Covenant: God Pursues

This was our 6th of 13 sessions in the Doctrine series. I love how he explains the difference between covenants and contracts and how that should effect the relationships we enter into with our spouses. Here are the video and links to study notes and questions for this session.

Covenant: God Pursues – Questions.

Driscoll’s study notes for Covenant.

You’ve Got to do Something with Jesus!

No matter what someone’s argument against God’s existence may be (atheism, evolution, etc)… They have to do something with Jesus. History indisputably records the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. No getting away from Him. Most will chalk Him up to being a good teacher, a good philosopher, religious leader or revolutionary. There’s only one problem with all of those. Jesus repeatedly is called God, is worshiped as God, and Himself claims to be God. If it’s not true… He’s not good.

Throughout this post we will consider multiple arguments and proofs that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the long awaited Messiah/Christ/Deliverer/Lord of mankind. We will look at: Others’ claims of Jesus as God, Jesus’ claims to deity, the changed lives of the disciples, the changed life of Saul of Tarsus, the resurrection, prophecy, and personal testimony. Some will be looked at in greater detail than others and this is for sure not an exhaustive list of Christian apologetics. But, I hope in doing so, this will inspire confidence in Believers that we DO NOT have a blind faith!

Others claiming Jesus is God…

• John 20:26 – He didn’t rebuke Thomas for calling Him God.
• Matthew 16:16-17 – Peter called Him the Christ, the Son of the living God & Jesus agreed with him.
• John 11:27 – Martha calls Him the Christ.
• John 1:49 – Nathaniel called Him the Messiah, the King of Israel.
• Acts 7:59 – Stephen calls out “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”.
• Paul continually calls Him; Christ, Savior, Lord.

Jesus claims to be God…

• John 5:16; 10:31 – Jesus calls God “My Father” instead of our Father.
• John 5:23-24 – He claimed to be worthy of worship as God the Father is worthy.
• John 10:30 – Jesus says “I and the Father are one”.
• He repeatedly spoke of Himself and the Father as one in essence – John 8:19; 12:45; 15:23 5:23.
• Mark 2:5; Luke 7:48-50 – Jesus forgave sins which only God can do (Isaiah 43:25).
• Mark 14:60-64 – At His mock trial He made repeated claims to deity. Which was why He was there in the first place. He was accused of blasphemy.

Lord, Liar or Lunatic…

• There are only three ways to interpret Jesus’ claims to being God.

C.S. Lewis states “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claims to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Was Jesus a liar (not Lord and knew He wasn’t)?

• If He was a liar, then He was a hypocrite, asking others to be honest.
• If He was a liar, then He was demonic, telling others to trust Him with their eternity.
• If He was a liar, then He was a fool because it got Him killed.
• Wherever Jesus has been proclaimed, we see lives changed for the good, nations changed for the better, alcoholics become sober, hateful people become channels of love, and unjust persons embrace justice.
• To conclude Jesus was a liar doesn’t coincide with what we know of Him or the results of His life and teachings.

Was Jesus a lunatic (not Lord and thought He was)?

• It is possible to be sincere and wrong.
• He spoke some of the most profound statements ever recorded.
• His instructions have liberated many from mental bondage.
• The skill and depth of His teaching support the case for His total mental soundness.
• Insane people don’t speak with much sanity and certainly don’t make the world more sane with their teachings and sayings.

The only logical conclusion left is that Jesus Christ is who He said He is… Lord of all!

What other proof do we have of Jesus being God?

• We spoke last time about the reliability of the Bible (“Does God Still Speak?” pt.1, pt.2, pt.3) as historical and accurate, so I won’t go back into that now.

Changed lives of the disciples & Paul…

• Many people over the years have died for a lie, but they did so believing it to be true.
• If Christ’s deity and resurrection were a lie, they would have known!
• Before the crucifixion, they we all cowardly, weak, and deserters. But weeks later, something changed.
• They became bold, proclaiming Jesus as God and Christ even unto death.

