Tag Archives: Bible

Jesus’ Command to Christians: No Divorce


Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to separate from her husband. (But if indeed she is separated, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to the husband) And a husband is not to divorce his wife.” 1 Corinthians 7:10,11

In First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul confronts sins of the Christians, the saints, at Corinth.

He begins, “I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…”

The first sin he confronts is the division caused by a ‘spiritual’ party spirit. “I am of Paul”…”I am of Apollos”…”I am of Cephas”…”I am of Christ.”

The next sin confronted: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you…”

He notes that the Corinthians have become “puffed up” (4:6). That is addressed again in Chapter 13. (Link)

When he comes to marriage, the Apostle Paul clearly distinguishes between his mature advice for the unmarried, and the clear command of Christ Jesus to the married.

“Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to separate from her husband and a husband is not to divorce his wife.”

That is the whole of the Lord’s command, no more, no less. That is the word of the Lord Jesus.

The Corinthians did not know this teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, here, reveals it to them. Today, everyone with a Bible knows this command.

Chapter Seven begins, “Now concerning the things you wrote to me…”

Paul is addressing the situation in Corinth, and thus, in the middle of the quote of our Lord’s explicit command he gives his own command regarding a Corinthian wife who had already left her husband—Greek aorist, i.e. past tense. The New International Greek Testament Commentary notes that “unless the middle clause is placed in parenthesis, the sense becomes confusing, and even risks misleading.”

Many of today’s Christians use that situation to detract from and condone or even to counsel disobedience to our Lord Jesus Christ’s clear command to the church and to the married.

Eric Metaxas interviewed Michael Youssef who confronts the evil gender ideology of our present day while speaking the truth in love. And Metaxas makes an astute observation on the state of our church in America, today:

“Actually, where this all started in the church, I would say, is with divorce….When the church allowed that, or looked the other way, you began to see the creep…the idea that people start saying, ‘you know what, it’s sort of true, you only go around once…let’s not worry too much about right and wrong’…how can you blame somebody with same sex attraction, saying, ‘hey, I don’t want to be celibate…I want to enjoy life’ because the heterosexuals have done precisely that, and that is the failure of the church…”

Metaxas goes on to note his shock at news of friends divorcing, and asks, “Where did you get the idea that this was permissible? What church do you go to? What kind of pastor do you have…?”

Michael Youssef responds to this present day scenario in the church as “exactly the secular thinking.”

JESUS:

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.–Jesus

Matthew 10

21Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved….

32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

An outrageous example of the bane (the poison) of Memory-Verse-Theology derives from the saying of Jesus, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Ripped from its context, it gives to us Christians the warrant to march off to war and shed blood, a la these self-made, pseudo-theologians who put themselves forward as ‘teachers’ in the Church. [And these same wooden, illiterate literalists do the same with “Buy a sword…” Link ]

The parallel of this saying of Jesus in Luke 14:

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Both these passages address “The Conditions of Discipleship,” or in the title of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s famous classic, “The Cost of Discipleship.”

Here in Luke (as in Matthew) we see the “hyperbolic form, which is an authentic part of Jesus’ teaching…Nowhere is the diverse character of the Kingdom’s advent seen more clearly than in the severance of family loyalties” a la I. Howard Marshall in the New International Greek Testament Commentary. Such is a noted feature in Jesus’ parables. For examples see “Shock and Awe.” (Link) Hyperbole serves to grab the attention of Jesus’ listeners.

As to this hyperbolic saying in Luke (and in Matthew) about family, surely, any true Christian knows we are to love all people, even our enemies. (Link)

The Rapture’s Self-Contradiction


“God did not appoint us to wrath”–1 Thessalonians 5:9a.

“These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” –Rev. 7

Left Behind enthusiasts, when told that First Thessalonians does not teach their Left Behind scenario (but rather the parousia, the Second Advent) quickly respond with that half of a verse taken from its whole context, which they left behind. “God did not appoint us to wrath”

(Be a disciple of Jesus and read that Verse in CONTEXT, here- LINK)

Social media are replete with Christians crying for that day, while rejecting any thought that they might have to face the great tribulation. “God did not appoint us to wrath.”

