So I tend to look for things to listen to that challenge my beliefs. I have been listening to a Pastor of a Messianic Jewish Congregation in Hudson, WI.  I am not particularly of that worldview, but if there was anyone to convince me otherwise this is the guy.  His name is D. T. Lancaster and the congregation is Beth Immanuel. He does his homework and you are not going to hear what he brings up typically anywhere else.  Their website is:

http://www.bethimmanuel.org/

You will find their audio on this site.  There is also an old site that they had before they made their move to this new site, on which they had some fantastic teaching, which did not get transferred over, it is at:

http://genizah.bethimmanuel.org/

there is a series there that you must listen to, entitled “Born of a Virgin”.

1. Seven Difficulties
2. The Immanuel Prophecy
3. Scandalous Stories
4. The Stone the Builders Rejected
5. The Hidden Miracle
6. Two Genealogies
7. Seed of Joseph

Have you ever wondered:

• Why did Jesus have to be born of a Virgin?
• Why are there two different genealogies in Matthew and Luke?
• Why are there four women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus?  for what purpose?
• How was Jesus the son of David without being the real son of Joseph? is that a good assumption?
• Lots of other things…

You need to listen to these in order, and completely otherwise what he says will not make sense.

There are a couple of other Series I would suggest:

• 26 Reasons
• Death of Messiah

Have you ever heard the question, “If God is a Good God, then why is there Evil in the world?”.  I have had that question asked to me recently.

I guess I see things in a different light. To me, the presence of Evil in the world is a testimony of the Goodness of God.  No, this is not some theological excusing of Evil as a good thing, but an understanding of the Biblical stance on this issue. (I reject the notion that God created Evil to show how good He was in contrast, or any other such theology of Evil, attributing it to God).

Consider the Scriptures, 2 Pe 3:8-9 (NASB),

8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

There is Evil in the world because God has not judged it yet.  There should be some rejoicing over this, because it means he waited long enough for you and me to hear the gospel and come to Jesus.  Rather than Evil’s presence being an sign of a non-Good God, it is a sign of a Good, Loving, and Patient God.  Evil is what we must endure to see others come into the Kingdom. I believe this is what Paul is talking about when he describes suffering with Jesus (e.g. Rom 8:18), that is to put up with Evil in the world to see more come to salvation.  The scriptures says in Col 1:13-14 (NASB),

13     For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Without Jesus, we are part of the Evil that will be done away with.

What I believe people are talking about is a selective judgement of God on selective Evil in the world.  But, when God judges Evil, it will be everything.( It would be funny if not for the ramifications, but most non-Christians who think they are being “intellectual” by asking the question don’t understand they are condemning God for not being “good” in their eyes,  but asking for their demise.)  Selective would be assuming He could separate.  I think where the popular misconception happens is that God is judging this here and that there, selectively.  But Rom 2:1-5 (NASB) says:

1 Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.      2    And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.      3     But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? 4     Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?  5     But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself  in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

He is saying that one is storing up wrath, for the day of the judgement of God. and if that is not clear, later in that same chapter (Rom. 2:16 NASB):

16     on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.

There is an assumption here that God could be selective about what he would judge.  As far as I can see he is gracious until that Day of Judgement.  So Evil, as painful as it is, still points us to the Goodness of God.

All scripture from NASB, New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Copyright 2012 G. Edward Roberts (g.edward.roberts@gmail.com)

During the Christmas season, the Christmas story is typically read from Luke’s Gospel because Luke’s account of the story is so much more detailed than any of the other Gospel’s.  One message derived from this passage, that comes up over and over, is the statement “Nothing is impossible with God” from Luke 1:37.  Christians have abused this scripture sometimes from ignorance.

I have heard the true story of a Christian woman that lives in our area who wanted to be the wife of a famous Bible teacher.  She bought a wedding dress and held a wedding ceremony (the groom in absentia).  Problem was this famous Bible teacher was already married so she was believing that his wife would die.  What scripture did she use to justify this act? Yes, you guessed it, “Nothing is impossible with God”.  Now this is an extreme story, but we all have this scripture in the back of our minds, and we all, if without the understanding of what it says, could be tempted to use it in a similar albeit not so extreme way.  What should be asked: Is this what it really says?

