The Good Old Days

Wise words for a new year. 

“Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For you do not inquire wisely concerning this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10).

Were the “nineties” really gay? Were the “twenties” really innocent? Were there any good old days? Don’t ask! It is not wise, For who knoweth what is good for man In this life.

Speak not of gay times, For the heart of the wise is In the house of mourning, But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Speak not of past years of song and dance, For it is better to hear the rebuke of the wise Than for a man to hear the song of fools. Speak not of days of law and order, For there is a time wherein one man ruleth over another To his own hurt. Speak not of days when work was honest, For all the labor of man is for his mouth, And yet his appetite is not satisfied.

This day is ours.

Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better Than that a man should rejoice in his own works, For that is life’s portion. Who shall bring him to see What shall be after him?

Our day will be envied By those of tomorrow.

(David Wilkerson: May 19, 1931 – April 27, 2011)

Source

Looking forward to the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ: Titus 2:13

The Manhattan Declaration: Bizarre

You may recall The Manhattan Declaration from 2009 (Christian Leaders Unite on Political Issues – The Ecumenical Manhattan Declaration ) and the response from many Christians around the blogosphere: (The Manhattan Declaration – Another reason why I’ll never support the Manhattan Declaration). Rick Frueh at Judah’s Lion even wrote a parable on the topic, The Manhattan Declaration.  Two more related links: Steve Camp, THE DUNG OF OUR OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS …the Manhattan Declaration and A Rebuke to the Manhattan Declaration Signers. I recall my surprise at those named who did sign it…in particular, Albert Mohler.

I wonder if all those signees agree with The Manhattan Declaration’s latest article and list, which frankly I find somewhat bizarre; 

What if Jesus had been aborted?

If Christ were never born, our history, our surrounding, every culture, and even the earth would be a vastly different place. Think about it, if Christ were never born, there would be no reason to have Christmas and your very birth is questionable (would your parents have met?). 

Famous Buildings, There would be no Cathedrals in Europe. The Louvre Museum which held a majority of confiscated church property may not have opened as it did in 1793. The famous Westminster Abbey probably wouldn’t have been constructed.

Art, The influence of Christ’s life greatly influenced the arts. Michelangelo wouldn’t have painted the Sistine Chapel and there would be no Pieta in the Vatican- further, no Vatican at all.

Classical Music, Famous composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, is considered one of the most important and influential European classical music composers of all time. Most of Bach’s music was written for the Lutheran church. Even Mozart used parts of his religious compositions in secular cantatas and pieces from his operas for church purposes. It is unlikely that either composer would have had such passion for developing original music had that passion not been birthed and nurtured in a Christian Church.

Discovery of America, Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint Bede the Venerable in his Reckoning of Time, written around AD 723. In Columbus’ time, the techniques of celestial navigation, which use the position of the Sun and the Stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, were widely used by mariners. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments [of exploring the Americas] primarily in the light of the spreading of the Christian religion. – Wikipedia United States of America Christianity was the largest influence in the beginning of the United States of America. Europeans had wanted religious freedom and found they had to come to the Americas to rediscover it. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and America’s legal and political foundation are dramatically influenced by Jesus birth- and not just because the authors were primarily Christian, but because the principles of the Bible they carried with them have been transferred into the above as cornerstones of freedom.

Israel, Israel would be a different place… there would be no reason to visit Galilee, Bethlehem, or Golgotha (the place of Christ’s crucifixion), or even some of the places chronicled in the old testament (which was spread globally by Christians with a conviction to go into all the earth). America would not be the biggest Alli and protector of Israel without the conviction of Christian leaders in the US who have historically believed that Christians should support God’s Chosen People.

Wine, The global wine industry has been largely impacted by the church and America. In medieval Europe, following the decline of Rome and its industrial-scale wine production for export, the Christian Church became a staunch supporter of the wine necessary for celebration of the Catholic Mass. Also, the practice of grafting in resistant American wine grape rootstock to guard against phylloxera has been used globally. Had American rootstock not been available and used, there would be no wine industry in Europe or most places because of the devastating Phylloxera louse of the 1870s.

