Biblical Christianity: "Marriage is not really about happiness"

Biblical Christianity: "Marriage is not really about happiness"

This is a really excellent article, and one which I think a lot of people will find encouraging. It's linked from Dan Phillips over at Biblical Christianity, also one of the Pyromaniacs bloggers. As you read it remember that Dan is not merely saying that we should AVOID divorce. The Covanent of marriage should compel you to acts of love.
Love your stuff, Bro. Dan!

Amen

God Exists: A Biblical Truth

God exists. The atheist who denies this is foolish because he denies what is self-evident through the means of creation, and conscience, and ultimately through the Word of God and The Son of God, Jesus. Acts 17:22-32; Romans 1:18-32; Psalm 14:1
God exists ,therefore, nature, which has a beginning, was created by God’s Word, and is sustained by His sovereign power. God’s purposefulness and wisdom, eternal power and other attributes are clearly evident in the created order of the universe. Just as every building has a builder, therefore the building shows it’s designer’s planned detail, and it’s construction workers’ effort and work in all of it’s structure. It’s obvious that the building is not there by random, blind “chance,” and that the materials of it did not assemble themselves so intricately . Genesis 1:1-2:24

God causes the heavenly bodies to orbit along precise paths in space, to turn on their axes, and to be placed just precisely so that Earth experiences Sun and moon phases at precise times. His wisdom made mankind male and female and endowed us with superbly complex bodies that do wonderful things. Our genetic information is held in intricate chemical information systems called DNA. Our cells contain components that are literally engineered systems that work as biological machines with great precision and staggering complexity. Only God knows how to create this marvel of nature! His handiwork is displayed in the billions of stars that move in space, whose light our biological super-computer like eyes and brains detect from millions of light years away, and our God given tongues give praise to and awe in the Creator, who our inner soul just knows , made it all by his power, and for his Glory. God exists.

God’s law is evident to all people. God made mankind with the knowledge of right and wrong. Only God is perfect, and his nature is righteous and pure. He determines what is right, because He is righteous. We all have fallen short of the law of God. And because God is good, He will judge all people on day. Apart from God, there would be no moral law. While many people deny God, they do so by rejecting the plain truth that there is a God, and the conscience accuses them, which they suppress. Since the law of God has been broken by all, all are condemned by God, for how else can evil be judged, and eternal justice be meted out perfectly? Only the one, true Holy God and Judge of all can judge perfectly. So a changing of the heart is needed to see the God who judges all hearts as wicked.
Finally, but most importantly…God has spoken by specially chosen individuals called prophets, and apostles. These men were chosen to hear the Voice of the Creator, and to reveal His specific revelation of his Being, and His works. Their writings, which are God-breathed or inspired divinely, are in the Scriptures. These Scriptures promise salvation from sin and death, through the Mediatorship of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the revealer of God. Jesus Himself revealed his heavenly Father, and spoke from His Father what the truth is. God sent His Son to be the Saviour of those who believe in God. Jesus fulfilled the prophetic words of the Scriptures in his birth, life, death for sins, and glorious resurrection. His rising up from the dead, in his tomb is greatest sign that He is the Son of God, and the true Lord who saves people from their sins, and from death,and the coming Judgment, and to be reconciled to the God who is. John 3:16-20;Hebrews 1:1-13

Amen

Dual Authorship & The Nature of Jesus Christ

Dual Authorship refers to the fact that the divinely given Scriptures are a product of both God & men. God's Word is both eternal & temporal. That is God spoke in the ultimate and final sense through secondary means of prophets & apostles. So, for example, in Matthew 1:22 : "Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet..." Also, when Jesus denounced the Pharisees about their traditions, He said:"Full well, ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother....making the word of God of none effect through your tradition". (Matthew 7:9-13). In both places, the Word of God is said to be what a human author spoke or wrote.

Of course, there is a mystery in just how men could write Scripture, and yet it is the God breathed words of the Lord. In 2 Peter 1:21"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." And when speaking of the prophets who foretold the Gospel, Peter wrote:"...the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of the Christ and the glory that should follow." (1 Peter 1:11-12) Both verses describe that it was a dual authorship that came as the Word of God.

I have been wondering whether we can look to the nature of Christ Himself & His "hypostatic union" to give us a parallel to help us understand dual authorship. Christ is the Word of God who became flesh. He has both the divine nature as the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, who took upon himself human nature, and a body. He became human with no loss of his eternal essence. In fact, Christ had to limit or set aside his "divine prerogatives" and take the form of a servant and human with all human limitations. Yet Christ is the Revealer of the Father, and sinless Son of God.( See Philippians 2:5-11)

Since there is both a divine and human element in the Person of Jesus, and there are both divine and human elements in Scripture, we should not be surprised to see parallels, and perhaps get insight into the inspiration of Scripture. Then again, there are limits here.