Well no, not exactly.  In Greek, it say,

οτι ουκ αδυνατησει παρα τω Θεω παν ρημα

if you don’t have Greek fonts on your computer this is transliterated as

“oti ouk adunathesei para to Theo pan rhema”

Literal: “because not will be without-power alongside God every word (rhema)”

Because Greek is a conjugated/declined language (i.e. parts of sentence structure, such as who the subject is, are shown via the morphology, form, of the word, typically at the end of the word), the Greek sentence has the ability to shift words around.  Typically this is done to put the most emphasized words at the beginning of the sentence.  So the emphasis here is the “not without-power” phrase, this is the most important part of the sentence.  The “παν ρημα” (pan rhema)  is nominative, so a better English ordering (English not being a conjugated/declined language like Greek, we need word order to understand) would be:

“because not any word will be without-power alongside God”.

In Greek, double negatives are common (used for emphasis) so “not any word will be without-power”, could be un-negatized to

“because any word (rhema) will be with-power alongside God“.

There are three things to look at to understand the full meaning of this verse:

1. The Greek preposition “παρα” (para)

Many English Bibles have the preposition “with” as the translation.  This is ok, but too semantically wide of a term.  The Greek preposition “meta” would be more appropriately translated this way.  You can be bicycling “with” someone and be several miles behind them.  This Greek preposition “para” has the connotation of “near, next to, alongside, besides”.

It is interesting that both “meta” and “para” were used previously in this passage.  Gabriel said “The Lord is with (meta) you” to Mary.  Mary was pondering what this greeting meant.  Gabriel then said, more precisely, “You have found favor with (para) God”.  You are alongside God, and this is where you have found favor.  This is also important because what was to happen to Mary was not with a God somewhere afar off, the Holy Spirit was going to come upon (Greek “epi”) Mary and his power will overshadow (Greek “episkiasei “) Mary, literally “To cast a shadow upon”.

The other two stories where this Greek word is used is with the Cloud that cast a shadow on those at the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt. 17:5, Mk. 9:7, Lk. 9:34) and Peter who cast a shadow over the sick and they were healed (Acts 5:15).  I believe the Acts story was to indicate that it was being in the proximity of Peter’s person that the healing was taking place.  Similarly, Gabriel was saying Mary, you will be right there alongside God, in the Holy Spirit’s shadow, that is how this pregnancy will take place.

The force of this preposition is that this statement is NOT necessarily true, if in fact you are NOT alongside (or near) God.

2. The Greek verb “αδυνατησει” (adunathesei)

This Greek word’s lemma  has two parts “a” which is a negation so “non, not, without” and “dunatos” which is “power, ability”.  This verb is “future, active, indicative, third person, singular” so “will be without-power” and the subject of the phrase is “any word”.

(In general, it is not always possible to derive the meaning of a Greek word from its constituent parts.  We have this in English with the word “Butterfly”.  You would not get the meaning of this English word should you look at its parts.  But, there are a lot (perhaps the majority) of words in English and Greek where you can do this.  One must look at several contexts to make sure the meaning is clear.  In the New Testament this word only appears twice.  But looking at older Greek text this word appears with the meaning “without ability, without strength”.  So the derivation of meaning using constituent parts seems to be justified.)

It is interesting, because, previously, in the passage above, in Lk 1:35, the literal translation is

“Spirit Holy (shall come upon) upon you and power of highest (shall cast a shadow upon) you”.

(Note I have grouped the words translated from a single verb with parenthesis.  There are a lot of Greek prepositions “epi”, literal “upon”, here, both in the prefix of the two verbs and one preposition.)

The word “power” in Lk 1:35 is the same word used in the negative in Lk 1:37.  What we see here is a poetic, 2 phrase restatement, much like we have in the Psalms and Proverbs.