Holidays, The following holidays & observances would be non-existent without America being founded by Christian people escaping religious persecution: Memorial Day, Thanksgiving Day, Veteran’s Day, Fourth of July, Martin Luther King Day, Columbus Day, and on and on.

I’ve nothing more to add….

Discovering God’s Love As We Minister to Others

By Trevor Barton,

It was early morning. The African sun had yet to rise above the mountains, and the sky was the soft yellow of newly shucked corn.  

“Beep, beep,” sounded the horn on the old truck as it rumbled to a stop in front of my house. My old friends – Momadu, Madu and Balamusa – greeted me with smiles, waves and morning blessings. We were on our way from Kenieba, a small town in western Mali, to Sitaxoto, a large village about two hours away over a broken dirt road. A church was there, a little group of people who met each week outside under a big baobab tree to pray, study the Bible, share their stories and ask, “How do we follow Jesus?” On that day, we were going to share communion with them.

Before we left town, we stopped at the home of a baker with a stone oven to buy the bread that would become a symbol of Jesus’ body. We bought dried leaves to make the red tea that would become a symbol of Jesus’ blood.

“Beep, beep!” With waves and departing blessings, we were off.

We arrived at Sitaxoto and found the believers sitting in a circle in the shade of the great tree. We spoke to each other and blessed each other in the customary and humanizing way of the Malinke people.

“How are you … How is your family … How are your children … May God send rain to your field … May God give you enough food to eat … May God give you healthy children.” Their arms hugged me and their words encouraged me.

As we began the communion liturgy, Momadu whispered to me, “Will you say the words? It would be meaningful to our friends.” “Yes,” I answered in broken Malinke. “I would like that very much.”

I held the bread tenderly in my hands, gave thanks, broke it apart and gave it away saying: “This is Jesus’ body, which is given for you. Take it and eat it in remembrance of him.”

Everyone ate the bread except a woman across from me in the circle. “Why didn’t she eat the bread?” I whispered to Momadu. “Do you think she understood my Malinke?” “It’s OK,” he answered. “I’ll tell you later.”

After the service, Momadu placed his arm around my shoulder and said, “Look very closely at our friend.” I looked at her and saw what I had not seen during communion.

There was a child in her lap laying against her body, a child as thin and frail as one of the furthest limbs on the tree. “Her daughter has been sick for some time,” said Momadu. “Bread is expensive for her to buy. She was saving the bread for her daughter.”

I was speechless. Here, I had come to bring God to my African friends. Instead, God came to me in this small and forgotten African woman and her child.

(Trevor Barton teaches second grade and is a member of First Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C. – He lived in Mali in West Africa for three years as a teacher and friend) 

Who are the Jewish People? ~ Is God gathering Jewish people back to the land?

An excellent three part teaching is up at  Messianic Good News,

The question of “Who is a Jew?” remains a contentious and unresolved issue, relating as it does to the ‘Law of Return’ and the nature of the ‘Jewish State’ as well as to the question of whether Jewishness is necessarily connected with either the practice of Judaism or Zionism.

This series offers a brief overview of what constitutes the Jewish people today. It is an abridged and edited version of a Powerpoint series originally compiled by Margie Kinsella. Part One – Background and History deals with the history of persecution that has formed the identity of Jewish people today. Part Two – Return to the Land looks at whether God is gathering Jewish people back to the land. Part Three – Judaism  gives a brief description of the main branches of Judaism with which many Jews identify themselves.

Excerpt from Part Two, The Return to the Land 

IS GOD GATHERING ALL THE JEWS TO THE STATE OF ISRAEL?

There are many Old Testament verses that speak of returning to the Land. What do these verses point to? Words used in the New Testament help us to understand the Old Testament: A pattern, a copy, an example, a shadow, a tutor (to lead us to Christ), a model, a type, a figure, a foreshadowing, a proverb, an allegory, a symbol, a parable –translated in Hebrews as ‘type’ & ‘symbolic’.

