August 19, 2017

The Apostolic Approach to Evangelism

[…] The approach builds around the well known story of Joseph, as type and parable of both comings of Christ to Israel. The idea is to begin with a couple of key portions of Old Testament prophecy in order to establish a simple outline of the prophetic future, particularly as it pertains to the relationship of Christ’s two comings to Israel. This will provide a convenient frame of reference that can enable and equip any believer to make the case for the mystery of the gospel in the Old Testament, particularly in its relationship to Israel and the events that conclude the age.

To introduce the subject matter, I sometimes begin with people’s universal familiarity with the story of Bethlehem as an opportunity to show them the amazing prophecy in Mic 5:2, pointing out its great antiquity (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then call their attention to an even less known feature of that prophecy in the next verse. “Therefore shall He (Yahweh) ‘give them up’ UNTIL the time that she who travails has brought forth; then shall the remnant of His brethren return to the children of Israel (Mic 5:3). It is the age long “giving up” of Israel, but we want to identify the cause of this abandonment as something more ultimately provoking of divine displeasure than covenant failure in general. […]

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tomquinlan

February 4, 2015

The Revelation of the Mystery – [Video]

The last two hours of our recent online study on Romans Chapter 16 was particularly rich. Reggie, Travis and others explored “the mystery” now revealed. What is it, and what isn’t it?

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tomquinlan

July 6, 2013

The God Who Conceals and Reveals [Video]

Mark Klafter delivered this message at the 2012 Olivet Convocation

No playlist was necessary for this video. It may be watched in its entirety. Approx 2 hrs.

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reggiekelly

August 26, 2012

The Gentile Gap Between His Appearings

I’ve been listening to your commentary on Isaiah 28 and you said at one point: “Didn’t He tell you He would make you jealous by a foolish people?” and “Didn’t He tell you that while He’s hiding his face there is a secret….?” I know the first is from Dt […]

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reggiekelly

June 4, 2012

The New and Everlasting Covenant

Would you say that the “everlasting covenant” is synonymous with the “new covenant,” and are there any details you would give to fill in the meaning of that covenant? I would say that there is no difference. In the prophets the Everlasting / New Covenant (‘covenant of peace’ etc.) is […]

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reggiekelly

June 5, 2011

Against All Odds

There is a phrase that is not in scripture, but it captures so much of what the Bible is all about. “Against All Odds” is the apt title of a video series that traces the modern miracle of the Jewish repatriation of the Land, and the amazing story of how the fledgling […]

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reggiekelly

March 14, 2011

The God Who Hides Himself

Thank you (and thank God!) for the piece I just re-read on “The Mystery of the Gospel”. The matter of the gem and its setting explains so succinctly the transition that my wife and I have undergone, as I have tried to express before, in this regard. But, once the […]

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reggiekelly

January 9, 2011

The Mystery of the Gospel

[…] Before its revelation, the mystery of an anonymous suffering servant (let alone two distinct comings) would only raise such questions as those put by the Ethiopian eunuch, “Of whom does the prophet speak? Of himself or some other man?” Therefore, the church is foolish and perverse to exalt itself over Israel, imputing to the Jew a special stubbornness for not seeing what was plainer than the nose on their face. This is a self righteous presumption that understands nothing of what confronted Israel. It is the same perverse superficiality that prevails in the church’s facile comparison of itself with the stereotype of the Pharisee. When it is seen what the Pharisee actually represented in the context of that generation, a discerning believer would not exalt or glory over them, but cry out, “who is sufficient?!”, But that’s another subject, though not unrelated.

Since Pentecost, the mystery has been openly revealed and made universally available, albeit only in the sense of its outward form. It still takes a miracle of mercy and grace to truly apprehend it in terms of its glorious implications. In this sense, it remains, by its very nature, elusive to pride, even in its revealed form. It was hidden for a twofold purpose: 1). It is hidden so that when it is seen, we may know that it is mercy indeed, and nothing of ourselves that has made us to differ from Israel, or anyone for that matter. […]

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reggiekelly

October 22, 2009

“When saw we Thee?”

[…] When it comes to Israel’s unbelief, it is amazing to see all that conspires to reinforce it. Not only centuries of “Christian” antisemitic behavior, but even how certain verses are translated, let alone interpreted, compounds the distance between church and synagogue. Take for example the Jewish translation of Zech 12:10. Compare it with most Christian translations and you will see what I mean. Of course, Christian linguists, such as Walter Kaiser in his book, “the Messiah in the Old Testament” argues the translation question with decisive evidence for the messianic interpretation. But the average believer must take considerable pains to be informed. It may be effective on some occasions, but it’s not always quite as easy as quoting Zech 12:10 as proof that the Jewish nation pierced their own Messiah. .

Or take Dan 9:25-26. Our translations stress our Christian conviction that the anointed one that is “cut off” is the Messiah by capitalizing the word for anointed and translating the passage with a definite article, “the Messiah the Prince”. This is all legitimate, but the informed Jewish position sees this as speaking only of “an anointed prince,” which they typically interpret as referring to Onias III, the officiating high priest who was murdered when Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Jewish alter in the 2nd century B.C, who, of course, became the great archetype of the Antichrist in later apocalyptic literature. [..]

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