Revelation was written to seven first-century churches as a spiritual wake-up call because of events that were “about to take place upon the whole world [oikoumenē]” (Rev. 3:10). The use of oikoumenē instead of kosmos indicates that the events that were about to unfold were confined to the Roman Empire. The same word is used in Matthew 24:14, Luke 2:1, and Acts 11:28.

Revelation is not describing a worldwide apocalyptic conflagration. Revelation is a prophetic symbolic description of what Jesus prophesied would happen to the temple, the capital city of Israel, and the old covenant world made of things that were destined to pass away. Jesus is the new everything. He’s the better temple, sacrifice, priest, and guarantor of a new covenant:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption (Heb. 9:11–12).

The book of Revelation is not a warning to what was going to happen to Israel. Jesus had made that clear 35 years before in the Olivet Discourse. Revelation was delivered to seven churches made up of Christians as a wake-up call. They would suffer the same fate as Israel if they followed in the theological moral footsteps of Israel. The indictments that are leveled against the seven churches drip with Old Covenant judgment language — even the threat to come in judgment if they didn’t wake up (Rev. 2:5, 16; 3:3) — pervades the two chapters. They were “about to suffer,” these things were “about to happen” (2:10).

Revelation was not a five-year warning (if it was written around the year 65); it was an ongoing warning. Anybody reading Revelation after the destruction of Jerusalem could have said, “Jesus warned us. He showed us. Everything He said would happen did happen. It could happen to us. Revelation is a lesson for every generation. We can look back and say that what God said would happen, did happen, and we’re not exempt.”

The question is, had some of these churches fallen from the faith in such a short time after their founding? Dr. Simon J. Kistemaker,[1] Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary and co-author of the completed New Testament Commentary series that was commenced by William Hendriksen, argues that there was not enough time for the Asia Minor churches to fall from the faith so quickly if Revelation is describing events around the mid-60s. He writes

Even a cursory reading leaves the impression that the recipients were second-generation Christians. It does not appear that the people in the seven churches had only recently received the gospel. . . . Paul . . . wrote two epistles to Timothy, who was a pastor there in the sixties. Nothing in Acts or Paul’s epistles relates to the conditions prevalent in the church of Ephesus when John wrote the epistle that Jesus dictated.[2]

A few comments are in order. On the day of Pentecost, Luke records “that there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven. . . . Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,” (Acts 2:5, 9). The reference to “Asia” (Acts 6:9; 16:6; 19:10; 20:4; 21:27; 24:18; Rom. 16:5; 2 Tim 1:15; Rev 1:4), the west coast province of Asia, is the area where Revelation’s seven churches were located, including Ephesus.

There’s a good chance that by the time Revelation was dictated to John (around AD 65) that the churches listed in Revelation 2–3 could have been operating for 30 years (Rom. 16:5) started from the testimony of Jews returning to their Asia Minor homeland and telling family and friends about what had been going on in Jerusalem. The message of the gospel could have also come by way of travelers by ship since Ephesus was a coastal city. “Ephesus has been estimated to be in the range of 400,000 to 500,000 inhabitants in the year 100, making it the largest city in Roman Asia and of the day. Ephesus was at its peak during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.”

A Jerusalem-wide persecution took place after the death of Stephen that scattered many believers: “those who had been scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:1, 4). It wouldn’t have taken long for the gospel to reach Asia Minor. Albert Barnes writes:

The Jews at that time were scattered into almost all nations, and in all places had synagogues. [John 7:35; James 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1]. Still they would naturally desire to be present as often as possible at the great feasts of the nation in Jerusalem. Many would seek a residence there for the convenience of being present at the religious solemnities.

According to Dr. Kistemaker, Paul ministered in Ephesus from AD 53–56. At Paul’s departure, he gave this warning to the Ephesian elders: “savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30). “These words, in respect to Ephesus and several of these churches addressed in the Apocalypse, were now fulfilled; the ‘grievous wolves’ had come; these ‘perverse men’ had arisen.”[3] The first of Revelation’s seven churches in Asia is Ephesus (Rev. 2:1–7). Ephesus hadn’t completely apostatized but it was compromised.