What then does entering the “Promised Land” point to? What is being ‘foreshadowed?

Numbers 14:23: The spies who were sent to spy out the land brought back a bad report because they allowed fear to overcome their faith in the promises of God? Because of lack of faith – “they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to give their fathers”.

Psalm 95:10-11 ….So I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’

Hebrews 3 & 4 shows what this “rest” was pointing to:

For if Joshua had given them rest, then he would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:8-10).

This is the eternal “rest” we enter into by faith. “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.” Hebrews 4:11

To say that today Jews should enter the physical land called “Israel” in fulfillment of the Old Testament, is to completely ignore the teachings of the New Testament and overlook what the experience in the Old Testament was foreshadowing!

The Old Testament finds its fulfillment in the New Testament—in Yeshua/Jesus. Jewish people find their fulfillment by receiving their Messiah not by returning to the land.

But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. (Romans 11:11)

This means to provoke them to salvation, not to returning to the physical land.

The Scriptural truth: the return is to God – the gathering is to Shiloh – the Messiah! 

War on Christmas: Atheists Neutralizing Christianity?

What a ridiculous title. No one, not even demons, can “neutralize” (nullify) true Christianity.  

A Catholic civil rights group says that the attempt by atheist activists to remove nativity scenes and faith-related symbols from the public square during Christian holidays is proof that they have targeted Christianity….League President Bill Donohue said that because atheist activists often become most visible in their actions against Christian symbolism during the Christmas and Easter seasons, it “is proof that their real hatred is of all things Christian.” (link)

I beg to differ. What it proves is they are lost and have no spiritual comprehension of what the two holidays mean to those who love and follow Jesus Christ.   

17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16)

Christians, Muslims, and Jews to Boycott Lowe’s Over ‘Bigotry’

Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike are speaking out against Lowe’s Hardware Store’s decision to pull advertisement from the TLC television show “All American Muslim.” On Saturday, demonstrations in front of various Lowe’s locations across the country will seek to raise awareness against the perceived bigotry behind the chain’s decision.

The Florida Family Association contacted companies to stop advertising on the TLC show. According to FFA, 75 companies pulled their ads from the Dec. 11 and 12 episodes of “All-American Muslim.” The group has chosen not to list the names of the companies because of the “intense scrutiny by opponents.”

The Rev. Charles Williams of Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit called FFA a “fringe group trying to spread hatred.” “There’s a misperception that these fringe groups represent the ideals and perspectives of conservatives and Christians. They are not the authority on Christianity and do not have the moral compass to be one,” he said. (More at The CPost)

I read this last week and thought it was hilarious,  

David Caton of the Florida Family Association appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday where he mostly played the victim over the national controversy that was started by his group’s pressure campaign against advertisers on TLC’s All-American Muslim. He said that his group started the pressure campaign before the show even went on the air because he couldn’t “wait and see” what impact the “propaganda” would have.  (David Caton Says He Had to Stop All-American Muslim Because It Was “The First Show of its Kind”)

The Hallway to the Saints’ Rest

A Lovely message of hope by Richard Baxter (1615-1691)  Source: The Old Time Gospel (a favorite place to read)

 The hallway to heaven is not barricaded anymore. The flaming sword no longer bars the passage to Paradise, for Christ has provided the way in. The porch of this temple is magnificent, and the gate of it is called “Beautiful.”

Here are the four corners of this porch of Paradise.

The Second Coming of Christ

For our sake Christ came into the world, suffered, died, rose, ascended; and for our sake He will return. He will come again to receive us unto Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. We have His word, His many promises, His ordinances, which show forth His death until He come. We have His Spirit, to direct, sanctify, and comfort until He returns. He that would come to suffer, will surely come to triumph. He that would come to purchase, will surely come to possess.

