As most of our regular readers know, Dana and I have a
slight tendency to be a bit wordy. Initially, this post on Context wasn’t too
long, but as we emailed back and forth, it kept on lengthening. So we decided
to make it two parts because it deals with such critical subjects—Bible context
and the (hopefully) Christian’s hunger for God’s word and why this is
important. The below is continued from Part 1, and is Dana writing to John
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dana
began this Tue, May 2, 2017 at 10:21 AM
....We live in an increasingly dark world,
John. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (ESV) If we take that
seriously, then knowing the Word is one of the most essential life pursuits in
which we must engage. Paul in Ephesians
6, when discussing the Christian’s armor in the context of spiritual warfare,
tells us that the Word of God is our only offensive weapon. To have a weapon and not know how to use it
is ridiculous.
You have been in the US Coast Guard, and surely you must have, in some
aspect of your training, had some training in weapons use. While the Coast Guard is not primarily
thought of as a combat unit, I’d be willing to bet that when they are
apprehending a boatload of cartel cocaine on the high seas, that they aren’t just
carrying sticks and whistles. My guess
is that the guys on the cartel boat are pretty well armed, and quite willing
and able to use their guns. What if the
Coast Guard issued weapons to those doing the apprehending, and never showed
them how to load the magazines, or how to get a cartridge from the magazine to
the chamber, or how to aim and shoot? To
try to stop a boat full of armed to the teeth cartel soldiers who are not
afraid to die, would be as foolish as it would be suicidal.
Yet we live and walk and work in a world that is increasingly and
demonstrably under the influence of the devil and his demonic forces, and our
only weapon is sitting on a shelf collecting dust. And many of those who do pay
the Bible some modicum of attention are still woefully and willfully ignorant
of what they are reading actually means.
Most American Christians would do just as good reading their Bibles in
Hebrew and Greek, or even Chinese when it comes to understanding what it is
that they’re reading. The werewolves are circling ever closer, and salivating
at the smell of fresh meat, and we’ve never learned how to load the gun, if we
can even find the gun.
So tell me, what would it be worth to have some weapons proficiency if
the aforementioned illustration became a reality? Fifty dollars? A hundred dollars? More? So how can Joe and Jane Christian become more
proficient in the use of the only weapon God has provided us? They can make the learning of it a top
priority and use some of the money they already spend on other things to
accomplish that. It’s a question of how
important it is to them?
But first and foremost, one has to want to learn, and be committed to
that proposition in order to make it happen.
If Joe or Jane Christian are prepared to walk down that road, here a
couple of good ways to start.
Reading his books is a good place to start. I mention them again:
Dr. Michael Heiser’s “Supernatural: What
the Bible Teaches About the Unseen World – And Why It Matters” is selling on
Amazon in paperback for $12.67 and shipping. (This is sort of the Reader’s
Digest Condensed Version of “The Unseen Realm” shown below. This is a great and
readable introduction to the material.)
Dr. Heiser’s “The Unseen Realm: Recovering
the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible” sells in hardback on Amazon for $18.60
plus shipping.
And, his latest book, “Reversing Hermon:
Enoch, the Watchers, and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ,” is available
as a trade paperback on Amazon for $15.71 plus shipping.
If reading time is short, or funds are
simply not available for buying books, Dr. Heiser has a weekly podcast, which
can be accessed and listened to for free.
Follow this link:
Upon bringing up the site, click on: NEW? START HERE
This will take you to several introductory
videos on his approach to the Bible and some foundational themes with which he
deals.
Going back to the main website page, there
is a tab to get to all previous EPISODES of the podcast, and frankly, they are
all worth a listen. They can be listened to on the podcast website, or on other
podcast platforms such as iTunes and others, so they can even be accessed on
one’s smart phone.
Then there is Dr. Heiser’s personal
website: http://drmsh.com/ at which are his blogs, and just an
overwhelming wealth of information…all for free too.
On his website there is a link to sign up
for his e-newsletter (also free): http://drmsh.com/miqlat/
Dr. Heiser also has a free YouTube
channel with lots of his talks and lectures that are really worthwhile. Go
to: https://www.youtube.com/
In the Search line type in: Dr.
Michael Heiser and click on the
magnifying glass icon to go to his page.
Highly recommended videos are:
[PT. 1] Unseen Realm Seminar/w Dr. Michael S. Heiser:
Supernatural Worldview of the O.T.
[PT. 2] Unseen Realm Seminar/w Dr. Michael S. Heiser:
The Three Rebellions and the Fall of Man
[PT. 3] Unseen Realm Seminar/w Dr. Michael S. Heiser:
Jesus, Cosmic Geography, & 2 Powers in Heaven
[Q&A] Unseen Realm Seminar/w Dr. Michael S. Heiser:
Speaking in Tongues, Kingdom Now & Eschatology
Reversing Hermon - 1 Enoch, the NT,
Watchers, Nephilim, Anti-Christ – Dr. Michael S. Heiser
Q&A With Dr. Michael S. Heiser:
Reversing Hermon, Sons of God, Nephilim, Gematria, & End Times
All of the above would be good ways to get
started. There is some deep thought
contained therein, but presented in a down to earth, easy to comprehend way.
