Bully’s Blog

or Ethnic Cleansing as Mercy

“In representative terms, the people of God are no longer the Land but the heavenly Sea. The Church herself is the oncoming storm.”

In The Days of Vengeance [PDF], David Chilton did a great job of introducing many of us to the fact of Jesus’ use of “cosmic language” in Matthew 24 to describe the end of the Old Covenant. Not only is the idea of an actual, physical star falling to earth impossible (can you imagine the sun “falling to earth”?) but Jesus is quoting from a prophecy against Babylon. His audience would have realized this as a scathing attack against the Herods and their “government controlled” Temple worship. So, the language is clearly poetic, but why would the prophets—and Jesus and His apostles—deliberately cause so much confusion by using cosmic language to describe non-cosmic events? The answer is found in the mercy of God.

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Doing my first Bible Matrix presentation this Sunday morning (with Powerpoint) at a church in Sydney. Also have a question time at the church dinner on Saturday night. Please pray for me as I prepare. I can handle public high school kids okay, but this is a different kettle altogether!

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“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free;
and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” 1 Cor. 12:13

On the BH forum, Michael Jones observed:

“If you look up the words for “drinking into” lexically (Strong’s), you come up with the idea of plants being irrigated and soaking up water through the roots. Is this somewhat valid? Are we like a bunch of trees around an oasis in the desert?” [1]

I believe that very often, the word choices of the biblical writers are hints to the literary structure — especially when their word choices are a little unexpected or ambiguous. This one isn’t unexpected, but perhaps that’s because we are so familiar with this passage. It really is an odd turn of phrase. Could the Bible Matrix shed any light on it?

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or Riffing on Moses

The Lord’s name might not be mentioned explicitly in the book of Esther (though some scholars see it hidden in the text), but as literature it is riddled with riffs on the patterns found in the Law and the Prophets. We don’t see it because we don’t interpret “musically,” that is, looking for recurring themes. [1]

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or Paedobaptism vs. Postmillennialism

The word regeneration is often used to describe conversion, but in Scripture it is understood as a process. God calls, cleanses, instructs, clothes, feeds and commissions us. I believe this fact is, however, abused by paedobaptists, who seem to me to be prone to throw the actual “watershed” of conversion out with their baby bath water.

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Here’s a new amazon review of The Covenant Key by “the man with the cigar,” David Deutsch.

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The Literary Structure of Luke 2

God loves architecture. He starts with a Garden, moves to stone, then to flesh. Should it surprise us that the Nativity and the events surrounding it follow the same patterns as the Tabernacle and the Creation week?

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Here’s the next planned Bible Matrix book…

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or What’s the Problem with Matthew 27:51-53?

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Along with many other academics — and many hymnwriters — J. R. Daniel Kirk believes the advent ended the Babylonian exile. He writes: “The exile was insufficient to pay for the people’s sins. So not only did the exile endure, so did the sins which were its cause.” Is really this the case? Israel never again worshiped the Canaanite gods. However, he still has a lot to say that is good:

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