All posts by AttilaDimedici

Daily Bible Study

December 27, 2016 Bible Study — When the Trumpets Sound

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 4-8.

    John now moves fully into his vision by describing the throne room of heaven (I want to say here that I do not believe these visions are intended for us to picture what heaven will really look like. I believe that they are word pictures designed to convey a particular message.). In particular, I think it is very telling that the song which the four living beings and the twenty-four elders sing to the Lamb is so similar to the song which they sang to He who sits upon the throne. To me, this is yet another confirmation of the concept of the Trinity. The Lamb and He who sits on the throne are distinct beings…and yet they are the same being.

    When the Lamb started breaking the seals on the scroll, for each of the first four seals a Horseman appeared. I am not sure of the meaning of these Horsemen, but I believe that part of the meaning is that things will get progressively worse. First, there is a Horseman who rides out and builds an empire. However, this does not result in peace on earth. No, it results in the second Horseman, who brings war and violence throughout the earth. Which naturally leads to the third Horseman, who brings shortages and famine. Which brings us the fourth Horseman, Death, after the first three Horsemen people everywhere will be dying from war and violence, famine, and disease. In all of this, there will be injustice and persecution of those who attempt to do God’s will. When the fifth seal is broken, those who suffered and died for doing God’s will call out to God, asking Him to make things right. Then the sixth seal is broken and those who thought that all of these horrors had passed them by, those who thought these things were to their benefit, realize that there is price that they too will need to pay. They seek to hide from God’s judgment, but there is no place to hide. Despite all of this, God will preserve on the earth some of those who serve Him.

    In a way, the events of these first six seals happen again and again throughout history. Each time getting closer and closer to the opening of the Seventh Seal and the blowing of the seven trumpets. When those trumpets blow, the end of this world will finally be here. I remember growing up in the 1970s and thinking that the description of the results of the first four trumpets sounded like the results of a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States. In some ways, it still makes me think of an all out nuclear war. However, my belief is that when God will not allow mankind to destroy this world. He will destroy it before that happens.

Daily Bible Study

December 26, 2016 Bible Study

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 1-3.

    John begins this letter to the seven Churches with a description of God’s eternal existence which communicates more than just saying that God is eternal does. He writes that God is, always was, and is to come. God has always been, He is now, and He will always be. As part of his description of God, John writes that God is the beginning and the end. Then he goes on to connect Jesus to this description of God as eternal by writing that Jesus is the first and the last. Jesus died and yet He now lives for all eternity. Because of His death, He now holds the key to death and the grave. Through Him we too may have life eternal.

    In John’s message to the seven Churches he has one of two complaints with the various Churches. It is interesting that to this day these two complaints represent the primary failings which Churches fall into. One is a loss of enthusiasm for spreading the Gospel and doing God’s work. The other is a tolerance for teaching that sexual immorality is not a bad thing, perhaps even a good thing, and the idolatry of trying to fit in with the culture around us. Both are equally bad. There is nothing to be gained by holding fast to God’s commands to be sexually upright and separated from the evils of society if you do not love others enough to tell them about why they should change by accepting the Gospel. On the other hand, being enthusiastic about preaching God’s word to people has no value if you do not teach its transformative power.

Daily Bible Study

December 25, 2016 Bible Study — The Conflict Between Love and Immorality

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 John, 3 John, and Jude

    The writer returns to the same theme he had in 1 John. In this he writes something which has an element of circular logic, but I have always thought there was a little more to it than that. First the logic:
Love is doing what God commands
God commands us to love one another
However, I believe there is more to what the writer is saying than what is written. The writer is not saying that the only God commands us to do is love one another. He is saying that everything God commands us to do is how we love one another.

    In his third letter the writer has a different message. There are actually three elements to this letter, although the writer does not separate them out in his writing. The first, and the one we must find by reading between the lines, is that the Church should send out traveling teachers who preach the Gospel to unbelievers. I am not quite sure why it is necessary for traveling teachers to preach to the unsaved in areas where there are already believers, but the writer encourages such behavior. He even tells us that we should support such teachers when they come into our area. Further, he condemns those that object to such teachers and attempt to make it difficult for them to gain support for their ministry.

