Bible Study Seattle

“Now the goal of the command is love which is from a pure heart and from a good conscience and from true Faith.”  1 Timothy 1:5  AENT

“Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”  1 Timothy 1:5  KJV

This change is words is major.  Christ is not the end of the law but the goal of it.  “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.”  Matthew 5:17  Notice the same thing elsewhere:

“For Mashiyach is the goal of Torah for righteousness to everyone that believes in him.”  Romans 10:4

“In that day the Egyptians will become weaklings. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the Lord Almighty raises against them.  And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what the Lord Almighty is planning against them.

In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord Almighty. One of them will be called the City of the Sun.

In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border.  It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them.  So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them.  The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.  In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth.  The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”  Isaiah 19:16-25

When has Judah been a terror to the Egyptians?  Not yet anyway.  This is a prophecy of the future.  It will probably be in the time of Jacob’s trouble just before the Day of Atonement.  The monument is the Great pyramid of Giza.  It’s interesting that the Lord strikes Egypt with a plague – will it be similar to one of the ten plagues of antiquity?  Ultimately there will be a confederation of Israel, Assyria, and Egypt, forming a large country spanning the entire eastern Mediterranean basin.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.  So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.  For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.  Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.”  Ephesians 5:25-33

How often do you hear this in church?  Husbands are to have the same effect on their wives as Christ on the church!  Husbands are to ‘wash’ their wives in the Word of God.  Most of us are deficient in this department.  Their are many bad influences in the world, and we must counteract this with God’s thoughts.  God will do this same thing when he raises everyone from the dead and teaches only his ways, having eliminated false teaching by locking up Satan!

Happy 4th of July!  Different nations have different independence anniversaries.  The Judeo-Christian equivalent has to be the 10th of Tishri – the Day of Atonement.  This is the most sacred day on the calendar, and the start of the Jubilee.   Curiously, the 50th year starts half way through the 49th year.  No doubt there are prophetic implications to this.  One of which is that the peaceable kingdom will start roughly half way through the Millennial reign of Christ.  It is also noteworthy that half way through the ‘day’ is the start of morning – when the sun begins shining.  “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.”  Malachi 4:2

Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies.  When ordaining women, the rationale is sometimes that protestants aren’t in the priestly tradition.  “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”  1 Peter 2:9

If the church is a royal priesthood, that is, a ruling priesthood, what are the roles?  “Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”  Revelation 20:4

Here the church is ruling with Christ.  That is the whole future purpose for the church.  (When we say church, we are referring to persons, not buildings).  Jesus says, “And Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”  Matthew 19:28

This brings up some interesting questions regarding gender.  We still have Jesus’ statement:  “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”  Matthew 22:30

Does this mean we will be genderless?  Or that we simply won’t marry and reproduce?  In any case, it is clear that there is a dispensational thing going on because during the Millennial reign there will be babies on earth:  “The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den.  They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,  For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.”  Isaiah 11:8-9

Also, it is clear that the church will bear children by Jesus:  “Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child; Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed; For the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous Than the sons of the married woman,” says the Lord.”  Isaiah 54:1

In other words, a female Christian who never had children in her first life will have more children in the second than was even possible in the first.  Just as Jesus may have 144,000 brides, those brides may have 1,000,000 children.  Jesus will surely outdo Solomon!  “The Queen of the South will rise up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.”  Matthew 12:42   But after that 1,000 year period, there is a change, a new dispensation:  “But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.  For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.”  1 Corinthians 15:23-25

Masada was the location of a siege where 900 rebels locked themselves in a fortress in defiance of the Romans.  They lost.  This happened between 73AD and 74AD.  40 years after the crucifixion.  Jerusalem was sacked in 70AD, 40 years after Jesus’ baptism.

The women’s ordination debate brings up many interesting questions extending well beyond the immediate debate.  Reading books on both sides is very instructive.  On the one side, passages like 2 Timothy 2:11-15 have been used to severely limit how women can minister.  On the other hand, the question is not entirely dissimilar to the debate about women in combat.

The future must necessarily be veiled from even God’s people.  Jesus said why:

“If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.”  Mark 3:26-27

God must keep the time secret lest Satan know his plans!  This does not mean the time is completely obscured.  Jesus said we would know the seasons.  We can have a rough idea.

The account of Gideon spans three chapters of Judges (6-8).  That means something.  Gideon saved Israel by routing Midian.  And he did it with only 300 men in the middle of the night.  Is this prophetic?  Perhaps some routing occurs around midnight of Jesus’ thousand year reign?  That would be a victory starting about 250 years into the Millennium.  250 years is similar to the 2500 Jubilee pattern found in the Chronology.  250 years from 1878 is 2138.  Time will tell.

What was the nature of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2?  Was it similar to the tree of life?  Was it even more attractive?  Or was it ordinary?  Was the curse merely disobeying God and nothing about the tree per se?  That is the conclusion of the famous commentator Matthew Henry (1662-1714).  But notice that the Tree of Life would sustain life indefinitely.  There was something physically special about the fruit of the tree of life.  It was the real fountain of youth.  There must have been something special physically about the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Did it have a mechanism to spark the aging process?  What if Adam and Eve never ate from either the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  Would they still die?  Presumably they had to eat of the tree of life.  Even Jesus, born of perfect seed, would have died without perfect food.  These are questions that will be answered in the future.