Lots of people, especially politicians and bureaucrats, like to refer to themselves as “civil servants.” Too often that’s how those seeking power talk but not how they act once they are installed in a position of power. Pastors, too, view themselves as servant leaders and many try to do it right. But power has a […]
Making the nations prove the righteousness of God (which will in turn reveal and display the wonders of His love to those believed in His Name) … well, it is a task that has been long in coming and proving as hard as the hearts which will be forced to kneel before Him. Some will […]
He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love I’ve always thought this verse of “Joy to the World” was particularly powerful. The Lord “makes the nations prove”…kind of a hymn equivalent of “Turn to me and be saved, all you […]
Have you ever wondered why the Jewish people no longer have a sacrificial system undergirding their religious practice? I can’t say it any better than Brandon Marlon, a blogger from the Times of Israel, “Commencing with Aaron and concluding with Pinhas ben Samuel, the high priesthood suffered a ludicrous descent from the exalted to the […]
There were many placeholders in the Interlude as God’s presence never left us completely alone. The sacrificial system was a placeholder and the priesthood, too…until the birth of Christ who would eventually be the Lamb of God sacrificed for sin and our final High Priest with the perfect sacrifice of Himself. A good chunk of […]
Think about Interludes as pattern-makers and placeholders. Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden…out of one sanctuary, but not without God entirely. He blessed Eve with her firstborn in the likeness of Adam and children after that. A pillar of fire and cloud. After the wilderness, the Promised Land. After the tabernacle, a temple. […]
All creation groans for redemption but creation was not intended to be redeemed on the Cross. It’s no wonder that if people remain silent about the Messiah and His work, Jesus says the stones would cry out. Better that people praise, but in their silence, the rocks celebrate the coming of the Deliverer to free […]
God punished Adam and Eve, but He cursed the ground from which Adam was made. Every single man, woman, and child since that day has been infected by sin as our legacy and experienced fully as inherited, both a sin nature and the curse upon the ground. Except Jesus never inherited sin. The ground was […]
It’s important for the whole of theology (and the Christmas story particularly) that Adam and Eve rebelled. They had done what they’d been commanded not to do. But God did not curse them! They sinned. He showed grace. He punished them and cast them from the Garden of Eden, out of His Sanctuary. His ongoing, […]
The third stanza of “Joy to the World” is often omitted in online lists of the lyrics. “No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found.” What curse? Why do people not want to talk about the curse? The […]