There were constant attacks from Judaizers from Ephesus. Paul could not escape them even in Jerusalem:

When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, began to stir up all the crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, “Men of Israel, come to our aid! This is the man [Paul] who preaches to all men everywhere against our people and the Law and this place; and besides he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place. For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was provoked, and the people rushed together, and taking hold of Paul they dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut. While they were seeking to kill him, a report came up to the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion (Acts 20:27–31; 2 Cor. 1:8).

The spiritual condition of the churches in Asia Minor were threatened. Paul wrote the following to Timothy: “You are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes” (2 Tim. 1:15; see 1 Tim. 6:10; 2 Tim. 4:10–11, 16). This description seems to fit what was revealed to John. So whether first-generation or second-generation churches, there was spiritual decline.

Second, it didn’t take long for theological and moral problems to develop in churches. In the Corinthian church, Paul writes, “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst” (1 Cor. 5:1–2). If the church elders wouldn’t do the removing, then God would (cf. Rev. 2:5).

In his second epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes words similar to what John was told to write in Revelation:

Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. “Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord. “AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:14–18; cf. Rev. 2:14, 20).

Paul wrote the following to the Galatians, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (Gal. 1:6–7; cf. Rev. 2:4).

Paul confronted Peter “to his face” over a doctrinal issue “because he stood condemned” (Gal. 2:11).

The writer to the Hebrews says of the recipients of his letter that they “have become dull of hearing,” that by this time in their faith they “ought to be teachers.” Now they “need again for someone to teach [them] the elementary principles of the oracles of God” so that they “have come to need milk and not solid food” (Heb. 5:11b–12).

John mentions “false prophets” that had already “gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1; cf. Rev. 2:2) and even “many antichrists” (1 John 2:18). These antichrists, John writes, “went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (v. 19). He writes similar descriptions in his second epistle. “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist” and “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds” (2 John 7, 10–11). Could these antichrists be the ones that make up Revelation’s “synagogues of Satan” (2:9; 3:9)?

Peter writes, “But false prophets also arose among the people just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves” (2 Peter 2:1). All of these things happened before Revelation was revealed to John. It’s interesting that six of the seven churches did not receive letters from the New Testament writers, at least none that we are aware of. Like Corinth and Galatia, Revelation was their spiritual wake-up call.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that some people (not all: Rev. 3:4) of the seven churches had succumbed to false teaching and even immorality within a short time of their founding as evidenced by so much material found in Acts and the epistles.

Dr. Kistemaker dismisses the pre-AD 70 date for Revelation because, as he writes:

We are never told that John was a pastor in Ephesus before the demise of Jerusalem. The church fathers related that John settled in Ephesus after the Jewish war of A.D. 66–70. But even if he had been in Ephesus before that period, his time of service prior to his exile would have been short. But according to the seven letters to the churches in Asia, John was well acquainted with the spiritual status of each one of them. This hardly seems possible if John was there but briefly.[4]

John wouldn’t have had to be present at any of the seven churches to know their spiritual condition since what he wrote was revealed to him by God (Rev. 1:1–2, 11, 19).

The more I dig through the New Testament, the more convincing evidence I see that it was written prior to Jerusalem’s destruction, not as a warning to Old Covenant Israel (that had been done already) but to New Covenant Israel made of Jewish and Gentile believers so they would not suffer a similar fate (1 Cor. 10:1–11; Heb. 12).

__________________________________________
[1] I learned what I know of NT Greek from Dr. Kistemaker. He would say that I should have learned more. He is right. But I keep learning. I also took a number of NT courses from him. He was a great teacher; I just think on several points he is mistaken.
[2] Simon J. Kistemaker, “Hyper-Preterism and Revelation,” When Shall These Things Be? A Reformed Response to Hyper-Preterism, ed. Keith A. Mathison (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing), 232.
[3] James MacDonald, The Life and Writings of St. John (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1877), 156.
[4] Kistemaker, “Hyper-Preterism and Revelation,” 233.

