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On May 16, 2024 By In Church, Discipleship, History, Theology

Pentecostal Temple

When the construction of the Tabernacle was complete, God declared his approval by covering and filling it with his glory (Ex 40:34). Moses couldn’t enter the tent because of the glory cloud (Ex 40:35).

When the construction of Solomon’s Temple was complete, after Solomon prayed his prayer of dedication, fire came from heaven, lit the bronze altar, consumed the offerings, and the glory of Yahweh filled the temple (2Chr 7:1). The priests were unable to enter the house because the glory of Yahweh filled the house (2Chr 7:2).

When the construction of the post-exilic or restoration Temple was complete, there is no record of a historical event like the glory of God filling the Tabernacle or Solomon’s Temple. God promised that he would “fill this house with glory” so that “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former” (Hag 2:7, 9). God’s glory fills the post-exilic Temple of Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek 43:1-12), but no record exists of a priest or king praying and fire and cloud filling the Temple … until Pentecost.

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On May 2, 2024 By In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

Angels

While playing prominent roles in history, the nature and function of angels remain mysterious to a great degree. We meet them in the first pages of Scripture. The serpent is an angelic creature (something we learn more about as Scripture unfolds). Cherubim, angels, guard the way to the Tree of Life after the man and woman are expelled. Angels visit Abraham. The angel of Yahweh leads the children of Israel through the Sea and in the wilderness. Cherubim adorn the Tabernacle and Temple. Angels bring messages from God to Daniel (see Dan 10), Zechariah, and Mary (Lk 1). Four-faced angels make up the throne chariot of God, as seen in Ezekiel 1. Angels play a prominent role in the Book of Revelation. Angels are everywhere in history, but we seem to know very little about them.

By carefully examining Scripture, we can begin to unravel the mysteries surrounding angels and gain insights into their significant role in God’s economy.

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On April 25, 2024 By In Church, Discipleship, Theology

One Church. One Heartbeat.

Back in 2016, LSU’s athletic director hired a native son, Ed Orgeron, to be the head football coach. Known for his gravelly voice coupled with a Cajun accent, he stepped up to his first press conference, pledging that he would quickly build a championship team. The means to the team’s success would be captured in the mantra “One team. One heartbeat.” Team members must be committed to one another with no prima donnas. They must move as one man out on the field, sharing the same commitments, love, loyalty, and goals. They must have one heart. If they did this with the talent they had, they would grow into a team that would win a championship. In 2019, they did win the championship with arguably the best college football team ever. (I’m a tad bit biased, and I don’t want to talk about what happened after that.)

The apostle Paul’s concern for the church at Colossae (and Laodicea) is that they grow to maturity as individuals and as a church. The path to maturity and, in some sense, its goal is “One church. One heartbeat.” Paul fights (Col 2:1) through all that he suffers as well as through teaching the churches through his letters (cf. Col 4:16) so that “their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, so as to come to all the riches of the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery: Christ” (Col 2:2). Within that statement, Paul gives a perichoretic trinity of characteristics that move the church and its individual members to maturity. We are encouraged as we are knit together in love, and being encouraged through our oneness in love moves us to the full assurance of our faith in the gospel.

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On April 18, 2024 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Me-Time & Maturity

Children are born believing that everyone around them is there to serve them. I suppose that this would have been true even before the fall. They are entirely dependent upon everyone else, and when they make a need known, someone is there to serve them. That would have happened in a world without sin. But when you add sin to this creation reality, selfishness is the result. This sinfulness is the foolishness bound up in a child’s heart from birth (Pr 22:15).

One aspect of maturing is gaining a sense of otherness; the whole world is not all about me, but I am to be serving others. Serving others involves putting others’ genuine needs above my personal comforts. The greatest example of this is, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ. When instructing the Philippians to look not only to one’s own interests but also for the interests of others, Paul turns immediately to Christ’s self-emptying at the cross that secured our salvation (Phil 2:1-8). He follows this up later with examples of Timothy and Epaphroditus. Each gave himself in particular ways for the needs of others, following Christ’s example.