O fellow Christians, what a day that will be, when we, who have been kept prisoners by sin, shall be brought out by the Lord himself! He will not come, O careless world, to be slighted and neglected by you any more. Yet even His first coming, had its magnificence. If, when He was in the form of a servant, they cried out, “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Matt. 8:27), what will they say when they shall see Him coming in His glory, and the heavens and the earth obey Him?

The Resurrection of the Body

The second event that leads to Paradise is Christ’s great work of raising the body from the dust and uniting it again with the soul. Unbelief may ask, “Shall all these scattered bones and dust become a man?” Let me with reverence answer for God. Is it not as easy to raise the dead as to make heaven and earth out of nothing? Look not on the dead bones and dust and difficulty, but at the promise. Contentedly commit these bodies to a prison that shall not long contain them. Let us lie down in peace and take our rest; it will not be an everlasting night, nor endless sleep.

Lay down cheerfully this clod of mortality; you shall undoubtedly receive it again as immortal. Lay down freely this earthly body; you shall receive it again, a heavenly body. Though you be separated from it in weakness, it shall be raised again in mighty power; “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:52). “The dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:16-17). Triumph now, O Christian, in these promises; you shall surely triumph in their performance. The grave that could not keep our Lord, cannot keep us. He arose for us, and by the same power will cause us to arise.

The Judgment

The third corner of this porch at the entrance to Paradise is the judgment, where the saints shall first be acquitted, and then with Christ judge the world. Then shall the world behold the goodness and severity of God on those who perish, severity; but to His chosen ones, goodness. The sinners shall see the Lord Jesus, whom they neglected, whose Word they disobeyed, whose ministers they abused, whose servants they hated, now sitting to judge them. Their own consciences shall cry out against them, and call to their remembrance all their misdoings. Which way will the wretched sinner look? Who can imagine the terrible thoughts of his heart? Now the world cannot help him; his old companions cannot; the saints neither can nor will. Only the Lord Jesus can; but there is the misery, He will not.

Time was, sinner, when Christ would have saved you, and you would not have Him; now you want Christ’s help when it is too late. It is useless to cry “to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne” (Rev. 6:16); for you have the ‘Lord of the mountains and rocks’ for your enemy, and the mountains and rocks obey His voice, not yours. I charge you, therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the living and the dead at His appearing, that you seriously ponder these things now.

But why are you trembling, O humble recipient of grace? He that would not lose one Noah in the flood, nor overlook one Lot in Sodom; will He forget you at that day? “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Pet. 2:9). He knows how to make the same day to be the greatest terror to His enemies, and yet the greatest joy to His friends. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1). What wonderful joy, that our dear Lord, who loves us, and whom we love, shall be our Judge! Will a man fear to be judged by his dearest friend, or a wife by her own husband? Christian, did Christ come down and suffer, and weep, and bleed, and die for you, and will He now condemn you? Was He judged, condemned, and executed in your place, and now will He himself condemn you? Well, then, let the terror of Judgment Day be ever so great, surely our Lord can mean no harm to us at all. Let it make the devil and the wicked tremble, but it shall make us leap for joy. Christ will take His people into commission with himself, and they shall sit and approve His righteous judgment. “Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? Know you not that we shall judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:2, 3). Were it not for the Word of Christ that speaks it, this announcement would seem unbelievable. But thus shall the saints be honored according to Scripture.

The Coronation

The last preparation for the saints’ everlasting rest is their royal coronation and receiving of the kingdom. Our Lord’s own proper title is “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (1 Tim. 6:15). Our position is to be kings and to reign with Him (Rev. 1:6). We will not be flattered with empty titles, but dignified with real authority. The Lord himself will give us possession with this word of congratulation, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matt. 25:23). With this solemn and blessed proclamation our King of Kings shall enthrone us, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Thus we have seen the Christian safely entered into Paradise and received to his rest.

Santa’s Back With His Bag of Goodies

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. This is one of those times…

I want an assault rifle for Christmas or the reindeer gets it!