Holy Spirit shall come upon you,
Power of Highest shall cast a shadow upon you.

Holy Spirit = Power of the Highest
Shall come upon = Shall cast a shadow upon

This is where the power is from, it is the Holy Spirit, and it is not power from a distance, He will be close enough to “cast a shadow upon” you (i.e. being alongside God).

There is only one other place in the New Testament that this word for “impossible” is used.  It is Mt. 17:20:

“And nothing will be impossible for you”.

Here the Greek word for “nothing” is “ouden”, which means “not one” or “not even one”.  In the context here, two things stand out.  First, that “nothing” is constrained by faith.  The beginning of that sentence is “If you have faith”.  (Note to self: write blog on what you can and cannot have faith for, according to the scriptures.)  Secondly, it came by words, “say to this mountain”.  In fact, the context of when Jesus said this to his disciples is when they were trying to cast out (with words) the demon from a boy.  We should note that the with-power (impossibility) spoken of here has to do with words.

In Lk 1:37,  it is the “word” (rhema) that is said to be with-power.

3. The Greek word “ρημα” (rhema)

The problem with the phrase “Nothing is impossible with God”, is that there seems to be no constraints.  If “Nothing” is impossible, then how can we condemn the Christian lady in the wedding dress?  But that is not what is stated, which has been demonstrated above. Nothing here equals “not any word (rhema)”.  “Nothing” is a very bad translation.

Rhema is a Greek word that simply has the meaning of a “spoken word”.  Many times though it can have the connotation of “specific word spoken to someone”.  Remember, this statement was said by the angel Gabriel, as he brought a word (rhema) to Mary from God (this is very specifically said at the beginning of this story, Gabriel was sent from God).

Words, the fruit of the tongue, come with power.

“Death and Life are in the Power of the Tongue and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” (Prov. 18:6).

We have seen above where the Holy Spirit equals the “Power of the (Most) Highest”.  But we also see throughout the New Testament that when the Holy Spirit comes, words come first.  This is true when in Acts the Holy Spirit came they were filled and began to speak with other Tongues, or they prophecy through the Holy Spirit.  Words are essential.

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word (rhema) of God”. (Rom 10:17)

What comes first, words.

“By Faith, we perceive that the ages were (put into proper condition) by a word (rhema) of God.”(Heb 11:3, literal translation)

If you look at Hebrews chapter 11, you find men and women, who are close to (beside) God, each who received a word from God, and then carried out their destiny based on it.  Verse 3 simply says that these ages were put in proper condition (that was the power working) by these men and women.

This is the pattern seen in scripture:  First words come and then power to carry them out.

Counter Example

Is there a counter example that we can also learn from concerning this subject? I think there is.  A Counter example in this case would be words without power.  In Acts 19:13f, we have the seven sons of Sceva who tried to use words to exercise a demon from a man.  You will notice in the text that they stated “I adjure you by the Jesus Paul proclaims”.  Hardly a “beside God” statement.  The results were disastrous for them, in that when the demon in the man was through with them, they ran naked from the house, all seven of them.  This example shows that it is not merely the speaking of words that brings power, but the position you have with God.

 Application

“because any word (rhema) will be with-power alongside God”

How is knowing this applicable in our lives.  What ensures the power will come to a situation is two things:  being alongside God and  have a word from Him.  One is something we can do, the other is something God can only do.  The story of Mary is sometimes not understood because of the nuances of Greek words.  Mary found favor because she was “para” (alongside) God.  That is what the first part of Gabriel’s message was to Mary (Lk. 1:30).  The passage indicated a position Mary took, and she found favor, because of something she did.  If you are born  again then the Holy Spirit resides within you (you are a temple of the Holy Spirit I Cor 6:19)

The second part is having a word.  This is not a word we produce, but one produced for us by God.  These can either be a word that God has spoken in general (like the promises to us in the Bible) or ones that is specifically given to one through the Holy Spirit.  This is why praying in the Spirit is so effective.  Not only does one speak the words the Holy Spirit gives one to say (He gives the utterance, Acts 2:4), but He is there to carry those words out (He is the power).  This encapsulates the greatness of God and why He uses this pattern.  First He tells you what he is going to do, and then He does it.  I believe that words are where the spiritual world can interact with the physical world.

copyright 2012 G. Edward Roberts (g.edward.roberts@gmail.com)

I have an advanced degree in mathematics, and my wife always says that this degree changed me (and not necessarily for the good).  I have a tendency towards logic, and this degree pushed me over (or so says my wife).  So I tend to view things in a  different way some times, and have a different vocabulary to describe things, than some.