.
I haven’t read this, but it sounds like an eye-opener for those new to preterism. Perhaps this approach will be helpful in getting Christians used to thinking more contextually about the New Testament:

“Most people don’t realize that many if not most of Jesus’ parables were intended not as general morality tales, but as particular pronouncements of coming judgment and change. Jesus was warning Jerusalem to repent and to accept its new King (Jesus) or else fall under ultimate condemnation of God.

In fact, much of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels pertains primarily to that pre-AD 70 crowd, and without reading it in this light, we misunderstand it. And when we misunderstand it, we misapply it.

The section of Luke covered in this commentary requires this understanding. The parables Jesus tells during His final journey to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51–20:26, and beyond) almost all pertain to the rebellion, faithlessness, judgment, and coming destruction of Jerusalem, and the salvation of a tiny remnant of His elect people.”

From the Foreword:
“Joel McDurmon’s work is original. He goes where few commentators have gone before. As he shows in page after page of tightly argued points, there is a unity to the prophetic message of the gospels and the rest of the New Testament. It’s about new wine in new wine skins. Everything about the old covenant was planned obsolescence. Jesus was always in view, from the first promise of a savior in Genesis 3:15 to the revelation that ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ in Revelation 19:10. So much of modern-day prophecy commentary is an attempt to rebuild what was never meant to be rebuilt. The parables, as Joel makes abundantly clear, serve to show that the breaking down of the dividing wall was on the horizon for them and the world with the result that there would be ‘one new man’ in Christ (Eph. 2:11–22). The destruction of Jerusalem and the dismantling of the temple’s stones were a foregone conclusion because Jesus had always been the reality over the shadow (John 2:19).” – Gary DeMar

Available here.
See also How to Read the New Testament.

Veritas Hall Westlake “Kingdom” from Darren Doane on Vimeo.

Israel’s End-Times Gamble

“If you’re gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right. You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, Know when to walk away and know when to run.”

Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” has sold millions of copies since its 1978 release and spawned five made-for-TV movies. But the song’s appeal is in its no-nonsense philosophy. When there is no way to win, it’s time to walk away from the game. The game is over for Israel. Let me explain. In Tim LaHaye’s pre-tribulational rapture novel The Remnant the Jews are in for a hellacious future. Two-thirds of the Jews living in Israel will be slaughtered. LaHaye is not alone in holding this noxious position.

John Hagee, a popular prophecy writer, states in a World Net Daily column:

Jerusalem today is a detonating device with no fail-safe system. It’s a loaded pistol at an international poker dispute with all players demanding control. It’s a driverless coach careening toward a blind curve—the collision of which will birth World War III.

You see, there’s nothing anyone can do about WW III. According to Hagee, it’s a prophetic inevitability. It’s this fatalistic futuristic perspective that has kept the heads of Jews on the chopping block for 2000 years since there’s still one more holocaust that Jews will have to go through.

Even so, evangelicals are spending millions of dollars to help Jews return to Israel. In so doing, says the Rev. James M. Hutchens, president of Israel/USA, “we believe we are fulfilling a divine calling . . . to assist the Jewish people in their physical return and restoration of the land of Israel.” Like Hagee and LaHaye, Hutchens maintains that “There will be no peace until the Messiah comes.”

The views of these men are alarming to some Jewish leaders, as they should be. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, asks, “To what extent will a theological view that calls for Armageddon in the Middle East lead [evangelicals] to support policies that may move in that direction, rather than toward stability and peaceful coexistence?” The most probable scenario is that prophetic futurists will sit back and do nothing as they see Israel go up in smoke. What can they do? The Bible predicts it. “There will be no peace until the Messiah comes.”

