[…] Paul makes this a matter of liberty and personal conscience, not to be judged by another. So you are free to use your Shabbat blessing as you choose, as a sweet offering to the Lord, and as refreshment to your soul, your family, and as many as are inclined to observe with you. It is unto the Lord that you regard the day; and He is honored by what’s in your heart. After all, the day was not made for its own sake, but for you. However, mark well that IF we were still under the law as a binding administration, this would not be so. It would then be a very particular matter indeed, and no part of all the appurtenances of Sabbath observance could be left undone without spoiling the whole. […]
The Deeper Conversion of the Converted
[…] Although knowing and appreciating Art’s meaning in that title, I used to tell him that it might have been more accurately entitled “FEW saved and even fewer converted,” that is, converted in the sense that Peter was ‘turned’ after the great blow to his presumption. I wrote an article entitled “the deeper conversion of the converted,” in which I showed the evidence that Peter was indeed regenerate (the common meaning attached to the word ‘converted’), but was not as yet completely ‘turned’ (broken and emptied of self-reliance) in the sense that Jesus uses the word in that instance. […]
In The Year That King Uzziah Died…
[…] I think what we’re reaching for here is to try to find something of the pattern or dynamic in Isaiah’s transforming vision from which all else followed. Is there a key? What manner of preliminary grace or deep dealings prepares the soil for such a divine in-breaking?
In traveling with Art and interacting with him over the Isa 6 message, I pointed out the significant analogy of Isaiah’s experience with Israel’s apocalyptic revelation when “they shall LOOK upon Me whom they have pierced” (Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39). This is, of course, the great day of the Lord when the Deliverer comes out of Zion to accomplish Israel’s final redemption. But there is more to this than the mere visible return of Christ. We must not neglect why this event has such a different effect on the beleaguered remnant than same event will have on the demonically driven nations. It is the element of gracious revelation; “the Spirit of grace and supplication.” Otherwise, the vision of the returning Lamb would be unbearable, as in the case of the mark bearing ‘earth dwellers’. […]
Provoking Israel to Jealousy
[…] It is not scriptural to expect that the church of the last tribulation will attain to a stature that will so eclipse the earliest church as to provoke the Jew to jealousy in a way never accomplished through the apostles themselves. No, rather, it is as you suggest. There will always be the mixed reaction, and I believe until the end, the response will be predominantly negative, more often anger than emulation. Though, of course, there will always be “some,” but ‘only’ some that will be moved to the kind of jealousy that leads to salvation, but even this will often, perhaps most often, follow an initial reaction of hostility.
I especially appreciated how you put it: “the entire group could not have been anything but provoked just by the mere preaching of gospel of grace that demolishes religious self-righteousness and extends mercy to them who are ‘no people'”. That’s the point. But NOT only Israel’s salvation at the end of tribulation, but the purification and maturation of the church through tribulation (Dan 12:10; Acts 14:22) is all part of God’s strategy to vindicate His name and glory in both as inextricable aspects of the eschatological vindication of the Word concerning both. […]
Apocalyptic Evangelism
[…] Yes, there was a body of writings and notes in preparation for what was to be a seven module series on the concept of apocalyptic evangelism, which basically aimed at equipping believers with a framework of reference and understanding that, appealing to such themes as covenant and prophecy, would raise Jewish awareness of the great issues of divine contention, expecting that this would count as seed that would have its greater working and witness in the face of growing world antiSemitism, making increasing sense of the prophetic warning of the approaching time of Jacob’s trouble and the divine contention that this represents, hence the name, “Apocalyptic Evangelism.”
It was not so much aimed at accomplishing a more immediate decision for Christ, as in Jews for Jesus, but to engage Jewish thought and consideration concerning the great issues of their own professed faith in Moses and the prophets, and this can only be done by a believer who understands the covenant context that creates the divinely intended tension that is only resolved from the stand point of the ‘revealed secret’ of the gospel. Thus it wasn’t intended as a how to manual, but only to provoke serious reflection on our own faith AS it is brought into confrontation with the formidable Jew in his ‘otherwise minded’ view of scriptural authority and interpretation. It was to review ways to press the covenant background of Israel’s exilic sufferings and the age-long hiding of God’s face on Jewish consideration. […]