You may not agree with all of his findings, as he broaches subjects not usually
taught in our modern day churches, again because they are outside of many
ministers’ and denominations’ comfort zones.
But agree with him or not, his scholarship is difficult to refute.
Also, it must be stated, that if we sincerely
desire to grow in God, we need to get comfortable with getting outside of our
comfort zones. And, we must be careful
not to allow our comfort zones to become quasi-idols. We’ll have comfort zones in Heaven, but we
are not guaranteed them down here in this life.
An interesting and entertaining thing
Dr. Heiser does, is he is actively involved with the UFO, Ancient Astronauts,
and Fringe History groups. He sometimes
even attends UFO conferences. Why? Well, wait a minute and hear me out on this.
He believes that the people participating
in these groups are seeking something beyond this life’s stock meanings and
prescribed pat answers, and have almost adopted this kind of material as a
religion. By offering Biblical
perspectives to their questions and ideas, and by just paying attention to them
in general as seeking people (when the Church has largely dismissed them as
crackpots) provides an excellent opportunity for evangelism. No one public figure that I can find in
Evangelicalism is doing this. It’s pretty fascinating, really. If you explore his YouTube channel or his
podcast, you will find audio and video on some of these topics, and I have
found them pretty interesting. Certainly
not same old-same old.
But outside of purchasing his books, I
have provided several sources of his materials which will cost nothing to
investigate and absorb. Hopefully this information will give readers access to
a lot of his material, and if they want to begin reading the Bible in its own
context, they will at least be able to get started.
Dana
+++++++++++++++++
John
added on 4/29/17
Hey
Dana
While you make compelling arguments
for more in-depth study, based on Dr. Heiser’s context method of study, I don’t
believe what we’ve written will do much to convince (if at all) the average Joe and Jane
Christian to get more deeply involved in contextual Bible study. Why? More than
the cost of money, it costs time. I don’t think they (average church goer) want
to spend more of either. For example, I was talking to a minister about this
and he doesn’t feel it will happen either. He stated that, at the least, it
should be the pastor/teacher/reverend/ minister/priest who is doing this. That’s
what the pew sitter “expects.”
When I mentioned this topic to some
of the guys in our home group and asked if they had a contextual study help,
one suggested the following might fit the bill. Written by Craig S.
Keener, it is, "IVP Bible Background Commentary".
You might argue, why shouldn’t the
church provide some of these study helps? The church we attend does, but I’ve
seen very few people avail themselves of this benefit—the fiction book section
seems to get the usage, but the commentaries, dictionaries and other helps, not
so much.
Quite honestly, I think that most
Christians just don’t care. As another example, you talk about just Bible reading. I would
like to do a survey of the number of pew sitters that have even read their
Bible through once.
The
below is from the Ed Stetzer article written on 7/6/2016, in Christianty Today
http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/july/epidemic-of-bible-illiteracy-in-our-churches.html and is titled “The Epidemic of Bible Illiteracy in
Our Churches” about people reading their
Bibles, let alone reading it through from cover to cover.
The Sad Statistics
Christians claim to believe the Bible is God's Word.
We claim it's God's divinely inspired, inerrant message to us. Yet despite
this, we aren't reading it. A recent LifeWay Research study found
only 45 percent of those who regularly attend church read the Bible more than
once a week. Over 40 percent of the people attending read their Bible
occasionally, maybe once or twice a month. Almost 1 in 5 churchgoers say they never read the Bible—essentially the same number who read
it every day.
While some readers may groan when I
write this next, but I believe that while God gave America a second chance with
the election of Donald Trump, if we squander this (and it appears that we are
all ready on that path) when either another president similar to the last and
his Secretary of State are elected next, the persecutions that you so often
refer to won’t be far behind. Then
reading one’s Bible will be too late.
***************************
Tue,
May 2, 2017 at 10:21 AM
John,
One of the things which with we, as
Christians must come to grips, is that our time is not our own, any more than
our lives are not our own. There is an
old saying that goes, “If Jesus isn’t Lord, then He isn’t Savior.”
Christians, may, as you say, not want to
spend their time and/or money in increasing their Biblical knowledge, but again
I must affirm that neither their time nor their money is their own. All things belong to God. We own nothing, in Heavenly reality, and are
at best, just stewards of the time and money He allows us.
And your warning is appropriate. Perhaps I’ve already written this in a
previous blog, but it bears repeating.