1. Peter was crucified (historically upside down).
2. Andrew was crucified.
3. James, son of Zebedee was killed with the sword.
4. John died of natural causes (after being boiled in oil and exiled to Patmos).
5. Phillip was crucified.
6. Bartholomew was crucified.
7. Thomas was killed with a spear.
8. Matthew was killed with a sword.
9. James, son of Alpheus was crucified.
10. Thadeus was killed by arrows.
11. Simon, the zealot was crucified.

• If they conspired together to lie about it, there’s no way they all held up to the torture they went through… for a LIE!
• The 180 that Saul of Tarsus pulled could only be explained as super natural. More in the book (More Than a Carpenter) about Paul!

The Resurrection…

• No theories about the resurrection hold up under scrutiny. They are all weak and actually require more faith than believing in the resurrection itself!

1. Wrong tomb theory:  This means the women, John, Peter, the Pharasies went to the wrong tomb… They all got it wrong?
2. Swoon theory:  Says Jesus didn’t really die, He just passed out. Then a bloody, beaten-beyond-recognition, starved, hole-in-the-chest, recently-crucified Jesus… revived Himself, wiggled out of more than 100 lbs of cloth and spices, managed to single-handedly roll away a bolder, sneak past a highly disciplined guard of roman soldiers, stumble to where the disciples were and present Himslef as Lord of all, the great victor??
3. Disciples stole the body:  Now you’re back to them dying for a lie… If they took the body, they KNEW it was a lie!
4. Pharasies stole the body:  Would they not have produced the body as soon as Peter and John began claiming a risen Christ, in order to kill Christianity in it’s tracks?
5. Again, the book (More Than a Carpenter) says much more!

Prophecy….

• God didn’t want us to be ignorant about the Messiah. He told them where to look, and made sure they would know it was Him when He got there using multiple prophecies.
• It would be like narrowing down who I am with my exact street address and description. With it we would know that I live… On Earth, in the Northern Hemisphere, in North America, in the USA, in Alabama, in a specific county, in a specific city, on a certain street, at house number so and so. Once at than house I’d be the balding blonde haired guy with blue eyes and the father of 3 kids. You get the point. You couldn’t miss me!

Prophecies about Christ’s birth & life:

1. Born as an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham (Gen 22:18; Gal 3:16).
2. A descendant of Isaac, not Ishmael (Gen 21:12; Lk 3:23-34).
3. From the line of Jacob, not Essau (Num 24:17; Lk 3:23-34).
4. From the tribe of Judah, 1 of the 12 (Gen 49:10; Lk 3:23-33).
5. Family line of Jesse (Is 11:1; Lk 3:23-32).
6. House and lineage of David (Jer 23:5; Lk 3:23-31).
7. Born in Bethlehem in Judah (Micah 5:2; Mt 2:1).
8. A messenger will prepare His way (Is 40:3; Mt 3:1-2).
9. He will begin His ministry in Galilee (Is 9:1; Mt 4:12-17).
10. He will teach in parables (Ps 78:2; Mt 13:34-35).
11. Perform many miracles (Is 35:5-6; Mt 9:35).
12. Ride into Jerusalem on a donkey (Zec 9:9; Mt 21:2; Lk 19:35-37).
13. He will “clean house” in the temple courts (Ps 69:9; Mal 3:1; Jn 2:15-16).

• On the day of His crucifixion alone, He fulfilled 29 more prophecies.
• Jesus fulfilled a total of 60 major Old Testament prophecies with about 270 other ramifications. All of which were made more than 400 years before His birth.
• The odds of one person fulfilling just 8 prophecies (stats approved by the American Scientific Affiliation) are 1 in 1017 (that’s 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000). Just 8 prophecies!
• Jesus fulfilled at least 60!

“Look at it this way: If you were to take 100,000,000,000,000,000 silver dollars and spread them across the state of Texas, they would not only cover the entire state but also form a pile of coins two feet deep! Now, take one more silver dollar, mark it with a big red X, toss it into the pile, and stir the pile thoroughly.

