Bully's Blog

The word apocalypse does not denote the end of the world. It is literally a revelation, a revealing.

In his Pauline Theology paper, It’s the end of the flesh as we know it! A comparison of circumcision & apocalypse (2010), Steven Opp provides support for the identification of the book of Revelation as a Covenant lawsuit. Christ was circumcised, then Christ Himself was cut off. Israel was circumcised in Christ, then, in AD70, after decades of apostolic gospel witness, unbelieving Old Covenant Israel and its Temple worship, overseen by “the mutilation,” were cut off. On the final Day of Coverings, the flesh was exposed.

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William Booth’s eldest daughter, Founder of the Salvation Army in France and Switzerland, known later in life as “the Maréchale,” said, “Go for souls, and go for the worst.” So should we. After all, Jesus does.

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“For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh…” Romans 9:3

Andrew Katay commenting on an article by Don Carson:

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Jews, Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses have a big problem with the Son of God. How could God, a Spirit, take on human flesh and become a man? When we understand the significance of humanity being made in God’s image, and then being estranged from God by sin, the only mediator possible between the warring parties had to be both 100% God and 100% Man.

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“God is up to something, and He is taking us all the way through.”

“Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens…” Hebrews 8:1

Conservative Christian people know and understand that we deserve to be brought low. We know and understand the Law of God. We know our own sinfulness. We are very aware of how we fall short in many ways. We know that the holiness of God casts us down. This is all good, as far as it goes. This is healthy, as far as it goes. This is much needed in our day, as far as it goes. But we need to follow God’s purposes all the way out.

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Is that all there is to it?

“Can it really be so simple?” That is the feeling we have about the church. She has been given a mission of global conquest. As Rudolf Schnackenburg has explained, “Through the Church, Christ wins increasingly his dominion over all things and draws them ever more powerfully and completely beneath himself as head… the Church’s mission is necessary and willed by Christ to bring the world of men and with this the whole of creation under his rule.” One cannot conceive of a more astounding project. Continue reading

Centered on recent events, preaching inevitably loses most of its transformative power. From apostolic times, the task of preaching has never been a matter of providing a “religious insight” into what’s going on, a new slant on what everyone already knows. The purpose of apostolic preaching was to announce an event that, according to Paul, no one could know without a preacher. The point of preaching is not to answer questions that are already circulating. The point is to challenge the entire worldview that gives rise to those questions, and to announce the reality of a new world in which all the old questions have to be reformulated or discarded altogether.

Peter J. Leithart, Of Preaching and Newspapers.

The great argument advanced today in favor of such seeker sensitive worship is that we have to present the gospel to today’s unbeliever in a way that is relevant to him. But the word relevance, though it has a fine dictionary definition, really has to be understood as the battle cry of modern unbelief. This is not because the word itself is objectionable, but because liberals and their modern evangelical cousins have freighted it with a hidden system of weights and measures—in which the world, and not Scripture, determines the content of our faith and practice.

There are at least two kinds of irrelevance. One is the irrelevance of offering a bicycle to an oyster. But there is another kind of irrelevance entirely, and that is the practice of setting forth the gospel of light and righteousness to those who love their darkness and iniquity. We are commanded to be irrelevant in this second sense. We are called to worship God in a way that is pleasing to Him, and to which unbelievers will be attracted only if God moves them in a sovereign and mysterious way.

Read chapter 1, They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Schlock, here.

A new Adam (High Priest) ruled the wild animals of the Gentile kingdoms, but without a king this rule would be truly priestly. Daniel prefigured the nature of this new kingdom: obedience would bring persecution, and suffering as witnesses before the Gentiles would be the means of Gentile conversion. A new Israel would be the initial fulfilment of the despised, suffering priestly servant of Isaiah 53. When the Lord scattered His people for their sin, He also spread them to the four winds as witnesses to the empire.

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“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

Whenever the Word of God comes, it is an end to business as usual. Some people taste life, others taste death, and there is conflict between the quick and the dead. God sends confusion to those who have chosen death, and gives miraculous persevering strength to those who have chosen life. Eventually, the wicked are judged and the redeemed are gathered around God. God lets His Word loose among us to create new life, thresh out the husks and gather the wheat into His barn. He calls the sheep out from the goats and brings them home. He disturbs us to bring us true rest.

Jesus’ parables were a two-edged sword. They forced the believers to wrestle with spiritual truths. They also confused and incited the unbelievers to a showdown that would expose their true natures and hasten their destruction. The Bible is the same. It is living water or a cup of destruction depending upon who is drinking.