Bully's Blog

The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me… (Jonah 2:5)

The Errant Typology of Baptismal Sprinkling

The Bible is an incredibly complex book, however it is also an incredibly consistent book. Its symbolism is a language, which means that although it is flexible enough to allow for new combinations, it has a core which remains steadfast from Genesis to Revelation. This means that, just as we have no excuse for refusing to read this book of types for what it is, we also have no excuse for misusing its types to support any otherwise unsupportable dogma.

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What the Order of Melchizedek Means For Baptism

Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and all His works are chiastic. Because of this, a solid understanding of any Covenant requires us to identify its “bookends.” According to Hebrews, the Melchizedekian bookends are crucial for a comprehension of the limitations of the Abrahamic Covenant.

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Provoking The Dragon
Baptism for the Dead
At The Hands Of Infidels
Liturgy As Prophecy
The Widow’s Mite

Why was the unique sacrificial rite in Genesis 15 required, and what did it signify? Was it simply a self-maledictory oath on the Lord’s behalf, or was there something deeper going on?

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“A baptism which does not discern between the fruit of the womb and the fruit of the tomb is anti-Christ, denying He has come in the flesh.”

This post follows on from Exposed To The Elements.

An online paedobaptist friend commented that he had never heard sacred architecture offered as an argument for credobaptism before. My experience with the brilliant Bible teaching by the various Federal Vision gents is that I get a principle under my belt, then automatically begin to see its implications for all of Scripture. But then numerous times I would be surprised when no one had thought of applying it consistently. The main offender is paedobaptism. Despite their claims, it is a rite that does not spring naturally from Scripture. In fact, it has to be protected from Scripture, from the very principles I have been taught by paedobaptists.

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Who was Darius the Mede?

In his commentary on the book of Daniel, The Handwriting On The Wall, (301-305) James Jordan writes:

Who was Darius the Mede? This question has vexed interpreters since the beginning of the Christian era. It is simplest to say that Darius the Mede is just another name/title for Cyrus the Persian, and to read Daniel 6:28 as follows:

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Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes is now available on amazon. It is a collection of very polished and reworked blog posts along with some new material. Here is the introduction…

BITTERSWEET

“Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”
(Proverbs 16:24)

If, in the language of biblical symbols, gold is solid light and oil is liquid light, then honey is liquid gold.

As the golden Ark contained the Ten Words, and the oil of the Lampstand lightened the path of the king, so honey is the Word of God in edible form. In the wilderness, manna tasted like honey wafers. In Canaan, the law of the Lord was even more desirable than its precious honey (Psalm 19:10; 119:103).

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After describing to an older Christian friend what happened in Jerusalem during the Jewish war, he replied, “Why have I never been taught this?”

Without their Covenant context and historical bearings, the pointy words of Jesus become so “generalized” that they seem inconsequential. In the wisdom of God, the tragic events of AD70 were recorded that we might understand the consequences of ignoring Jesus. They nail the New Testament Scriptures to the ground.

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Some excerpts from Ben Witherington’s long summary of William A. Johnson’s short book, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire:

Let me be clear that this book focuses on people like Pliny or Aulus Gellius or Galen, or Fronto or Lucian, but there is much to be learned from this book that can be applied, mutatis mutandis to literate Christians, their scribes, and early Christian communities of reading and writing…

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A new forum has been established for friends and readers of my blog.

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