For one thing, the "Hypostatic Union", a concept which explains the dual nature/one person of Christ is itself a truth which we apprehend, but do not fully comprehend. It is paradoxical to speak of the two natures being one Person, without confusion of each entity. Just as the threes of the Persons in the Trinity are paradoxical, yet true.

In Dual Authorship, we are trying to understand a process. Whereas in the hypostatic union, we have to deal with essence. We know the Scriptures are divine, but how did they get that way given the human involvement?

Matt Weymeyer gives an exegetical understanding of the problem. This is not exhaustive, but it gives us a good idea of what the words of Scripture mean when speaking of the God/man process of authorship.

"In Matthew 1:22 and 2:15, the preposition hupo is used to express ultimate (or primary) agency, whereas the preposition dia is used to express intermediate (or secondary) agency. The distinction is this: the ultimate agent is the person who is ultimately responsible for the action of the verb, and the intermediate agent is the person who is used by the ultimate agent to carry out that action. In simpler terms, if A is the ultimate agent, B is the intermediate agent, and C is the action of the verb, the idea is that A uses B to perform C.

The implications of this are profound. According to Matthew 1:22 and 2:15, the person who is ultimately responsible for the action of speaking forth the Old Testament prophecies is the Lord Himself, for Matthew refers to the words of prophecy as “what was spoken by [hupo—ultimate agency] the Lord.” In addition, however, these verses also indicate that the Lord used intermediate agents to speak forth these words of prophecy, for Matthew refers to “what was spoken…through [dia—intermediate agency] the prophet.” Put very simply, A (God) used B (the prophets) to perform C (write Scripture)." Matt Weymeyer

http://expositorythoughts.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/dual-authorship-in-matthew-122-and-215/

I would be very much interested in reader comments and input to these ideas. Let me know what you think!

How Did God Work Around Paul's "Free-Will"?

It occurred to me,as I have been reading the Letter of Paul to the Galatians, that God would indeed be doing some interesting things if He had to juggle his sovereign plans with the sovereign will of the Apostle Paul.

Galatians 1:11-17 11For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. 12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 13For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 14And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. 15But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 16was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; 17nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

So God set apart, or consecrated Paul even before he was born. Paul had a divine mission to preach the Gospel even before his DNA existed! His life had already been mapped out. Look at the personal history of the apostle: he had a glowing career in Judaism, as a Pharisee's Pharisee. Yet even while he was studying Rabbinic theology, God planned to make him a gospel witness.

So, did Paul have a choice here? Is that really fair of God anyway? Can God just take people and predetermine their lives like that? What if Paul had tried to excercise his "free-will" in this matter?

Either God waited to see what Paul would do, then determine to make him an apostle.The problem is, the text says that it was IN ORDER that Paul might preach the Gospel to the Gentiles that God set him apart from before his birth. It doesn't suggest that God had this plan before he was born,and hoped that Paul might respond and be what God wanted him to be.

Paul was already appointed to the task. God revealed Christ to him. It was a supernatural revelation. Apart from that intervention on the Damascus Road in Acts 9, he would have continued to persecute the Church. Of course, Saul's conversion is anything but an invitation by decision evangelistic effort! Christ appeared in blazing, holy light and blinded Saul, and immediately Saul called him LORD. From there on we read that the Lord gave him instructions to do what was already planned.

Nothing in all this about a God who "looks down the corridor of time" to see what men might respond. The response is willed in God's will. Paul's life was as intricately designed as the DNA that God gave him. God purposefully created both.

We have a more sure Word

" And we have something more sure, the prophetic word..." 2 Peter 1:19

Peter, the Apostle, had an experience that most of us would envy. He not only knew Jesus personally, but he caught a sublime vision of the kingdom glory of His Messiah, while they were on the Mount of Olives. The Gospels record this event.
But while Peter alludes to the glory, and to the Voice of God which he and the others apostles heard, he does not rest on what his senses knew. He appealed to the foundation stone of the Holy Scriptures. Amazing!
How many of us would put Scripture above experience? After all, if you saw a glorious cloud, and light shining with heavenly brilliance, and heard a thunderous Divine Voice speak to you from the sky, well, what more assurance would you need that Jesus is indeed the Messiah? Yet Peter saw and heard and experienced in great detail, all of that, and yet he says "we have something "more sure(!) the prophetic word".

God put his own Word above His Name. All that God is depends on the veracity of his Word. That is why his Word cannot fail. God cannot fail, so his Word, also cannot fail. What God is, his Word is.
Let us take this with us as we trust God for everything. If God has spoken a promise, He will do it. Let us stake our lives on it. Peter did, Paul did, Moses did, all the saints of old did. Where are they now??? Yes, they are in Paradise with the Son of God.
I suppose it's easy to talk about these things. The real test is if we do them. Lord, I believe...Help my unbelief. Look to God, and he will establish your ways. No matter what you feel, or experience, look to the SURE WORD.
Amen.

Zaphon