Given this inevitable scenario, what should Jews do? Leave Israel. Under the New Covenant, your land is meaningless. It has no more theological importance than Rhode Island. Under LaHaye, Hagee, and Hutchen’s prophetic model, odds are you’ll be dead if you stay. If not you, then certainly someone in your family will die. But if you leave, the Muslims won’t have a common enemy to unify them. Let them destroy one another. Remember, Iran’s war with Iraq and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait? There is no unity among these Muslim nations with Israel gone.

Then what? Come to America! Maybe we can convince Congress and the President to carve out a parcel of land in one of our National Monuments for you to settle. America is the safest place on earth for you. Once the Muslims kill themselves off, if you still think your barren strip of land is important, then you can go back. So take a lesson from Kenny. If you’re gonna play the game, ya gotta learn to play it right. You got to know when to hold on to the land and when to run. It’s time to run.

____________________________________________
Gary DeMar is president of American Vision and author of End-Times Fiction, published by Thomas Nelson.

In Envy and the Sons of God, I wrote:

…those with the title “the sons of God” in Job were not angels but priestly, mediatorial men (an observation I have heard from Gary DeMar). Satan envied them, accused them, as he always does. They are Adams in the garden, Covenant heads, and he hates them. Job was a priest-king.

DeMar has also just published an article on Job in the last few days that deals with the crazy angel/human hybrid Nephilim theory, and of necessity covers the identity of the sons of God.

Part of the problem in interpreting the Bible is that while it has the marks of ordinary writing, it is much more than literature. Jesus sat down with His disciples after His resurrection and poured over the OT to showed them how all of the books—designated as “Scripture” or “the Scriptures”—applied to Him (Luke 24). We have to assume that the book of Job was included in the survey. In what way is the book of Job a sign post that points to Jesus Christ? I believe it’s found in the use of “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1). Many commentaries have posited that “sons of God” is a reference to angels rather than human beings. In the instance of the phrase’s use in Genesis 6:2, they are said to be fallen angels who cohabitated with humans and created a super race of giants called the Nephilim. While this is a popular interpretation, I believe it’s mistaken. “Sons of God” never refers to fallen angels. The only place where “sons of God” could refer to angels (not fallen angels) is in the highly poetic passage in Job 38:7: “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” But this also may be a reference to earthly rulers (Judges 5:19–20). Elsewhere in the Bible, “sons of God” always refers to humans.

Job is described as “the greatest of all the sons [bene] of the east” (Job 1:3). Most translations have “men of the east.” We read in Job 1:6 that “there was a day when the sons [bene] of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.” Many assume that this is a description of a heavenly court of angelic beings. To present oneself before the Lord is a common biblical phrase designating judgment (ethical evaluation): Do I meet God’s standards? We know this divine evaluation was always on Job’s mind because he offered “burnt offerings” according to the number of his children. “Perhaps,” Job reasoned, “my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts” (Job 1:5). To flee from the presence of God—as Cain (Gen. 4:16) and Jonah did (Jonah 1:3, 6)—is an attempt to avoid God’s evaluation of our deeds. Of course, there is no place where we can flee from God’s presence (Ps. 139:7).

Satan was present when Adam (“the son of God”: Luke 3:38) and Eve broke their fellowship with God and came under God’s negative sanctions. He was there when Jesus, as the Second Adam and “the Son of God” (Matt. 4:6; Luke 4:3), was in the presence of His Father in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1–13; Luke 4:3). Jesus, as the Second Adam, was enduring a time of testing and moral judgment. Satan’s goal was to separate Jesus from the will of His Father. We can assume that he was there when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

What about Satan’s role? He is described in the Bible as “the accuser of our brethren . . . who accuses them before our God day and night” (Rev. 12:10). In the case of Job, Satan interjects himself among the godly rulers—“sons of God”—and accuses Job before God by using God’s own standards. He’s always trying to tweak God’s Word just enough to spoil its meaning. According to Martin Luther, “the Devil is ever God’s ape.” [1]

But that one verse in Job is still a problem. Drew commented:

I’ve heard this explanation of Job, based largely on Hebrews 2 where it says that God didn’t refer to any angel as a “son of God.” But I still haven’t heard a good explanation for Job 38:7.