Yet, many Left Behinders point to their preparations for those who will be left behind. Years ago, a lady in our church stated that she had videos on her desk for family that would explain why they were left behind when she was gone. R. C. Sproul recounted a tour given by Kathryn Kuhlman of her office. She had a large closet safe with her radio program recordings so that the Gospel would still be preached should the Rapture come in her lifetime. (Apparently, she did not expect all of her staff nor all the Christian radio personnel to be raptured.)

Kevin Sorbo in his movie, The Rise of the Antichrist (2023), is left behind and convinced of the Gospel by a video left behind by the pastor of his ‘raptured’ wife. (Details and review of that movie, here—LINK)

Typically, a Jack Graham Powerpoint sermon, The Blessed Hope, turns Titus’ expectation of the Second Coming into The Rapture. “When the salt and light is (sic) gone, that is, true believers, then decay and darkness sets in….Hell will be unleashed on earth….then, terrible retribution…you don’t want to be left behind for the great tribulation.”

BUT what about those videos and books and letters left behind for families and friends by these Left Behinders? You mean none of them will be saved? What about Kevin Sorbo? Oh, you say, ‘yes, some will be saved during the great tribulation.’

The end result of the Left Behinder’s escape hatch exit to miss the great tribulation is that there will be no salt nor light nor shepherds for those new Christians like the Kevin Sorbos who will be saved after the ‘Rapture’ but who are condemned to suffer God’s wrath a la the Left Behind scenario.

End Result a la Left Behinders: 1) Christians will not suffer God’s wrath (a la the purpose of “Beam me up!” theology)……………………………… 2) New Christians saved during the Great Tribulation will suffer God’s wrath.

From Corrie Ten Boom:

Kevin Sorbo Movie, Rise of the Antichrist


“Beam me up, SCOTTY!”

That stands as an iconic line from a TV movie series that we all know.

“Before those empty clothes hit the ground”

That from a narrator, gives us a cringe line that stands out in one of the Left Behind movies, Rise of the Antichrist (2023) directed by and starring Kevin Sorbo.

At 30,000 feet, Captain Ray (Sorbo) turns to the co-pilot, only to see his crumpled uniform lying on the right seat. And half the passengers have disappeared.

Later in the movie, Ray’s daughter goes to the cemetery with a shovel and digs up her grandmother’s coffin. Looking for confirmation of her growing belief in the Rapture, she opens the coffin to find only a nice dress and a cross necklace.

A narrator opens the movie with these lines:

“With God, all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26…now, for the first time, I know it’s true. You see, , six months ago, something impossible happened down there. In one instant of time, millions of people just disappeared without a trace. POOF. Gone…

Sorbo’s movie gives us clean entertainment with a clear intent to evangelize non-believers. The movie ends with Captain Ray (Sorbo), his daughter, and a pastor barely escaping the antichrist thugs who are trying to kill them. As Sorbo circles his single engine plane over the city, they ‘bomb’ the streets with Christian tracts explaining the “Rapture.”

The movie tells us that “there were plenty of warnings [about the Rapture]…but there were plenty of closed minds, and we all know that a closed mind is not an easy thing to open…those people just vanish into thin air…most people still had no interest in the fact that all of it was written down thousands of years ago in that dusty old book…”

In a video left behind by his wife’s pastor, Captain Ray Steel (Kevin Sorbo) hears the message that “false teachers” did not believe. And Ray had also failed to believe. His wife, “Irene had told him what would happen, and it did.”

The movie focuses on the extra-biblical teaching of the “Rapture,” NOT on Christ’s death on the cross and the Resurrection and His Second Coming. The movie message “trust the Bible” leads to this question by Chloe, Ray’s daughter (whose mom and brother had disappeared): “What about all those people who claim the Rapture is not in the Bible?”

The movie gives us an immediate answer: “First Thessalonians Four.”


