“There is a way that seems right to a man,
but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)
King David committed far worse sins than did King Saul. Saul was not an evil man, yet his judgments caused the deaths of many people, including Jonathan, his other sons and even the priests of God. Why did a reign that began so well end in such tragedy?
In a recent sermon on 1 Samuel 30, Doug Wilson commented on David’s insistence that those who stayed behind to guard the supplies received an equal share of the plunder:
“Saul is in your bloodstream, in the marrow of your bones. He makes up the very flesh and muscle of your heart. He is mixed into your soul. He inhabits the nuclei of your atoms.”
No one who reads this blog has ever suffered at the hands of self-righteous, authoritarian church leaders, I’m sure.
“And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.” Job 19:26
Full preterism leads logically to gnosticism. If death is already defeated, salvation has come to the world, and all is now perfect, then of necessity all three — death, salvation and perfection — have to be redefined. They are only Covenantal, “spiritual.” You can probably understand why doctrines like these don’t originate from the persecuted church. Some hope.
However, that said, I agree with 97.3963798475% of full preterism. Their take on the parousia texts is logical and contextual. Jesus actually did come back soon, as He promised, to rescue the persecuted firstfruits church. The textual ping-pong of the well-meaning partial preterists (who can’t agree between themselves on which parousia texts refer to the end of history) is a confusion of which our God could not possibly be the author. So what’s the answer?
It’s a temptation to water down the Bible to make it palatable for “normal” people (let alone watering it down for ourselves!). Problem is, before we know it, what we are teaching bears little resemblance to the actual Bible. The Bible has odd corners where we think it should be smooth, and it says nothing about many things we moderns deem crucial. So let the hungry eat cake.
Many youth leaders, and even pastors, present the Almighty as being desperate for our company. Although He is not needy, what He desires is more than relationship. He wants “friends,” but His definition of this word is not ours. Even if we don’t go down the track of using the actual phrase “heavenly buddy” in our teaching, we are still further off the biblical mark concerning friendship with God than we might have thought possible.
“And because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given unto me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, in order to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, then, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Thus, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” —2 Cor. 12:7-10
What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh? Theories abound, from a bad temper, to bowlegs, to eye trouble and even epilepsy. Why is it that so many commentators fail to check their concordances for “previous.” These days, with Bible wordsearch software, we have no excuse.
A friend recently gave me a unique gift. With some difficulty and great expense, he sourced the ingredients for the anointing oil of the Aaronic priesthood and I was the grateful recipient of a small, blue vial.
The scent of the oil is intoxicating. You breathe it in and in some strange way you can “taste” it as it goes down. It is extremely complex and yet a single fragrance. Continue reading
Here’s a charming quote discovered and posted by Doug Wilson over a year ago. Being exactly the opposite of the so-called “party” image portrayed on TV and in glossy mags, it kind of stuck with me. It is not sinful like they are, yet it is so “incorrect” that it must be true.
6. Jesus Christ was not judge of the quick and the dead, because (according to preterists) He only judged the dead.
Jesus judged between the living and the dead in AD70. The true bride and the false bride were bodies of living people. Of course, part of the true bride was the Old Covenant saints (those “under the Altar”) who were dead.
The battle between the Son and the serpent rages throughout the Old Testament. Every time the Lord renews the Covenant, Satan is ready with a counterfeit. God uses the phonies to test and purify His people, wipes the failures off the slate, then starts again.
Aaron and Jeroboam set up patently false worship in their golden calves. But false worship in the guise of true was much more difficult to discern, especially when it usurped the exact location of the true. When the Lord took Ezekiel to the Temple as a legal witness, it was a whitewashed tomb. He dug through the wall and discovered that it was a house of hypocrisy, the synagogue of Satan. All that remained of Israel’s witness to the nations was a thin veneer.
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