Then, blindfold yourself, and starting at El Paso on the Western border of the state, walk the length and breadth of that enormous state, from Amarillo in the panhandle to Laredo on the Rio Grande all the way to Galveston on the Gulf of Mexico, stooping just once along the way to pick up a single silver dollar out of that two feet deep pile. Then take off your blindfold, and look at the silver dollar in your hand. What are the chances that you would pick the coin marked with an X out of that pile of silver dollars the size of the Lone Star State? The same chance that one person could have fulfilled just eight messianic prophecies in one lifetime.” – Josh McDowell “Beyond Belief to Conviction”.

Your Personal Testimony…

• You have a story. Never underestimate the power of a good story… Yours!
• You know how you were before Christ. You know what happened. And you know how you are now.

Most of the stats and references I used came from a great little book “More Than A Carpenter” by Josh McDowell. It’s a book he wrote with the purpose of distributing for evangelism. You can get a single copy for around $5 – 7. Or I have gotten a pack of 6 for around $20. I love to keep one on hand to refer back to once in a while, as well as keep a few others on hand to give away when the need arises.

Does God Still Speak? Pt.3

In this final part of our study we will discuss the reliability of the Old and New Testaments. Can we be sure that the copies we have now are exact replicas of the original manuscripts that we no longer have? You can reference part 1 & part 2 here.

First we will talk about historicity (historical authenticity).

• All of the New Testament was written by eye witnesses or by those who interviewed eye witnesses.
• No original texts exist today, only copies or manuscripts.

Reliability of the Old Testament Texts:

• Different sets of scribes throughout the years copied them by hand.
• The next few quotes, from the book Beyond Belief by Josh McDowell, show the painstaking processes taken to preserve the Word of God and their overwhelming results.

Masoretic guidelines for copying manuscripts:

• The scroll must be written on the skin of a clean animal.
• Each skin must contain a specified number of columns, equal throughout the entire book.
• The length of each column must extend no less than 48 lines or more than 60 lines.
• The column breadth must consist of exactly 30 letters.
• The space of a thread must appear between each consonant.
• The breadth of nine consonants must be inserted between each section.
• A space of three lines had to appear between each book.
• The fifth book of Moses (Deuteronomy) had to conclude exactly with a full line.
• Nothing–not even the shortest word–could be copied from memory; it had to be copied letter for letter.
• The scribe must count the number of times each letter of the alphabet occurred in each book and compare it to the original.
• If a manuscript was found to contain even one mistake, the entire manuscript was discarded.

“Until recently, however, we had no way of knowing just how amazing the preservation of the Old Testament has been. Before 1947, the oldest complete Hebrew manuscript dated to A.D. 900. But with the discovery of 223 manuscripts in caves on the west side of the Dead Sea, we now have Old Testament manuscripts that have been dated by paleographers at around 125 B.C. These Dead Sea scrolls, as they are called, are a thousand years older than any previously known manuscripts.

But here’s the exciting part: Once the Dead Sea scrolls were translated and compared with modern versions, the Hebrew Bible proved to be identical, word for word, in more than 95% of the text. (The variation of 5% consisted mainly of spelling variations. For example of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, only 17 letters were in question. Of those, 10 letters were a matter of spelling, and 4 were stylistic changes; the remaining 3 letters comprised the word “light”, which was added in verse 11).

In other words, the greatest manuscript discovery of all time revealed that a thousand years of copying the Old Testament produced only excruciatingly minor variations, none of which altered the clear meaning of the text or brought the manuscript’s fundamental integrity into question.” – Josh McDowell “Beyond Belief to Convictions” pp 171-173.

Reliability of the New Testament Texts:

• Historicity is evaluated by two standards.

1. Time interval between the original and the earliest known copy.
2. How many manuscripts or copies there are for comparison.