But as any honest New Testament scholar will tell us, 1st Thessalonians 4 gives its readers assurance about the parousia, the Second Coming of Christ. Verse 13 gives us the key context, the concern of some in Thessalonica that fellow Christians who had already died might be at some disadvantage when Christ returned. Verse 15 references the Parousia, the Second Coming.

As Prof. N. T. Wright wrote, “the rapture is an American obsession.” And the Left Behinders seem oblivious to the hard fact that the overwhelming majority of their fellow members of the Body of Christ, believe only the New Testament’s teaching about the Second Coming, not the extra-biblical Rapture teaching. That Rapture belief is confined mostly to a segment of American Evangelicals, and those to whom they sent missionaries with their Schofield Bibles [like those in the Corrie Ten Boom Quote Below] . But standard Evangelical reference works and commentaries do not teach that. See such noted New Testament scholars as F. F. Bruce, I. Howard Marshall, Leon Morris, etc.

The ‘Rapture’ business is a billion dollar industry which had sold over 60 million copies, by 2016, of just the Left Behind fiction series of books. And every popular Rapture teacher has his own books for sale. Think Hal Lindsey, back in the big beginning of this business. And then we see the list of many movies, including this one with Kevin Sorbo, and another with Nicholas Cage. The advertising budget is BIG. (Take that you New Testament scholars!).

The thrilling plot of “Rise of the Anitchrist” pushes the world towards “the great re-set,” a one world government, and a single electronic currency with all the trimmings. Terrified people and families watch murders and suicides all around them as they grapple with the disappearance of friends or loved ones in this world where the salt and light all went “poof” and vanished.

In the film we are told that the Rapture is “Jesus taking his church [true believers] to heaven to protect them.” [Never mind believers come lately like Kevin Sorbo and his daughter.]

This is a key point of the Left Behind teaching, [ “God did not appoint us to wrath”–1 Thessalonians 5:9a, ripped from CONTEXT] and its greatest irony. God will not leave those true, seasoned Christians here to go through the Great Tribulation, but He will leave these NEW Christians who are converted after the Rapture, during the tribulation, to do so, all by themselves!

Corrie Ten Boom noted: “There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the Christians will be able to escape all this….

“In China, the Christians were told, ‘Don’t worry, before the tribulation comes you will be translated — raptured.’ Then came a terrible persecution. Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China say, sadly,

‘We have failed. We should have made the people strong for persecution rather than telling them Jesus would come first. Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution, how to stand when the tribulation comes — to stand and not faint.’”

Paul, the Parousia & his Epistles

READ the Exposition of the texts in the LINKS above. Put behind you the cardinal sins of sloth and hubris. BE a true disciple, a learner.(LINK) “diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
–-2 Timothy 2:15

Paul, the Parousia & his Epistles

Pastor Robert Jeffress, one of a few good Bible teachers who promote “the Rapture” on Christian radio, made a clear, insightful point of exegesis: Jesus did not speak of the “Rapture.” But rather, of the Second Coming.

[But Pastor Jeffress does think that Paul did– For Jeffress, the “Rapture” being a distinct, separate event from the Second Coming/Advent]

In Matthew 24, Jesus teaches about “the coming [parousia] of the Son of Man” v. 27, that “all the nations…will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

“…He will send his angels with a loud trumpet call and they will gather his elect…”

[His elect that were already gathered at a previous ‘Rapture’ ?!]

In 1 Thessalonians, Paul greets his converts with the praise that they “turned to God from idols to server the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven…” (1:10)

These Thessalonians are his hope and joy, to be fulfilled “in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming [parousia].” (2:19)…with the trumpet of God (4:15).”

Paul was clearly drawing on Jesus’ teaching.

F. F. Bruce: “What is called the ‘day of Christ’ in Phil. 2:16 is referred to here as Christ’s Advent [parousia]. This is the earliest occurrence in literature of παρουσία [parousia] in its distinctive Christian sense of the advent of Christ in glory.”

“This Christian sense of παρουσία occurs six times in the Thessalonian letters…” and in 1 Cor. 15:23.