The verse is found within a “Bible matrix” poem. Verses 1-13 follow the Creation/Feast pattern.

The Lord talks about the foundation of the Land, the mediatorial territory “raised up” out of the sea between heaven and the abyss.

At the centre of this poetic cycle (Day 4) are the stars, and the “sons of God” are the “swarms” of Day 5. These are usually military, but they could still be either angels or men. Revelation puts both kinds of armies at this step, angelic and human, in its uses of this pattern, but it concerns the judgment of the earthly mediators (“men” or “Adams”, ie. the Jewish rulers) by the heavenly ones.

However, these “sons” in Job 38 are definitely in reference to the Land. The stars, the heavenly rulers, sing (praise from heaven) and the earthly rulers give a military shout in response (praise from earth). We do see this pattern in the Revelation as well, not to mention the armies of Israel arranged in 12 tribes under the 12 constellations in the book of Numbers (the “Day 4″ of the first seven books of the Bible). [2]

There were angels who stood before God, the 24 elders. Joshua the High Priest was promised access among them depending upon obedience. But it is men who are truly mediators between heaven and earth, prefiguring the ascension of Christ, dust made clay made precious “Tabernacle” metal.

So I think it is most likely that this verse is a reference to mediatorial men, a holy army. The question is which “Land” is being referred to. The original physical Land; the new Land of Noah; or the Land founded by Abraham’s faith, when the Lord divided the “Sea” of nations into Jew and Gentile? All of these “new earths” follow the same pattern. (We also see it in the baptism of Christ, who became the new Land of Israel in which we must be “buried” to obtain resurrection.)

According to Jordan, Job was most likely an Edomite king, and would thus be familiar with this structure. So, nothing conclusive, but the verse is a part of a “Creation-matrix” speech, and the ubiquitous use of this pattern in the rest of the Scriptures would make human “sons” the much more likely contender.

_____________________________________________
[1] Gary DeMar, Is Job a Type of Christ? Toby Sumpter also has some interesting comments here.
[2] Totus Christus provides a helpful survey of the pattern throughout Scripture.

“Paul knew his kinsmen. This is a group of people on whom this tactic would work.”

Doug Wilson has been preaching through Romans (subscribe to his podcast now!) and recently commented on his blog about Romans 11, and the relationship between Christians and Jews today.[1] I’ll have to listen to his sermon to figure out whether Doug sees this as interpretation (“all Israel” is yet to be saved), or application.

I made some comments and a gent called Lemuel replied, and I made some more. It brings out the significance of the phrase “the sons of God.”

Mike:

There are no longer any Jews – or Gentiles – in God’s economy. That went out with Circumcision. So did the provocation. God made a short work on the Land.

Doesn’t mean there won’t be (or isn’t currently) a time when many Jews will convert. It’s just not what Paul’s talking about in Romans.

I think Jordan’s essay The Future of Israel Re-examined, although controversial, covers Jewish history, identity and eschatology very well. And it makes sense of Romans.

Any application of this to post AD70 “Jews” is exactly that – application.

Lemuel:

To say that Jews (Judaeans) and Gentiles no longer exist in God’s economy because in the church they are united is kind of like saying that men and women don’t exist in God’s economy because of Galatians 3:28. Admittedly, the usage of “Jew” varies. There is the inward Jew, whose heart is circumcised. There is the Gentile who gets fleshly circumcision. And then there is the genetic Israelite, the descendant of Israel – the way in which tribes/ethnic groups are identified, just as Amalekites descend from Amalek, Semites descend from Shem, etc. One of the groups discussed in Romans is ethnic Israel, Paul’s kinsmen according to the flesh, his race. None of this would necessarily rule out a 70 A.D. fulfillment, but I think Christians spend too much time pretending that racial groups don’t exist.

Mike:

Good point, but Galatians 3:28 is not the argument. There were Jews and Gentiles in the church together before AD70. The writer of Hebrews insisted that they keep meeting together (in defiance of those who were falling back into old habits?) as they saw the Day approaching. After that Day, it was no longer an issue.