Examples of the historicity of accepted literature:

Julius Cesar’s exploits in the “Gallic Wars”

• 10 original copies
• First copy 1,000 years removed from the original text

Livy’s “History of Rome”

• 19 original copies
• First copy 400 – 1,000 years removed from the original text

Homer’s “Iliad”

• 643 original copies
• First copy 400 years removed from the original text

Greek New Testament

• Nearly 25,000 original copies
• First copy only 50 years removed from the original text

There is no comparison. It’s strange that the other books mentioned are rarely, if ever, questioned in regards to authenticity and accuracy, but people love to question our sacred literature. Critics and skeptics have been attacking this book for 2,000 years and have yet to dispute it! Many of them get saved trying to do so. Josh McDowell referenced earlier is a prime example.

God went to great earthly lengths to make sure we have His self-revelation. What you read in your Bible is the true Word of God. It is accurate. Believe it. Trust it.

Resources used for this study:

• “Doctrine” – Mark Driscoll & Gerry Bershears
• “Beyond Belief to Conviction” – Josh McDowell & Bob Hostetler

Also check out:

• “More Than a Carpenter” & “New Evidence That Demands a Verdict” – Josh Mcdowell

Fall: God Judges – Resources

Here are the resources from our most recent Men’s Group. This is part 5 of 13. This is such a great message and sobering reminder of how devastating the effects of sin really are.

Link – Fall: God Judges Discussion Questions

Link – Driscoll’s study notes

Additionally you might want to get the book written by Driscoll and Gerry Bershears based on this series. “Doctrin: What Christians should believe”.

A Few Resources for Guys…

The mission of this site is to provide Christians (particularly men) with resources they might find helpful on their journey, becoming more like Christ. I just wanted to list a few of the resources that can be found here on the site. I would love your thoughts about the site and ideas as to what resources could be added to make the site more useful. Thanks. I pray these resources and this site first of all glorify our great God & Savior, Jesus Christ and help you worship and love Him more deeply!

Articles

• Four Constants in Family Bible Study – Pastor Mark Driscoll
• Practical ideas for Family Worship – Pastor Tim Smith
• Planning An Intentional Devotional Life – J.R. Vassar

Books

• Sacred Marriage – Gary Thomas     *My review of the book
• Shepherding A Child’s Heart – Tedd Tripp
• Family Driven Faith – Voddie Baucham Jr.
• Knowing God – J.I. Packer

Audio

• The Role of Men series – Matt Chandler
• Men and Marriage – Mark Driscoll
• Biblical Headship – Voddie Baucham
• God and Sex – Matt Chandler

Links & Websites

• ESV Online
• The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Image: God Loves

Here are the video, questions, and study notes from our latest Men’s Group 7.19.10. This is the full length message. In our meetings we usually watch the abridged versions that cut out about 10-15 minutes. Also, we will be reading/studying through the book of Romans in our personal quiet times the next two weeks. I look forward to hearing what God is showing us in His Word next time we meet (8.02.10).

Link to Image: God Loves Questions.

Link to Pastor Mark’s study notes.

What’s Wrong With “American Evangelicalism”?

I have been asked before after one of my messages/classes to define what I mean by the terms “modern evangelicalism” or “American evangelicalism”… Since I tend to use them in a derogatory manner. I have tried to explain it, but never felt like I have done it full justice because it is such a vast and pervasive problem. So, I guess this is my attempt to explain what I mean… While I vent a bit in the process.

One of the problems, if not the biggest problem, is we have “believers” who think Christianity is all about them because we have churches teaching them that garbage and doing everything they can in their services and campuses to reinforce said garbage. Garbage here referring to poor doctrine and awful theology. The fact that we have taken Christ’s institution of the church and turned it into an arms race of sorts (bigger and more is better) that’s concerned more about buildings than people, angers me! And I’m not just looking from the outside in. I have been a part of the numbers game.

But, American evangelicalism isn’t limited to “churches”, oh no, it includes most of the “Christian” culture. And unfortunately, some of the ones who are most wrong or most dangerous have the biggest voices (TV, radio, etc.). Christian media will have to be an entirely different post all together. **sigh**

This post is not just a drive-by, anonymous slap in the church’s face. I love the church of Jesus Christ! The local church is the answer or rather has the answer for its community. That’s why it angers me so much when people reduce it down to a bunch of systems, and feel-goodisms! This post is an attempt to open eyes and stir hearts. To cause questions to be asked about how & why we do church.