“It occurs four times in… (Matthew’s) discourse (Mat. 24:3, 27, 37, 39).”

“That the Thessalonians had been taught to expect this great event is plain from [1 Thess.] 1:10.” ***

The KEY CONTEXT, of 1 Thessalonians 4:

v.13f But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming [parousia] of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Chapter 5:  Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night *….whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another…

* “…the night the thief was coming…”–Jesus, Matthew 24

Exposition of 1 Thess. 4, Here (LINK)

Give it an honest reading.

***F. F. Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Word Biblical Commentary, 1982. {Rapturists are oblivious to the fact that Evangelical New Testament scholars and reference works do NOT espouse the Rapture. Not in this noted commentary, nor in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, nor The New International Commentary on the New Testament, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, etc.}

Like those Christians who believe in Purgatory, nothing this side of Heaven is apt to convince Left Behinders to truly take the Bible in context on this subject. What we can do is help keep others from being misled as we share God’s word in context.

Parousia. In the NT, parousia, with reference to Christ, refers to Christ’s Second Advent, his Second Coming, “…the coming of Christ at the end-time for the general resurrection, last judgment and the creation of the new heaven and earth.”--The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, s.v. “present” (II:899ff).

N. T. Wright: “Rapture is an American Obsession.” It is not found in the New Testament

There are real consequences to mistaken beliefs. Corrie Ten Boom pointed out one very sad example (the result of American missionaries with their Scofield Bibles):

The Protestant’s Purgatory

Left Behind. “The videos sit on my desk with a note to my family so that when I am taken they will know what happened and have another chance to be saved.” (Unless they were on that airplane which crashed into the ocean when the Christian pilot was taken.)

“As soon as the coin in the coffers ring, the soul from purgatory springs.”

Tetzel’s jingle has been replaced by the cash register’s ring, to the tune of best selling Left Behind books and movies. With “sales total over 80 million copies, according to publisher Tyndale House” (2016). Yet, a host of those readers have never read Thessalonians. Most do not read a whole letter, but just out-of-context, cherry-picked verses.

“Left Behind: The Rise of the Antichrist” movie, which shows a world where Christians have already been taken, gives the church a prime teaching moment to point Christians BACK TO THE BIBLE.

A significant sect of fellow evangelicals will invest hours and days reading the books and watching the movies. It is clean entertainment. But they will never sit for an hour, diligently study, and read the Bible in context. The context is clear. The letters to the Thessalonians teach us that Christ returns for his own AFTER the Antichrist rises.

Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled…that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition…

…THEN the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.

…Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught,…—Second Thessalonians 2

That “coming” (parousia) and “gathering” are one event as the single article (the) makes plain. “Indeed, they are the two parts of one great event.”–Leon Morris, New International Commentary on the New Testament.

“The noun episynagoge in 2 Thess. 2:1refers to the ‘gathering together’ of believers to Christ at the Parousia.”–Dictionary of New Testament Theology

John Calvin on Second Thessalonians 1:1,2–

The meaning therefore is, “As you set a high value on the coming of Christ, when he will gather us to himself,…

…I earnestly beseech you by his coming not to be too credulous, should any one affirm, on whatever pretext, that his day is at hand.”

Second Thessalonians 2:1 is a “reference to the event described in 1 Thess. 4:17.”–F. F. Bruce, Word Biblical Commentary.

First Thessalonians teaches us about that coming (parousia) and gathering. Read it, here (link). (This is where the Left-Behinders bring more confusion.) Do it. Be a disciple. Do not settle for the bane of memes and memory verses (link). Read God’s word in context.

The Left-Behinders want us to accept their special, extra-biblical knowledge which divides this event and gives us two separate, non-biblical comings.

Contrary to brother Brainard, We have had the blessing of the First Advent. We await the Second. (link) Maranatha

“No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20)

Read. Return to God’s word. (Link)

J. I. Packer: Taking God Seriously

j.i. PackerThe Church is in Trouble, Who Cares 2 min Video

 

Teaching Children the Ten Commandments

***

The Ten Commandments “became an integral part of our culture by appearing in verse form in one of McGuffey’s famous Readers.”