Although we do need to accommodate for racial groups, the Judaism Paul was dealing with no longer exists. As the apostles kept preaching (and dying), the unconverted Jews (and the apostates) hardened their hearts like Pharaoh. During this period of “plagues”, Judaism became something else entirely — a synagogue of Satan.

In context, Paul is not dealing with “racial” Jews at all, but with their calling as mediators to the nations. This calling was the reason that the judgment for all the innocent blood shed from Abel fell upon that generation. Both the blessings and the curses of their Covenant calling were irrevocable. But that calling ended with the Old Covenant when it finally passed away with the Temple.

In the first part of Romans 11, Paul follows the pattern of Israel’s feasts, ending with the “branches” of Tabernacles. See Seven Thousand Who Have Not Bowed to Baal – 2.The book of Ruth also follows this pattern. The “fullness” of the Gentiles came in in the first century, just as Ruth came into the Covenant and bore Obed on barren Naomi’s lap. [2] So does the account of Noah: “Gentile” beasts substitute for the faithless “branches” who died in the flood. [3] And AD70 was a flood (Dan 9:26; Matt 24:37-38). Notice that the sin of the “sons of God” (those with the priestly calling) in Genesis 6, in Ruth, and in Matthew 24 is ungodly “intermarriage”.

AD70 revealed who were the true “sons of God.” It wasn’t the Circumcision. (Romans 8:14-19; John 1:12; Phil 2:15; 1 John 3:1;-2).

The context of Romans 11 is the imminent judgment of Herodian worship and the end of the Jews. As much as it distressed Paul, God’s wisdom in this process of “jealous inspection” blew him away (Numbers 5; Rev. 14:10). By AD70 it was all over.

One more comment. This would also mean that those with the title “the sons of God” in Job were not angels but priestly, mediatorial men (an obervation I have heard from Gary DeMar). Satan envied them, accused them, as he always does. They are Adams in the garden, Covenant heads, and he hates them. Job was a priest-king.[4]

____________________________________________________________
[1] Preliminary Thoughts on Envy and the Jews.
[2] See Fairy Tale in a Field and Feasts in Matthew 13 for more on this.
[3] This gives greater significance to the dove’s olive branch. Concerning Noah’s animals and their use in Isaiah, see The Wolf and the Lamb.
[4] See Jordan’s Was Job an Edomite King? Part 1 and Part 2.

Read Are You a Schizophrenic Christian? by Gary DeMar

Van Til believed, along with Augustine, Calvin, Kuyper, and Klaas Schilder that the building of a Christian culture is a biblical imperative. Van Til castigated the Barthians for their repudia tion of a Christian culture. “For them,” he wrote, “there is no single form of social, political, economic order that is more in the spirit of the Gospel than another.” Christians today are hearing a similar refrain from within evangelical circles. If there is no specifically biblical blue print, we are left with a pluralistic blue print, no blueprint, or a postponed blue print (dispensationalism)…

Read It Takes More Than A Theory (Part 1) by Gary DeMar, here and (Part 2) here.

Former theist and now self-avowed atheist Dan Barker, who is co-president of the Freedom of Religion Foundation, is promoting a “Beware of Dogma” campaign using billboards that also include the line “Imagine No Religion.” The line is taken from John Lennon’s atheist national anthem Imagine. I wonder if the FRF’s call for everyone to “beware of dogma” includes the dogma of atheism which is funded by my tax dollars in government schools.

The French “enlighteners” worshipped reason… What was the result? The guillotine and blood in the streets. All together now, “Imagine no religion. It’s easy if you try.”

The atheism that spawned Communism was very reasonable and led to the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century. When I made this statement in response to an email I received, I was met with this challenge: “Who are these high priests of atheism exactly? Name them and quote them. Then I want to know how many people were killed in what country during what period exactly and who killed them, within a million or so. I need you to account for all 100 million Gary, or close to it. I have history books in three languages and they don’t mention a word about atheists killing anyone.”

–Gary DeMar