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12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food…

It looks like we all survived Thanksgiving. Is anyone still hungry? I am pretty sure that what I did to the steaks, Cornish Hens, and Ham were a sin. I spent the last few days repenting. Now we are going into Christmas, how many of you already have your decorations up? In our family we exchange gifts…

Preeminent Domain Last week we saw how the arrival of John the Baptist and Jesus the messiah played out against the backdrop of the divine council passage in Isaiah 40 . While the episodes of John’s appearance and Jesus’ baptism are familiar, the framework provided by Isaiah is easy to miss. The supernatural…

Rules of Engagement In Act 1 Scene 5 of Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, Hamlet says to his friend: “ There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy .” We often filter biblical content through certain presumptions and traditions Traditions are not intrinsic to the…

A FORTIORI A fortiori in Latin literally means "from the stronger (argument)". The term is used when drawing a conclusion that's even more obvious or convincing than the one just drawn. If God can do the harder thing, He easily can do the easier thing. Elijah and Positional Truth 1 Ki 17:1-7 The Drought…

Final Verdict Eden, Babel, Sinai, and Israel: Acts in Council and Human Failure Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping…

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. I was asked to do a funeral last week and of course God always teaches or shows…

The Rider of the Clouds A few of the fundamental elements of the Old Testament mosaic are familiar and we will not take the time to analyze those. One of these is kingship. The Israelite kingship had a quasi-divine flavor, which was common in the Near East - civilizations believed kingship was instituted…

Standing in the Council Let’s face it. Few bible readers know much about the prophets, who after the conquest take a back seat to David, Solomon, and maybe a couple of the judges. The average Christian reads the prophetic material only when the pastor needs a good sermon on sin or judgment. The prophets…

Giant Problems This will begin with a review: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” So this struggle begins. Remember the serpent is actually a divine being, not a mere member of the animal…

God’s Law - God’s Council I’ll admit, it’s a little hard to get excited about the Law of God. How many of us would echo Paul’s sentiment, that he delighted in the Law of God in his heard? Or how many of us think of the law the way David did? The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony…

Who is like Yahweh? Who is like Yahweh? Yahweh, the Most High, the God of gods, shunned the nations. He made himself known to his chosen people, his earthly portion, in the form of a man. The revelation began with Abraham and was repeated to Isaac and Jacob. The Angel who was Yahweh in human form changed…

Peril and Providence We went through a few questions rather quickly last time as we were ending the study. There was a comment about God’s decisions involving risks at times. How is that appropriate? If God knew (knows) what was going to happen - and if he predestines the events - where’s the risk? Perhaps…

Infiltration The day of Pentecost is an event remembered by millions of Christians each year. Although Acts 2 is one of the more familiar passages in the New Testament outside the gospels, what the passage describes as happening that day definitely sounds strange. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they…

Abraham’s World We learned from Deut. 32: 8-9 that YHWH placed the nations under the governance of junior elohim - the sons of God of His divine council. Having disinterested humanity, unwilling as it was to fulfill the mandate of Eden to overspread the earth, he decided to start over. The reader of…

Cosmic Geography Last week we looked at YHWH’s disinheritance of the nations. This was the theological lens through which an ancient Israelite viewed her own nation with respect to all others, and her elohim YHWH, against the gods of the nations. By definition YHWH was superior he was Most High… the…

If it’s weird it’s important Last week we saw that many of the common views of Gen 6:1-4 are seriously flawed. We need to remember that the proper context for reading any biblical text is the context in which it was written. The Biblical writers of the New Testament were influenced by works in their…

The Mount of Assembly The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean…

Foe from the North Literal Geographical North: Harbinger of Doom The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of…

Sons of God, Seed of Abraham We have spent a lot of time talking about God’s plan to reclaim the disinherited nations and restore his rule over those he disinherited. By way of review: God’s original plan was that all humankind would be his earthly family, ruling in cooperation with him and his heavenly…

A Beneficial Death By the time of the events in the regions known in the Old Testament as Bashan — Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi and the transfiguration on Mount Hermon — Jesus knew that the hour of his death was fast approaching. He had provoked a confrontation with intelligent evil in many…

God’s Entourage Children often ask, “what was there before the world?” The answer most Christian adults would give is that GOD was there. That is true but incomplete. God has company. And I am not talking about the other members of the Trinity. The heavenly host existed before creation The Biblical answer…

Realm Distinction We’ve been tracking the story of Yahweh and his portion, Abraham’s descendents. Yahweh chose to disinherit the nations at Babel. He chose to appear to Abraham in visible, human form to initiate a covenant relationship. He chose to reiterate that covenant with Isaac and Jacob, whom he…

Lower Than the Elohim Last week we ended with a life-changing thought: we are the children of God, destined to displace the defeated, disloyal sons of God who now rule the nations. Believing followers of Jesus Christ are the fulfillment of God’s plan to have humanity join the divine family-council and…