One of my favorite things to find when hearing about a subject, is the concept of a metric.  In mathematics, it is how you measure something.  So for instance, if you wanted to measure the distance between two points, you say “easy”, pull out your ruler (a straight edge between the two points) and measure between those two points.  That is the standard metric, or a way to measure distance.  But that is only one type of measure.  Another metric would be to set a grid, like city blocks, and then a measurement might be five blocks, two blocks east and three blocks north.  This is also a valid metric; it just depends on what additional properties one wants in a metric.  The concept of a metric is important because it is how we measure a particular property of something.

You can see how this might translate into spiritual things.  There are multiple ways one COULD measure spiritual things.  But we must be attentive to what the scripture says.  I was struck one day when reading the following passage:

In John 15

7     “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.      8     “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

And this scripture

16     “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Now fruitfulness is a measure, you can be more fruitful, or less fruitful.  It is not either/or, but a quality measure.  But what is that measure?  Some would say it is the number of “souls” one can get saved.  Sounds reasonable but is that what Jesus said was “fruit”.  I believe the metric Jesus used was something else.

If you looked at the two passages of scripture above, we see a pattern, in fact one that I would argue is Jesus’ definition of fruitfulness.

As I read this scripture you get this metric

“amount of fruit” = “what you ask for, you get”

I have looked over this scripture in Greek, and there are a couple of possible options of interpretation but my conclusions are if this “what you as for, you get” is not the measure of fruitfulness, then it is tightly related.

One thing to notice in this passage is that Jesus said “My words abide in you”, and “what you ask for, you get”.  I don’t think that this is a “anything you ask for” type of passage, nor do I believe that would necessarily be fruit in one’s life.  But if the words of Jesus come out of your mouth and they come to pass, I believe that is the definition of fruitfulness (expressed by Jesus himself).

I have been thinking about what has happened in our economy from the so-called “Bailouts” and the money involved.

First, I beileve they were/are uncalled for, immoral, and wrong thinking.

But I believe there is a greater danger than just the money that was unwisely spent.  That is the issue of being “Arbitary”.  There is nothing that kills production (of every kind) by having arbitary behavior.  Let me give you an example.  Suppose I was a local official in a community and I spent my spare time in saving the community several hundred thousand dollars on a road project.  Then in a matter of a week, congress votes to arbitrarily bailout an industry, with tax dollars that I or my progeny will have to pay.  The money spent on that bailout makes my effort in savings look like nothing.  Do you think I would spend my spare time doing that again? Hardly.

I read a quote the other day: “The ability to plan is crusial to production”.  I think that this is the real issue in this whole problem.  No one knows where to make an investment because there is no stability.  Who knows what arbitrary law Congress will make, or what changes in the tax code that they will put in place.  By the way, we have a term for this type of action: Facism, which is the philosophy that one does whatever is necessary, without regard to principles.  Without principles, no one knows what is happening in the future, therefore there is no ability to plan, and no production.

I continue to look for things in the scripture as I read that arrest me in my thinking.  Too many people read the scriptures to afirm their beliefs, which is ok, but one should also be looking for things in the scriptures to change, refine, and sharpen your beliefs.  None of us have a perfect model of how everything is, everyone needs to twik their understanding of doctrines and issues.

I had been meditating on Matthew 7,

This scripture caught me, because I  never weighted Jesus’ statements.  We tend to have commonly used phrases come up in our minds when we read things (our models of the world trigger these things off  in our minds).  For this particular scripture, the common phrase that came up was “you need to really get to know Jesus”.  But wait that is not what he said.