The second photo is my favorite  

Virginia’s New Adoption Regulations

Last night I heard about this on a news program and frankly didn’t believe it. Silly me.

The regulations also will allow the adoption agencies to deny services to prospective parents on the basis of age, gender, disability, religion, political belief and family status.

Did you catch it? Beginning in the spring if you want to adopt a child in Virginia, you can be turned down for your religious beliefs or your brand of politics!

Source, Richmond Times

WND: Pine Trees at Ground Zero a Sign that God Will Destroy USA

My head is spinning after reading Joseph Farah’s article at WND.

Farah and Cahn tell us…..they read occult significance into a couple of details around the redevelopment of Ground Zero

See, Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

The Palestinians

Yesterday I came upon an article in which Newt Gingrich in an interview with The Jewish Channel,

….dismissed the Palestinian bid for statehood as the effort of an “invented Palestinian people…..”

Invented? Then who were these people? (video, Palestine Pre-1947).

Bypassing the political issues, Rick Frueh, in his most recent post looks at the spiritual aspects of the situation and Gingrich’s interview…

I will, I have to, from time to time deal with the unchristian aspects of this coming election. I hope it will challenge us all. Another teaching moment surfaced this past week. One of the candidates, Newt Gingrich, was evangelized by his then mistress, and now wife, and he became a Roman Catholic. He was a nominal Southern Baptist. 

During an interview on an Israeli news outlet, Gingrich called the Palestinian issue “invented” and rejected their right to form a nation for themselves. He suggested they should have assimilated in other countries. I do not care about the political issue here, I want to address the spiritual aspects of the situation in the Middle east as well as exposing Gingrich’s attitude as unchristian and shockingly arrogant. 

When Britain gave the land to the Jews there were approximately 750,000 Palestinians living in what is now Israel. Perhaps 50% fled for various reasons, and when the first Israeli government was formed they passed laws which hindered those Palestinians from returning to their homes. It was a real mess.

Now we as evangelical believers have been taught that the 1948 formation of the Jewish state was a fulfillment of prophecy, and perhaps it is. But in this church age we are not to align ourselves with any group, political or ethnic, but we are to be vessels of redemption. The notion that God has no regard for the plight of the Palestinians is very unbiblical and misrepresents the Redeemer and His mission. (continued at Judah’s Lion: The Palestinians)

CADC’s Ten “Irrefutable Proofs” that Obama is not a Christian (*and One “Irrefutable Proof” that CADC’s Dr. Gary Cass isn’t one either)

Back in 2008, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission released a series of videos attacking then-candidate Barack Obama’s faith. The entire operation was entitled “Seven Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian” and consisted of various videos asserting that Obama “was not a Christian by any Biblical or historic measure.”

Now that the 2012 presidential election is beginning to heat up, the CADC has announced that it intends to resurrect the series – this time featuring ten reasons – and release a new video every month leading up to the election. Here are the CADC’s “Ten New Irrefutable Proofs that Barack Obama is NOT a Christian!” 

(Source, RWWatch)

“The Muppets Are Communist”

This takes the prize for headline of the day  

quote..

It ain’t easy being green, but according to Fox Business, Kermit the frog and his Muppet friends are reds. 

Last week, on the network’s “Follow the Money” program, host Eric Bolling went McCarthy on the new, Disney-released film, “The Muppets,” insisting that its storyline featuring an evil oil baron made it the latest example of Hollywood’s liberal agenda. Bolling, who took issue with the baron’s name, Tex Richman, was joined by Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center, who was uninhibited with his criticism.

“It’s amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message,” he said. “They’ve been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry,” Gainor continued. “They hate corporate America. And so you’ll see all these movies attacking it, whether it was ‘Cars 2,’ which was another kids’ movie, the George Clooney movie ‘Syriana,’ ‘There Will Be Blood,’ all these movies attacking the oil industry, none of them reminding people what oil means for most people: fuel to light a hospital, heat your home, fuel an ambulance to get you to the hospital if you need that. And they don’t want to tell that story.” 