My parents were friends with a retired fighter pilot, who was shot down
and imprisoned in the notorious North Vietnamese “Hanoi Hilton” P.O.W.
camp. He said that many of the men in
the prison tried to write a Bible based on verses they remembered from prior
church and Sunday school experiences. I
guess when you’re in hell; the comfort and assurance of the Word of God would
be more precious than food and drink.
The question I would pose is, that if one day things get rough for Western Christians, and
persecution becomes a harsh reality, how much of a Bible could a Christian and
his fellow believers produce from memory? We may take the Bible for granted now, but I
can assure you, that if the whip comes down, the Word of God will be of
monumental importance then. Food for thought.
Dana
++++++++++++++++++++++++
On
Mon, May 8, 2017 at 9:34 AM John closed with
Dana
I reached out to another minister
friend of mine (Thanks Steve and please thank Dr. Kent Hughes for me.) and he
loaned me a copy of the book, Expositional Preaching, by David Helm,
published by Crossway. In a more
ecclesiastical, or should I say academic way, Helm seems to be agreeing with
you about the importance of context, but from the standpoint of the
pastor/preacher/teacher. He gives several examples where he thought a passage
was saying one thing and that was going to be the direction of his message, but
when upon further, deeper investigation, he saw he was, while if not wrong, at
the least misleading his listeners. I
had not given this perspective much thought, that is, is the
pastor/preacher/teacher contextually correct? I don’t want to go too deep on
this point, but Helm makes this statement on page 23, “The possible
applications must never overshadow the primary point of the text.” I think this
is where I sometimes get caught, looking for possible applications from a text
without digging for the context. According to Helm, I am not alone and it is a
problem on both sides of the altar rail.
This was on the back cover of the
May 2017 issue of Decision Magazine,
which is published by Billy Graham’s ministry. In the Ruth’s Attic section, she
tells of a man who had lived under a regime intolerant to Christians. He was
“appalled” at the comfort and freedom other Christians had.
Some time later, after living as the
comfortable Christians around him, he returned to apologize to his friend about
his “appalled” comment. He said, “I did not know how dangerous freedom could
be.” Over that year’s period of time, he felt that he had become “worse than
those I criticized.”
Graham’s short article ends with a
final statement from this once persecuted Christian, “It is more difficult to
live the Christian life under freedom than under repression.”
In closing, an analogy comes to
mind. You’ve seen or been to swimming or track meets where the judge takes a gun out of his
pocket. It looks like a real gun. When the judge pulls the trigger, it goes
BANG and sounds like a real gun. But it only fires blanks, not real bullets.
Nobody can get hurt from this pistol. No one can properly defend himself or
herself with this faux weapon. This is what happens to the Christian who doesn’t
delve deep into God’s word, not just reading or skimming His Word, but studying
to show “thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Tim 2:15 KJV
Lest I sound like the spiritual
giant (which I’m not), I must add a caveat. Throughout my Christian walk, as I would hear
various messages and teaching, it began to dawn on me that at some point in the
future, my Christian life just might get difficult, testing, challenging. All
of the above? (For our regular readers, they may remember several posts where
we speak to this, for example “In The Wilderness” http://foxholecowboysblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/blog-2-in-wilderness.html or “Deep
Rootedness” parts 1 and 2 http://foxholecowboysblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/blog-3-deep-rootedness-part-1_22.html ) As you know,
over the past seven or eight years, that happened, is happening. During those years leading up to the harder
times, it now appears God was trying to get my attention, to help prepare me
for those demanding times that were to come. I thought that’s what He might be
doing, preparing me. But did I take that seriously? I don’t know, probably not
as seriously as I should have. I kept reading my Bible. At times I would make
scripture memory an earnest part of my routine; but more often than not, not.
It’s not like I was tubing on a lazy river, but I’m not sure I thought the
waves of adversity would ever, really,
happen to me. Guess what? Once again, God knew the end from the beginning and I
missed many opportunities for preparation.
The simulated old, Regular Clock in the kitchen just chimed 9 times. It’s time to end this and keep on keeping on. Sometimes I think that just may be the victory in a Christian’s walk. So it may be appropriate to close with a verse that I did learn early on, Proverbs 24:16 KJV For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
But The Message does have a way with
words when it gives us this for Proverbs 24:16
15-16 Don’t interfere with good people’s
lives;
don’t try to get the best of them.
No matter how many times you trip them up,
God-loyal people don’t stay down long;
Soon they’re up on their feet,
while the wicked end up flat on their faces.
don’t try to get the best of them.
No matter how many times you trip them up,
God-loyal people don’t stay down long;
Soon they’re up on their feet,
while the wicked end up flat on their faces.
17-18 Don’t laugh when your enemy falls;
don’t crow over his collapse.
God might see, and become very provoked,
and then take pity on his plight.
don’t crow over his collapse.
God might see, and become very provoked,
and then take pity on his plight.
Sincerely, your cowboy buddy, who is
back in the saddle again,
John
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