Tag: law
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Ministry Monday: Stop Casting New Vision
People don’t need us to cast a grand vision. They need us to be faithful. You’ve heard it before: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Great leaders stand on their podiums and at their pulpits to cast a grand vision about how things can be and how we will get there! I ask,…
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Stop Casting New Vision; A Reflection on Proverbs 29:18
People don’t need us to cast a grand vision. They need us to be faithful. You’ve heard it before: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Great leaders stand on their podiums and at their pulpits to cast a grand vision about how things can be and how we will get there! I ask,…
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No One Can See God at Any Time: Daily Devo, John 1:14-18
The Word, Jesus, became flesh. I don’t understand this to mean that the divine transformed into flesh but rather assumed human flesh, such that the human flesh and nature was added to the divine nature without losing the divine nature in any degree or respect. In this incarnation, we were finally able to behold God—full…
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God’s Law, Just Society, and Our Dishonest Gain: Reflecting on the Plea of Psalm 119
In psalm 119 so far, the psalmist As the psalmist reflects on the Law of God, he continues, Incline my heart to Your testimonies And not to dishonest gain (Psalm 119:36). Since the psalmist sees the Law of God as opposite dishonest gain, we get to ask another question of God’s Law–Does God’s Law actually…
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The Source of Happiness and Blessing in Psalm 119
In the first two stanzas of Psalm 119, we saw the psalmist reject his own selfish ways in favor of God’s ways because God’s ways are better. He came humbly to God, asked God to train him, and beseeched his Lord not to forsake him utterly. Stanzas 3 and 4 (ג , ד) sound very…
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Thinking Biblically About the Alien, Man-Made Politics Aside
People always assume their agendas are correct and are quick to accuse people who don’t agree with them as being completely godless. Not many people today really try to understand someone else’s position. They simply draw caricatures and criticize those caricatures in ways that don’t actually help anyone. They only accomplish the heightening of other’s…
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The Heart of True Praise: The Psalmist as Our Example in Psalm 119
I believe Scripture is divinely inspired. Every human author, guided by the Holy Spirit, penned the only word that is profitable for “teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). In the inspiration of Scripture, God felt…
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Jesus as Prophet and The Personal Salvation Debate Among Jews in the First Century
In these notes, I first show the point of John 3:1-2 by offering a biblical apologetic for Jesus as having the authority of a prophet to reveal new revelation. Then, I explore the theological environment of First Century Judea in order to provide historical context for Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus. It is no surprise that…
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Food and Drink- Exodus 29:31-46
Earlier, we saw the table of presence given as a reminder that God intended to eat and drink with His people. With the sacrifice of Christ, God would pull His own mercy seat up to the table because the veil would be torn. This eating and drinking imagery permeates all of the religious practices God…
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Ordination- Exodus 29:1-9
Aaron and his sons are ordained for their priestly ministry. The phrase translated as ordain, here (ומלאת יד–אהרן ייד–בניו), literally means to fill the hand of Aaron and his sons. The earliest mention of a type of ordination by the people of anyone to any kind of ministry in Scripture literally means that through ordination,…