obviously had authority from God because He did what God told Him to do and taught what God wanted Him to teach. Everything Jesus did or said was right from the written Word, and could easily be checked if one wanted to do so. But we don’t want. We fear to give up our position, our money, our reputations or our lives because the short term suffering is not worth the long term gain.

Like Frank Sinatra or Cain, we want to do it our way. We want to retain parts of the world system and try to merge them into the Kingdom. We say “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,” not realizing that we are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. We want to patch the garment with unshrunk cloth because we don’t want the work of making it right. We try to fit new wine and old wineskins together when they are just not compatible.

We refuse to accept a message from the Christ because it will cause us too much trouble and might wreck the nice little corner of the world we have made for ourselves. It might cause us some discomfort. It might make us change. It might make us realize that even with the talisman of the name of Jesus we are still far short of what God requires of us.

Shalom

Bruce

Posted in Authority • Balance • Blessing • Book publishing • Church • Comfort • Cults • Daily Living • Judaism • Judgment • Law • Love • Manna Reading Schedule • Messianic Movement • New Covenant • New Testament • Old Covenant • Old Testament • Paul Teachings • Promise The • Reading • Reward • Theology • Whole Bible Christianity • Whole Bible Christianity book • Worship

Whole Bible Christianity, The Book

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Our book Whole Bible Christianity has finally been published! It is on Amazon at this link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0997501413/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1DQVER67Q2HMX&coliid=I1RPTLB6JQO1FI

There is a Look Inside feature, you can flip between the front and back cover, and it is only $19.50. If you would prefer, we will have the entire text on a web page when we update our website so you can read it online.

The book has about 800 direct quotes from the Word, around 1,500 entries in the Scripture Index, and is about 340 pages. One of the many uses of the book is as a handbook for whole Bible Christians everywhere who need a reference to help counter attacks against a whole Bible lifestyle. Chapter 7 deals with a bunch of the objections to following God’s living oracles, and chapter 8 has a list of blessings from doing what Jesus says.

Let us know what you think, and make sure to post a review on Amazon if you would be so kind.

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Daily Living • Hypocrisy • Judgment • Natural Man • Relevance

Crucifying Another Christian

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Well, they’ve got another Christian up on the cross.

The Duggar family is the latest to donate a sacrificial lamb for the slaughter, and the morally bankrupt media are gleefully driving in the hypocritical nails. The corrupt and flaming leftist Lena Dunham writes a book detailing the sexual abuse of a younger sister and the Pontius Pilates of this age just yawn.

But a man who has proven himself to be an exemplary adult, who paid for his sins while still a minor, and whose record should’ve been sealed, has those same neo-Roman officials washing their hands.

You and I both know what is really going on. The people who don’t shrink back from following God are being torn down, just like that guy who walked here 2,000 years ago. This world cannot stand anything or anyone associated with God, especially those high profile people who make People magazine. The goody two-shoes are despised and always will be. Even reformed, repentant goody two-shoes are targets, not because what they have done is so wrong or so different from the normal behavior of the godless but because the depth of godless hate runs so deep. Those oh-so-tolerant Canaanites simply will not tolerate someone who reminds them they are on a path to hell.

If the Duggars are smart they’ll be preparing lawsuits as I write. Hopefully they won’t chicken out and hide behind a few frequently misinterpreted Scriptures about loving everyone and letting God be the judge. There is more at stake here than just hurt feelings or resignation from a job. The fight is not physical, it’s spiritual. Christians are being wrongly maligned left and right (mostly left) and there are solid biblical reasons for using our God given judgment to push the darkness back even if only a little. Our weapons might be spiritual, but there’s nothing wrong with smacking the lions on the nose with a sword every once in a while. Or the Pilates.

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Balance • Daily Living • Division • Love • Paul Teachings • Righteousness • Tradition • Whole Bible Christianity

A Whole Bible Look At: Romans 13 through 16

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New up on our Youtube channel is the fourth video for Romans covering chapters 13 through 16. The truth seeker will enjoy the comments on the famous Romans 14 chapter helping to clarify the plain meaning stated by Paul that he is talking about opinions, not God’s Word. Taken all together it is clear that Paul has a high regard for the Law and many suggestions for application. He “upholds the law” (Romans 3:31) rather than trying to change Scripture. For Paul the “law is spiritual” (Romans 7:14) and he “agrees that the law is good;” (Romans 7:16 and others) and he “delights in the law of God, in [his] inner being” (Romans 7:22) although he finds that the “law of sin” is waging war with the “law of his mind” (God’s law) (Romans 7:23) making living it out very difficult. Freedom (Romans 8) from the impossible struggle of trying to earn our own righteousness comes from the sacrifice of the Christ, who has paid the penalty for our disobedience and given us a way back to intimacy with our Father and Messiah.

Instead of rejecting the law as many in the church suggest, he wants us to present our bodies a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) by renewing our mind, testing to discern the will of God (Romans 12:2) and holding fast to what is good (Romans 12:9) which includes God’s law (which he said before). Paul reminds us that the first word of the law is love (love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength) and love fills up the Law (Romans 13:10). This is all included in his admonition to “put on Christ and make no provision for the flesh.” By the time we get to Romans 14 it is obvious that the subject is a continuation of principles laid down in the previous 13 chapters.

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Balance • Bible • Continuity & Discontinuity • Daily Living • Gentiles • God • Law • Natural Man • Paul Teachings • Relevance • Salvation • Tradition • Whole Bible Christianity

A Whole Bible Look At Romans 9 through 12

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The third video in our Romans series is up, and I’ll bet you’ve never heard Romans this way!

Shalom
Bruce

Posted in Atheism • Hypocrisy • Relevance

Atheism: The Seinfeld of Religions

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New video just got uploaded to our youtube channel which is already raising the ire of atheists (shown by their clicking of the dislike button and the comments they make). I couldn’t be happier. Like I told one of them who made a disparaging comment that my dad used to say, “Throw a rock into a pack of dogs and the one that barks the loudest is the one that got hit the hardest.”

Boy are atheists going to bark now.

Shalom