    I have never noticed how the message of 2 John leads into the message of 3 John, which transitions us to the message of Jude. Second John tells us that all of God’s commands are expressions of the command to love one another. Third John tells us of the importance of accepting and supporting traveling teachers who teach the true Gospel and warns us against those who try to isolate us from teachers other than themselves. Finally, Jude warns us against people who claim that God’s grace means that we can live immoral lives. Such people base their authority on extra-biblical sources, such as dreams and revelations which they have received, or the writings of other faiths which they attempt to meld with Christianity. In most cases, if we examine their lives we discover that their teachings derive from their attempts to justify their own sins rather than confess and turn from them.

Daily Bible Study

December 24, 2016 Bible Study — Love Our Fellow Believers

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 John 1-5.

    The central point of this letter, to which the writer keeps coming back, is that if we truly believe in Jesus we will love our fellow believers. God has given us the opportunity to know Him through Jesus. If we know God we will obey Him and His first and primary command is to love one another just as we love ourselves. All other actions grow out of that love. If we love our fellow believers we will be careful to take no actions which might cause them to stumble, which might cause them to sin.

    Which brings us to the writer’s other main point, we have all sinned and we will probably sin again. However, Jesus will plead our case before God. This does not mean that we can go on sinning with impunity. Each time we sin it causes harm to ourselves, to our relationship with God, and to our relationship with our fellow believers. If we truly love God and our fellow believers we will desire to have as positive a relationship as possible with them. Therefore, our love for our fellow believers should provide us with incentive to put sin behind us and to resist temptation.

Daily Bible Study

December 23, 2016 Bible Study — Following The Process

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Peter 1-3.

    God has given us all we need to live the holy life to which He has called us. Further, He has promised us the ability to partake of the divine nature, the ability to be free from the corruption caused by sinful desires. There is a process which follows if we want to accept that promise and receive what was promised. The process, in order, is: faith, goodness (or moral excellence), knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, love for everyone. It is worth noting that goodness, or moral excellence, is not the same thing as godliness. I am not going to go into what that difference is at the moment. In many ways that would be a blog post all of its own.

    A simplistic reading of this process might lead one to think it was a step by step process, with one moving on from one step to the next. However, I believe it is more a kind of positive feedback loop: as you add goodness to your faith, you get more faith, as you add knowledge to goodness, you get more goodness (and thus even more faith), this continues on with each step. Each step up the ladder calls on us to increase the level of the step which proceeded it. I am going to give two examples of how this works. As we do good the faith which motivated us to do good becomes stronger because we see the truth of that faith in the results of our good actions. As we become more knowledgeable, we see that some places where we thought we were doing good, we can do better, which hopefully results in us doing more good. Which in turn results in our faith growing stronger. This process continues through every step of this process.

    Peter goes on to write about false teachers. He warns us that they will use deception and guile to introduce heretical teachings. Their hallmarks are arrogance and greed. They scoff at what they do not understand. I could go on and write more about what Peter says about them, but you can read the passage for yourself. I want to rather look at some manifestations of the sorts of false teachers which Peter describes. There are those who introduce heretical teachings, often in order to allow themselves to satisfy their greed and/or their immoral sexual desires (failing to realize that neither of those will ever be satisfied). We see these in those who preach prosperity gospel, that following Christ is a formula for gaining wealth (it is interesting how often part of that formula is sending them money). We, also, see this in those who want to weaken or destroy the Church’s teachings against sexually immoral conduct. We see another aspect of this among those who teach that they have a special knowledge or ability necessary for battling against evil spiritual powers. All of these teachers have one thing in common, they promise us greater freedom, but all that they deliver is further enslavement to sin.

Daily Bible Study

December 22, 2016 Bible Study — We Have Been Saved, Now We Need To Live Like It

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Peter 1-5.