I have stolen a quote from pastor/author Jared Wilson as he summarizes a rant on evangelicalism from one of my favorite, Gospel-centered pastors Matt Chandler (The Village Church – Dallas, TX).

“We want to go to a place with ample parking that hands us a latte for free as we enter the doors. We want to sit in a comfortable chair that vibrates. We want a poppin’ band. We want to see fog. And a laser light that draws the shape of a cross in the fog. We want a good singer to sing comforting things to us as we listen admiringly. Then we want an energetic speaker to alleviate our fear of the bad economy and inspire us in no more than 20 to 22 minutes. Then we want to leave without being bothered, have our retinas scanned to pick up our kids, and watch them slide down the slide out of the Kidz Playz having heard a lesson from no less than SpongeBob SquarePants himself on obeying parents and not lying. And if we feel like it, we want all that all over again in a week. That’s evangelicalism.”

Where is the growth? Where is the dept? Where is the passionate pursuit of a holy, life-changing, awe-inspiring God? Where is discipleship? Where is true evangelism that seeks to show people the glory of Christ and call them to the newness of life only He can bring, and not just make converts to fill the four walls? God is convicting me even as I write this. May my family and I not buy into the lie, the lie that we deserve anything! May we pursue Christ whole-heartedly and allow Him to change, remove, rearrange, or destroy whatever possessions, dreams, and aspirations He chooses! Christianity is about Christ… NOT us!

Let me clarify one last thing, lest I be accused of being anti-church establishment. As stated, I believe the local church is the answer. The problem I have is in the mentality of a lot of church establishments. They think getting people “in church” is what people need. So they try to make them comfortable, draw them in, and plug them into a program or system. People need Christ! When we divorce Christ from the church (establishment), we render it impotent! The church is to serve and share the Gospel. And when people get saved, the church’s role is to make sure they enter into Christ-centered corporate worship where the goal should be their discipleship and spiritual growth… Not “Lets find them a place to serve so they’ll stay”. May our churches be places where Christians gather to serve, learn, worship, and do life together and the lost can hear the true Gospel and be changed by the Spirit of God… Not a social club where people come to put in their one hour a week so they can feel good about themselves.

I just finished reading and highly recommend the book “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream” by David Platt (pastor of Brook Hills Church – Birmingham, AL). It was very eye opening, convicting, and encouraging.

Also, here’s a link to a humorous, yet honest list from Jared Wilson called “Your Church Might not be a Church If…“

Audio: Men, Women, & Family – Wisdom from Proverbs

This is a series from the book of Proverbs by Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. This is not the full series, but I focused on 13 messages from that series that deal specifically with biblical manhood and womanhood. Proverbs is a very practical book and Driscoll is a practical preacher. If most men are like me, I know that God has commanded me to lead my family. My struggle is that I haven’t really had anyone lead me through that. This series helped me grow in my role as husband and father and I thought it was worth sharing.

Click here for Proverbs series by Mark Driscoll.

Click here for all messages (on this site) from Mark Driscoll.

Click here for ALL messages (on this site) from all preachers/teachers.

Jesus: Wrath Absorber

*Updated 7.18.10* I love looking back and seeing how God began revealing Himself fresh and anew to me as I sought Him with my whole heart. Praise God He continues to sanctify, teach, guide, and empower us Believers! I have gone back through this post and added a few clarifying statements and verses. Originally title “Jesus: Wrath Diverter” posted on 4.09.09.

You know how you can read the same verse or passage in the Bible over and over, and then one day you read it and it’s revelation? I was checking out this passage today and God opened my eyes to see how important my faith is and just how much Jesus really has done for me.