When I looked at it, the analogy of a celebrity came to my thinking.  We can know a lot about that celebrity through the magazines.  Millions of people know more about our pop and movie stars than they would probably like them to know about them: what they like, their mannerisms etc.  But, this does not get you invited to their parties.  It is only when the celebrity knows you, that you get invited to their parties.

Jesus said in this verse, “I never knew you”.  That really is the crux of this scripture.  Stop and think about this.   The people in this verse were doing what they thought was fulfilling their callings, casting out demons, etc.  In fact, I would probably not be reading too much into this scripture saying that they knew a lot about Jesus to pull those things off.  Jesus’ stark statement was this is not what is going to get you through.  God needs to know you.

Paul makes an interesting statement in Galations 4:

(this blog is a topic in a book I am writing called “New Testament Giving”… or something like that… look for it at your newsstands 🙂 )
copyright 2009 G. Edward Roberts (g.edward.roberts@gmail.com)

When I moved and came to the church I am presently in about two and a half years ago, I started praying with a group that prayed early (for me) every morning. I have always found that praying in the spirit for that much time always leads to me being able to receive revelation from the Lord. That is how things tend to come to me, not in tongues and interpretation, not in prophecy, but all of a sudden I see a revelation in the word I have never seen before; I probably get things that way because of my calling as a teacher.

When I moved, I had come out of employment with US Navy, into my own software consulting business. The Lord had spoken a very strong word specifically to me, not audible, but just in my spirit, saying “I will teach you how to operate a business by Grace” and “Part of that understanding will entail New Testament Giving”. I have been contending for the fullness of that statement ever since.

(0ther blogs on these subjects are under the categories of “New Testament Giving” and “Business by Grace”).

One of the first things I started to study and meditate (i.e. think about, mull over, let the Holy Spirit speak to me about) was II Corinthians 9:10

Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness;
New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995

(see blog on the study of II Cor. 9:10 alone).

I was praying to receive a greater revelation of the meaning in that scripture. Notice the “and” (kai in Greek) between “will supply and multiply your seed for sowing” and “increase the harvest of your righteousness”.   I started to search to see how people had taught about this last part of the verse. Usually it is taught in the context of prosperity in the sense that our harvest of seed sown is part of our being righteous. But I felt this tug that even though that may be true, it is not the full understanding of the message of this scripture.

This verse says that he will “increase the harvest of your righteousness”, not “increase your righteousness”. You are as righteous as you ever going to be (II Cor 5:17), so this verse is not saying you can (or God can, for that matter) increase your righteousness, only what is produced (harvested) out of that righteousness (assuming that you are born again).

You will also notice that this verse distinctly links giving and righteousness. In the verse before, Paul quotes Psalms 112:9 almost verbatim from the Septuagint,

One morning, while we were praying, I heard these things: “would you be willing to give (sow) money and harvest (reap) only out of your righteousness rather than getting some material thing back?”. I said yes Lord if I can understand what you were talking about. The words continued, “both sides of this are for you, you have been having faith for the first part of that scripture, receiving back a harvest of finances from finances sown, but because you have not seen the second part of that verse, you have not been having faith for its fulfillment in your life”. I perked up, and started to ask the Lord for revelation about that second verse and prayed in the spirit so that mysteries could be revealed (I Cor. 14:2). The first part of it came a couple of days later in that early morning time of prayer (the fourth example given below) and subsequently I have been shown three other scriptural passages that pertain to this. I believe there are more He wants to reveal, but I will share with you the four I currently have. These are not the order I received them but the fourth is a bit long to explain, so I put it last.

Scriptures linking Giving and the Harvest of Righteousness

1. Isaiah 58:6-10 Fasting’s relationship to giving

Typically when we read this passage on fasting we focus on verse 6 which says

We focus on verse 6 because it tells us the results of the fast for the fast-er. But I am not so sure we have read that scripture correctly. It goes on to say:

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