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On April 11, 2024 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Adulting

“Adulting is hard. I just can’t today.” “Adulting. Horrible. Would not recommend.” These and other similar sentiments have been popular over the past ten to fifteen years. People don’t want to grow up. Growing up means more responsibility, and responsibility means work, and work means that I don’t get to have “me-time” and do all the fun things I want to do. Refusal to mature or mature with joy and dignity is evident throughout Western culture. Young men don’t want to take on the responsibility of a wife and children. They will use every excuse in the book not to try to find a wife. The red-pill masculinity gurus recite the numbers concerning the bias against men in family court, so men retreat to staying children the rest of their lives, afraid to take risks. Young women with the fantasy of having innumerable choices of men because of all the connections they have on social media refuse to “settle” for anything less than the top one percent of men and neglect to take on the responsibility of being a wife and mother. Men and women get on social media and give their sob stories about how having a job and paying bills is hard. They don’t know if they can take it. Adulting is hard.

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On April 4, 2024 By In Discipleship

Heartburn

“They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’” (Luke 24:32)

Ears can be “tickled”; ears can be “pricked”; heads can be “level”; heads can be “cool”; guts can be “wrenched”; and minds can be “blown.” Things can make us “heartbroken” or they can be “heartwarming.” “Heart-burn” tends to have different connotations.

When the two disciples acknowledge that their hearts “burned” at the opening of the Scriptures, what do they mean?

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On February 29, 2024 By In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Cosmic Church

What is the church? Is it really all that important? If you ask evangelical Christians in America, you will get a variety of responses. In one survey, when evangelicals were asked whether or not every Christian has an obligation to join a local church, thirty-six percent of the respondents said, “Yes,” and fifty-six percent said, “No.” In another survey, a similar fifty-six percent agreed that worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid substitute for regularly attending the worship of the church. Many professing Christians see the church as a good but non-essential part of the Christian life. The church is an aid to my personal relationship with Jesus, but my participation in the church has little to no bearing on my relationship with God and eternal destiny.

Paul disagrees.

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On February 15, 2024 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

The Powerlessness of Fasting

Fasting is on the minds of many Christians around the world at this time because we have entered the season of Lent, a time in the Church Year that, among other things, focuses on Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness. Fasting is encouraged as the church disciples her members to take up their crosses and follow Christ.

Fasting has a long and sometimes muddled history. God has always approved of fasting if it is done within the boundaries and for particular purposes. It can be argued that a form of fasting existed before the fall as God forbade the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for a time. This pre-fall fast was a practice in patience, praying and waiting for the time God would allow them to eat and move into another stage of glory.

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On February 1, 2024 By In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Theology

Can I Please God?

Can I please God? Am I and my works ever worthy enough for God to say, “I am well pleased with you?”

There was a time in my life that I would have answered that question, “Absolutely not. I am a sinner and can never walk worthy of the Lord in a way that pleases him. It is impossible for me to please him because he is perfectly holy and tolerates no sin. My righteousness is only and exclusively alien. Christ’s righteousness is all that God the Father sees. Christ pleases God. Christ is worthy, but nothing about me is worthy.”

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On December 28, 2023 By In Church, Culture, Discipleship, Theology

House Building

God is an architect and builder. Creation is his house. One part of the house was finished from the beginning. God created his heavenly palace complete. It was a turn-key job. The earth, however, he gave to his son, Adam, as a project (Ps 115:16). God provided his son all the raw materials and the blueprint to complete his mission. Once the earthly house was finished, the breach between heaven and earth created on the second day of the creation week would be reconciled.

The original separation of heaven and earth was not caused by sin. The division was a design feature of the original creation, and the maturity of the earth was man’s mission before sin entered the world. When Adam sinned, the separation was deepened. From that time forward, the project to build a house in which God would be pleased to dwell, uniting his heavenly home to an earthly home, was crippled by sin.

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