Indeed, there was no mention of the benefits of oil drilling in the Muppets, but there was also no discussion of any other aspect of the industry. Richman, played by Chris Cooper, was out to destroy the Muppets theater. Kermit and his friends were not committed environmentalists (though one must imagine the frog is concerned with his swampy homeland) but simply puppets looking to save a place they once loved. Still, Gainor blamed the film, and its predecessors, for Occupy Wall Street and the environmental movement.

“This is what they’re teaching our kids. You wonder why we’ve got a bunch of Occupy Wall Street people walking around all around the country, they’ve been indoctrinated, literally, for years by this kind of stuff,” Gainor said. “Whether it was ‘Captain Planet’ or Nickelodeon’s ‘Big Green Help,’ or ‘The Day After Tomorrow,’ the Al Gore-influenced movie, all of that is what they’re teaching, is that corporations is bad, the oil industry is bad, and ultimately what they’re telling kids is what they told you in the movie ‘The Matrix’: that mankind is a virus on poor old mother Earth.”

The Muppets Are Communist, Fox Business Network Says

Why the Early Church Finally Rejected Premillennialism

By Charles E. Hill – (Source: Aletheuo)

Chiliasm is the ancient name for what today is known as premillennialism, the belief that when Jesus Christ returns he will not execute the last judgment at once, but will first set up on earth a temporary kingdom, where resurrected saints will rule with him over non-resurrected subjects for a thousand years of peace and righteousness.1 To say that the Church “rejected chiliasm” may sound bizarre today, when premillennialism is the best known eschatology in Evangelicalism.

Having attached itself to fundamentalism, chiliasm in its dispensationalist form has been vigorously preached in pulpits, taught in Bible colleges and seminaries, and successfully promoted to the masses through study Bibles, books, pamphlets, charts, and a host of radio and television ministries. To many Christians today, premillennialism is the very mark of Christian orthodoxy.

But there was a period of well over a “millennium” (over half of the Church’s history), from at least the early fifth century until the sixteenth, when chiliasm was dormant and practically non-existent. Even through the Reformation and much of the post-Refor-mation period, advocates of chiliasm were usually found among fringe groups like the Münsterites. The Augsburg Confession went out of its way to condemn chiliasm (Art. XVII, “Of Christ’s Return to Judgment”), and John Calvin criticized “the chiliasts, who limited the reign of Christ to a thousand years” (Institutes 3.25.5). It was not until the nineteenth century that chiliasm made a respectable comeback, as a favorite doctrine of Christian teachers who were promoting revival in the face of the deadening effects of encroaching liberalism.

But how are we to view the Church’s earliest period up until the first decisive rejection of chiliasm in the Church? By most accounts this was the heyday of chiliastic belief in the Church. Many modern apologists for premillennialism allege that before the time of Augustine chiliasm was the dominant, if not the “universal” eschatology of the Church, preserving the faith of the apostles.2 Some form of chiliasm was certainly defended by such notable names as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century and Tertullian of Carthage in the third. How and why then did this view finally fall into disrepute?

The answer given by modern premillennial apologists usually suggests that premillennialism was overcome for illegitimate reasons. They cite the rise of an unbiblical and dangerous allegorical hermeneutic (by such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen) which took a sad toll on sound biblical exegesis. They explain that the prophetic excesses of the Montanists gave chiliasm a bad name. They note that the peace of Constantine led the Church to the false belief that the millennium had already arrived. And, finally, they suggest that the authoritative repudiation of chiliasm by Augustine, who formerly had held such a belief, “put the nails in the coffin” of premillennialism.

But are these the real factors? 