Romans 5:1-2 “1Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

We know that we are “saved by grace through faith” and that we are justified at salvation. This verse goes deeper than that. Since or Because we have been justified by our faith, which is itself a gift from God (Eph 2:8-9)… We have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. My Justification put God at peace *with me*. See I didn’t have anything against God, I wasn’t angry at God or hate Him so there really wasn’t any reason for me to be at peace with God. But by my actions and because of the sin in my life, the Bible says that I was working against God and I was His enemy and a target for His righteous wrath (Rom 3:10-18)!

Because I have been justified (as if I had never sinned) through my faith in Christ, the wrath of God toward me was diverted to Jesus on the cross! It was more than diverted away from me to Christ… He took or absorbed God’s righteous wrath on my behalf (Is 53: 4-5; Is 53:10; 2 Cor 5:21)! So Jesus put God at peace with me!! Verse 2 goes on to tell us that because of our faith in Jesus, through Him we have access to the grace that gives us the power to stand (against the devil and our flesh), so can we rejoice in the hope that one day we will be with Him in the glory of God forever!

This book “Romans” blows my mind every time I read it, so I’m so thankful God reveals cool things like this to us every now and then!

Does God Still Speak? Pt. 2

In a previous post I discussed the fact that God’s Word is His revelation of Himself and that without that revelation all we have are empty speculations and assumptions about Him. God does indeed still speak to us through the Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:16). Now we will look at the cannon and translations of the Bible.

The word cannon in Greek and Hebrew literally means “rule” or “measuring rod”. The common misconception about the cannon of Scripture and the early councils that established the cannon is that the early councils dictated or chose what books would be in the Bible. This is not the truth. The councils merely affirmed those books that the church herself had already agreed upon as divinely inspired and authoritative. If the book was not accepted by the church as a whole, it was disregarded. There are other early writings that may help us understand God and the church, but have no authority over the church.

“One thing must be emphatically stated. The New Testament books did not become authoritative for the church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the church included them in her cannon because they were already regarded as divinely inspired…” – F. F. Bruce

“The church no more gave us the New Testament cannon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity, by His work of creation, and similarly He gave us the New Testament cannon, by inspiring the individual books that make it up.” – J. I. Packer

Modern translations:

• At least some part of the Bible has been translated into 2,454 languages.
• If the Bible in your possession is in any other language than Greek or Hebrew… It is a translation.

3 types of translations:

1.  Word for word translations.

• This would include translations such as ESV, KJV, NKJV, NASB.
• Most accurate translations for getting you as close to the original message as possible.
• Focus is on accuracy, not so much readability, so it could get a little choppy at times.
• By far, the best for studying.

2.  Thought for thought translations.

• This would include translations such as NIV, NLT, CEV.
• Tries to interpret small sections of Scripture and not just individual words.
• They tend to be more readable, but you still have someone doing more than just translating the words from one language to another. You have a person’s or group of people’s take on the verse written down for you.

3.  Paraphrased.

• Includes The Message, The Message Remix, TLB, AMP.
• Puts the emphasis on readability and poetry of the texts.
• Tries to interpret the meaning of entire paragraphs of thoughts and put them into today’s modern vernacular.
• Again, this is also someone’s interpretations.

I’m not completely against thought for thought or paraphrased translations, there is benefit in all “good” translations. But, I would say for sure when you go to study or find the true meaning of specific passages and sections of Scripture, it would be beneficial to have a good word for word translation on hand. The one I have used for the past few years is the English Standard Version (ESV). You can access it for free online here or pay a one time fee of $30 and have access to the ESV Online Study Bible… Well worth it, I use it all the time! Also they have a very nice FREE iPhone/iPad app.

Actually do some research before you purchase your next Bible. What person or group translated it? Do other pastors or leaders trust it?

Also, if some of the versions seem to conflict or disagree with each other on certain passages or sections, you must always take it back to the original language and context to compare.

For more research on the cannon of Scripture and our modern translations check out two of the books I used in preparing this:

• Doctrine by Mark Driscoll & Gerry Bershears
• Beyond Belief To Convictions by Josh McDowell & Bob Hostetler

In the next and final part we will look at historicity and reliability of the Texts. Can we be certain that the copies we have now are exactly what was originally penned, since the originals don’t exist any more?