    I never noticed before how often the various writers in the New Testament say something along the lines of, “You have been saved by your faith in God’s grace, now go and act upon that faith.” Here at the beginning of his letter Peter writes that we should prepare our minds our minds and exercise self control because God has given us His salvation. God does not play favorites. He judges each person according to that person’s actions, not by who their parents are, or the color of their skin, or any of the other criteria by which we so often judge people. Therefore we should love each other with the same kind of love which God displayed when He sent Jesus to die on the cross.

    Peter mixes metaphors here a bit. He writes that God is using us to build His Temple and that we are the royal priests in that very Temple. As priests before God we are called upon to live pure and holy lives. Only the High Priest, who the writer of Hebrews identified as Jesus, stands closer to God than we do. By writing that we are all priests Peter is telling us, just as Paul and the writer of Hebrews did, that the distinction between the clergy and the laity we have in our society has no place in the Body of Christ. We cannot look at certain people and say, “They need to be held to this standard, but I do not have to live up to it.”

    Peter writes something which I find addressing something I have been challenged by as I read through the New Testament this year. I have been challenged in how I deal with confrontations with whom I disagree (both believers and unbelievers). Here Peter lays ground rules for arguing with others, rules that should apply to all of our disagreements.

  • Lover each other like siblings.
  • be tenderhearted and humble.
  • Do not repay evil for evil.
  • Do not respond to insults with insults.

If we truly live the way Peter is advocating people will be surprised. I think it is worth noting that Peter writes that the sins we are to avoid (which is all sins) are destructive. As a result of our failure to join with them in their self-destructive behavior people will slander us. We realize that people are eager to find something wrong with those who live holy lives because they feel condemned by the contrast to their own lives. So, as God calls us to ever more greater challenges in serving Him we need to be sure to maintain ever greater self-control.

Daily Bible Study

December 21, 2016 Bible Study — Faith Without Works Is Dead

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on James 1-5.

    Today’s passage is the entire letter from James. I love this book of the Bible, perhaps in part because it has been so often misunderstood. I do not think I am going to be able to write about all of the things that James has to say that I think we need to hear. (I am sure there are a few of you saying, “So, why are you wasting time and space to tell us that? Get to it already.”) There are two points upon which all of the rest hang. First, James insists that if you have faith, it will be demonstrated in your actions. Second, if we have faith which is reflected in our actions, if we need anything all that we need do is ask God and He will provide for those needs.

    The one thing we can be sure that we need is wisdom and James promises us that all we need do to obtain wisdom is ask God. God will never hold it against us for asking for more wisdom. However, in this as in all things, we need to truly believe that God is the only source of wisdom. God will not answer our prayers for wisdom, if at the same time we are asking Him for wisdom we are seeking wisdom from the ungodly that we are going to balance against the wisdom we receive from God. James even tells us how to tell if the advice we have received is truly wise or not. In order to save space to comment on other things I am not going to rephrase chapter 3 verses 13 through 19. You can read them for yourself.

    James tells us that the key to lining our actions up with our professions of faith is to start by controlling what we say and how we say it. If we learn to control our tongues we can learn to control all of our other actions. However, if we refuse to control our tongues we will fail to control ourselves in any other way as well. The key to gaining control of our tongues is controlling our desires. If we allow ourselves to desire the things of this world over the things of Heaven, evil things will come out of our mouths sooner or later. Those earthly desires will lead us to be jealous and bitter because we will never be able to fill them, no matter how much stuff we gather. On the other hand, if we focus on the things of Heaven and on wanting those things which will allow us to serve God, all we need do is ask God for them and we will have them in more abundance than we can imagine.

Daily Bible Study

December 20, 2016 Bible Study — Running The Race

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Hebrews 12-13.

    Just like when running a race, we need to put aside those things which do not help us serve the Lord. This includes sin, but not just sin. If there are things in our life which do not help us do God’s work, we need to cut them out of our lives. If we do not, God will do so for us. Like any good father, or coach, God will discipline us so that we become more disciplined (see what I did there?). When we become tired and are tempted to give up we need to keep our eyes on Christ and remember the suffering He experienced before He received His glory from God. We have not yet given our lives in service to God, we can “run” a little longer, we can carry the burden a little further. God is like an experienced coach. He knows exactly how much training we need to put in. He knows what we need to be eating (both physically and spiritually). He knows when we need to take some time to rest and recuperate from our training (both physically and mentally). When we do not do as He instructs, He will punish us with exercises which will make us better able to win the “race” for which He is preparing us.

