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Showing posts from February, 2021

Freedom And Liberation From The Law

 [Romans 7] 7:25 The Law is holy and its commandment is holy and just and good (12). But sin, that diabolic power, manifests itself in its true colors (12) by using just that good Word of God to rouse in man the dormant will of opposition to God which destroys him. Paul illustrates this working of the Law (as misused by the power of sin) from his early life (7-13). Paul also shows us the working of the Law from his own experience with the Law as a Christian (14-25). It was contact with the Law, confronting him as the commandment, that first gave sin its deadly power in his life (9-11). Paul as a Christian, when confronted by the Law, becomes a man rent by an agonizing struggle (14-24) from which only Christ can and does release him from this hard fought struggle (25). Martin Franzmann and Walter H. Roehrs, Concordia Self-study Commentary [commentary on Romans], p. 131

Jewishness of John

Last week I argued that the Gospel of John was not written by gentiles. This week I will focus on three Jewish aspects of that Gospel. These can be summarized: (1) christology(2) knowledge of Jerusalem(3) language: use of Memra and sons of light These are not the only Hebraic aspects to John but they are enough for now. High christology High christology such as that of John has been seen as late developing and genitle rather than Jewish.Judaism of the first century was diverse and the Christology of John demonstrates affinities with other movements such as essenes.These would be movements within Judaism. First century Judasim tolerated many different views of Messiah."There was a broad spectrum of views tolerated within mainstream Judaism at the time, including the Pharisees, Sadducees and Zealots. Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls add the Essenes into the mix. And even Hebrew Christians were still allowed to sit in the synagogues in the early decades of the newly-fou

Was Gospel John Written by Gentiles?

Hugh Fogelman levels a charge, often heard from atheists, that the Gospel of John is ati-semetic. Theological Anti-Semitism is rampant in the Fourth gospel; in other words the gospel of John is anti-Semitic.  No other New Testament writing has as great an anti-Jewish agenda as found in John. Its attack against the individual Jew, “the Jews” and the Jewish observance of Hebrew laws, all reflect the early church’s extreme anti-Semitic stance. When confronted with the question of John’s anti-Semitism Christians do not answer, but respond with a question; “How can the gospel of John be called anti-Semitic when Jesus and his disciples were all Jews?” [1] He echoes some very standard assertions in support of this view: The Christian pulpit deliberately fails to inform their flocks of one important fact; No one knows who wrote any of the Gospels, nor when they were written. The gospel names were simply picked/chosen/assigned by the early church. Also, no one knows the religion of any New Te

Focusing on the Puzzle Piece without Seeing the Whole Puzzle

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“If God would concede me His omnipotence for 24 hours, you would see how many changes I would make in the world. But if He gave me His wisdom too, I would leave things as they are.” ― J.M.L. Monsabre A few days ago, I posted the quote above on my Facebook page. A very good friend of mine who is an atheist (a mistaken belief system transmitted to him by his over-the-top-atheist father) but still a great guy asked, "Really?" And when I responded "Year, really." He responded with the following:  So, you are okay with COVID-19, the massive over population, wars over religious and political differences, the way humans are trashing this planet, the huge difference in the quality of life between those who have and have-not. But, if you think about it, I guess COVID-19 is an example of Darwin at work weeding out the unhealthy from the population. If you are omnipotent and do nothing to help, you're just lazy and we are just an uncared for experiment in a petri dish.

taking break from posting