The hermeneutical question is indeed an important one, but to put the debate in terms of literal against allegorical is overly simplistic. Both sides used literal exegesis and both used allegorical exegesis when they deemed it best. For example, despite Origen’s intentional use of the allegorical method, his essential critique of chiliasm had real theological and traditional motivations. These motivations were not his alone but belonged to large segments of the Church. The early Montanists, it turns out, were not chiliasts and were never criticized for being so.3 Tertullian, who became a Montanist, did not get his chiliasm from them, but from Irenaeus. There is no evidence that chiliasm was hurt by any association with Montanism. By the time Constantine proclaimed Christianity the state religion in the fourth century, a non-chiliastic eschatology was surely the norm in most places, and in many it had been so ever since Christianity had arrived there. Many signs thus tell us that even without the aid of Augustine, chiliasm was probably in its death-throes by the time he wrote the last books of The City of God in a.d. 42026.

So why did the Church reject chiliasm? 

As with most historical questions, the answers are complex and have social as well as hermeneutical and theological aspects. It would take a long time to compare and evaluate the exegesis of individual biblical passages by a number of given authors. One common criticism, however, can serve as a convenient organizer for what are probably the most important factors in chiliasm’s demise. That common criticism, known from Origen to the Augsburg Confession and beyond, is that chiliasm is a “Jewish” error.4 This criticism is open to grave misunderstanding today if one views it as part of the Church’s shameful legacy of anti-Semitism. But this is not what lay at the base of such criticism of chiliasm as “Jewish.” Jesus was a Jew, as were all of his apostles. “Salvation is of the Jews,” Jesus said, and all the Church fathers knew and agreed with this. There is no embarrassment at all in something being “Jewish” and the ancient and honorable tradition of the Jews, in monotheism, morals, and the safeguarding of Holy Scripture, is something Christian leaders always prized.

Another modern misunderstanding of this criticism must also be avoided. Certain current forms of premillennialism, particularly dispensationalism, might seem “Jewish” to some because they promise that the kingdom of God will be restored to ethnic Jews as the just fulfillment of the Old Testament promises to Abraham and his descendants. But this was not the case with ancient Christian chiliasm.

The New Testament’s revelation of the Church as the true Israel and heir of all the promises of God in Christ was too well-established and too deeply ingrained in the early Christian consciousness for such a view to have been viable. Ancient Church chiliasts like Irenaeus did indeed argue that some of God’s promises to Israel had to be fulfilled literally in a kingdom on earth, but they recognized that the humble recipients of this kingdom would be spiritual Israel, all who confessed Jesus as God’s Messiah, regardless of their national or ethnic origin.5 Ancient chiliasm was not criticized because it “favored” the Jews as having a distinct, blessed future apart from Gentile Christians.

What then did critics mean by calling chiliasm “Jewish”? Their use of the label meant “non-Christian Jewish,” or even, “anti-Christian Jewish.” These early critics believed that chiliasm represented an approach to biblical religion that was sub-Christian, essentially failing to reckon with the full redemptive implications of the coming of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah. They saw it as an under-realized, a not-fully-Christian, eschatology.

We can outline at least three aspects of this criticism….

Continued Here; Why the Early Church Finally Rejected Premillennialism

Pike church takes stand against interracial couples

Lord have mercy….what a sad story. 

A small Pike County church has voted not to accept interracial couples as members or let them take part in some worship activities. The decision has caused sharp reaction and disapproval in the Eastern Kentucky county.

The issue came up at the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, said Dean Harville, a longtime member who serves as church secretary and clerk…Harville said his daughter Stella Harville, who is pursuing a master’s degree in optical engineering at a school in Indiana, brought her fiancé, Ticha Chikuni, to church in June and played the piano as he sang. The couple performed I Surrender All, said Stella Harville, who is 24. Chikuni, 29, who works at Georgetown College, is black. He is a native of Zimbabwe.

In early November, Thompson proposed the church go on record saying that while all people were welcome to attend public worship services there, the church did not condone interracial marriage, according to a copy of the recommendation supplied by the Harvilles. The proposal also said “parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services” or other church functions, with the exception of funerals. The recommendation “is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve,” the copy supplied to the Herald-Leader read. (more here)