    As the writer concludes his letter he makes a series of small points which are not directly connected, but which in a way form a coherent whole. I am not quite sure how I am going to get these various statements into a single thought. We are instructed to work at living in peace with everyone and to work at living a holy life. Further the writer tells us to not let bitterness grow up within us, or among us. These three are pretty easy to put together. Bitterness will lead us into conflict with others, and conflict can engender bitterness, either in ourselves or in those with whom we have conflict (or both). However, the writer is not just telling us to not be bitter, he is telling us to root out bitterness among our fellow believers. If we see bitterness taking hold among our fellow believers we need to work at getting rid of it.
    As I wrote that last sentence I realized how all of these fit together because much of the rest of what he writes here amount to instructions about how to keep our fellowship clear of bitterness. If we look after each other, love one another, and show hospitality to strangers we will nip bitterness in the bud whenever it starts to crop up. If we are satisfied with what we have we will not become bitter about those who have more. If we remember those who are in prison or being mistreated as if we were suffering the same, we will not take actions which will cause others to be bitter. If all of our interactions with those around us are rooted in love, we will help them to not be bitter about those who may have failed to act out of love.

Daily Bible Study

December 19, 2016 Bible Study — Inspired To Acts of Love and Good Works Through Faith

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Hebrews 10-11.

    As a consequence of Jesus offering Himself as a sacrifice for our sins we can boldly enter into God’s presence. This confidence should inspire us to acts of love and good works, performed both for their own sake and to motivate our fellow believers to such acts as well. In order to motivate other believers, and to be motivated by them, we need to meet regularly with them. Regularly meeting with our fellow believers will both encourage us to perform acts of love and good works and inspire us in new ways in which we can do such things. The more we do such things, the less time we will have to be susceptible to temptation.

    I am always inspired by this writer’s compendium of the people of faith from before Christ. He lists out many of the people of faith whose accounts we find in the Old Testament and how their faith inspired their actions and brought them miraculous results. He reminds us that the number of people who accomplished great things through faith is too long to list them all. He also reminds us that some faced terrible trials and persecutions because of their faith (usually because of the good works to which their faith inspired them). The faith of these people to whom he refers earned them a good reputation, whether they overcame mighty foes through their faith, or were persecuted by mighty foes. Those who gained great victories did not do so from their own might, neither did those whose faith stood firm in the face of persecution. Let us be inspired to have a similar faith in God’s great power.

Daily Bible Study

December 18, 2016 Bible Study — Jesus, Our High Priest

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I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Hebrews 6-9.

    The writer tells us that those who once knew God’s salvation through Christ and have turned away can never be brought back to repentance. He is not talking about those who gradually fell back into sin after coming to know the Lord. I do not even think he was talking about those who came to know Christ at a young age and were later talked out of it by someone they respected. No, he is talking about those who, of their own volition, made a conscious decision to reject God. Those who rejected God because continuing to accept God meant accepting that there was someone they answered to for their actions. The thing about such people is that, once they have made such a decision, they will never be willing to consider the possibility that they were wrong to do so. I will say that we have to be careful not to assume that someone falls into this category because I have known people who I thought did who turned to the Lord.

    The rest of this passage is very intellectual (just like yesterday’s passage). One of the key things I get from this passage is that we no longer need any priest aside from Jesus. Jesus is our High Priest, who offered Himself, once and for all, as a sacrifice for sin. There is no longer a need for priests to offer sacrifices on our behalf, nor to act as intermediaries between ourselves and God. This means that the distinction we often make between the clergy and the laity is a false one. The creation of clergy is serves two purposes. It allows some people to lift themselves up as superior to others. And it allows many people to not hold themselves to the standard which Christ sets for us. We are all called to live by the standard of “priests” and if you think that you are better than others, you have missed the point.