–D. Elton Trueblood

***

Above all else love God alone;

Bow down to neither wood nor stone.

God’s name refuse to take in vain;

The Sabbath rest with care maintain.

Respect your parents all your days;

Hold sacred human life always.

Be loyal to your chosen mate;

Steal nothing neither small nor great.

Report, with truth, your neighbor’s deed;

And rid your mind of selfish greed.

This is an easy way for children to begin to learn them. As they grow, read them the text itself, Exodus 20

.“Exhort your household to learn them word for word, that they should obey God…For if you teach and urge your families things will go forward.”–Martin Luther

[ Barna Research Group– 60 percent of Americans can’t name even five of the Ten Commandments. “No wonder people break the Ten Commandments all the time. They don’t know what they are,” said George Barna.]

[Joe Carter, at the Gospel Coalition, writes, ‘ we have forgotten the moral aspect of memorization. “A trained memory wasn’t just about gaining easy access to information,” says Joshua Foer, referring to the ancient world, “it was about strengthening one’s personal ethics and becoming a more complete person.” Foer adds that the thinking of the ancients was that only through memorization could ideas truly be incorporated into one’s psyche and their values absorbed.’]

Note: The worst attacks on the Ten Commandments are not from atheists who seek to destroy monuments, but from antinomian Christians. Be sure to read the quotes from Luther, Calvin, and Wesley in my comment below.  They all had to stand against the lawless Christians of their own day.

Hear the word of God. Teach the word of God. God’s Assignment: Teach Your Children His Word  [LINK]

See also, Your Child and Your TV  

[TV link FIXED. Could not afford website host any longer. Links from Internet Archive Wayback Machine]

The Great Commandment: Heart and Mind

My favorite Frank and Ernest cartoon displays one frame. A newly hatched chick stands with egg shells at his feet and with a small piece as a cap on his head: “Wow! Paradigm shift!”

Paradigm shifts can be hard to come by, especially when it comes to the word “heart” in the Bible.

john-the-apostle

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart…” (Deut. 6).

In our American culture, we refuse to understand  “heart” in the Bible. An old television commercial, featuring a famous NBA player, focused on a hand pointing at his head and a voice saying, “You’ve got it up here but you’ve got to get it in your heart.”

What we Westerners divide apart, the Semitic mind of the Bible holds together, so that the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament states,“‘heart’ became the richest term for the totality of man’s inner or immaterial nature.”

That totality includes not only the emotions, upon which we so fondly dwell, but also the mind and the will. What we spend our time thinking about, what we dream of, what we deliberate over, what we choose to do, what we desire—these are all seated in the biblical “heart.”

Thus, when we come to the New Testament (NT), where the common Language of the Empire was koine Greek, all quotations of the Great Commandment include the word “mind” (Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:29; Luke 10: 27). It is not that something new was added, but that the word “mind” was needed so everyone could understand the all-encompassing scope of the commandment to love God. “A striking feature of the NT is the essential closeness of kardia (heart) to the concept nous, mind…

“The meaning of heart as the inner life, the centre of the personality and as the place in which God reveals himself to men is even more clearly expressed in the NT . . .

“The heart of man, however, is the place not only where God arouses and creates faith. Here faith proves its reality in obedience and patience (Rom. 6:17; 2 Thess. 3:5).”*

That obedience shows itself in loving God with all our mind. And that begins with how we read His Holy Word. HERE is how that ‘cashes out’ in our memory verse/meme world.

[Addendum. Those who diligently read the Bible will already have the sense of this. A regular feature of the Hebrew in the OT is the couplet. “The two parts within each couplet are synonymous…” (Oswalt) as in Isaiah 1:5, “…the whole head is sick. And the whole heart faints.”]

–From Love, Prayer, and Forgiveness: When Basics Become Heresies

Harry Blamires
Title is The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (LINK: Used books at bookfinder.com)

*The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, s.v. “heart”

See Part Two “Follow Your Heart”–NOT

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