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Putting Your Pistols Back in Your Holsters

Guest Post by: The East Side Monergist

Recently, I read a piece by Carl Trueman titled Yes I am a Christian, just like those over there that really hit home in terms of the mindset among evangelical/protestant circles. So much of what I’m reading and seeing happening these days in Christendom is just reinforcing and incentivizing a need to be more gracious with each other as Protestants. We need to really look at different traditions with more focus upon unity rather than distinctives simply for the sake of solidarity and unity and strength based on first order issues. Over and over again, we’ve been spoiled or sinful or graceless enough to splinter ourselves and have become foolishly divided by secondary and tertiary order issues that we can’t even truly claim to be a part of or include others in the same faith. We spend so much time treating our brothers in the faith as though they are heretics and maybe even unworthy of the title Christian altogether all the while we see agnostics, atheists, wiccans and satanists grow in unity and solidarity. We are fighting our way into being arguably the smallest and most divided faith system in the world.

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The Book of Hosea: Chapter 1

The book of Hosea is a prophetic encounter that mingles history, metaphors, poetry and repartee to accentuate the message judgment and restoration to his recipients. It is filled with familial expressions such as “children, descendants, son, wife, husband, groom and brothers & sisters” reflecting God’s dealing with Israel & Judah metaphorically as a family unit. The book can be broken down into 2 main segments; Verses 1-3 speaking of Hosea’s marriage/Yahweh’s marriage to Israel and 4-14 are judgments and restoration promises to the northern and southern kingdoms (Israel & Judah). The pattern of sin, followed by judgment, followed by restoration is a prominent theme found throughout the prophet. Smith breaks up the historical alignment to address these in that chapters 1-3 would address thematically the same issues as Amos’ prophecy, chapters 4-11 deal with the Assyrian engagement through Tiglath-Pileser III and chapters 12-14 address the final few years prior to the exile[1]. Keeping in mind the historical standpoint when Hosea’s messages were delivered, there was a serious transformation in their economic standing. They went from being very wealthy during the reign of Jeroboam, to losing everything due to heavy taxation, social chaos and losing control of their resources.  All these things experienced from an invading Assyrian army. Hosea will further reveal the perversion in their worship in mingling Yahweh and Baal adoration that can be seen in Amos.

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An Intro to Discipleship

Through my many years of church membership, I’ve taken the bait to address internal hot topics with my brothers and sisters in Christ which at times have created a few fires that almost consumed my precious soul. While I never intended it to, it often blew up in my face! This is often the case because people are either a little too edgy when confronted with a different view or they see you as an intellectual windbag who they’re not going to let you get away with pushing your views. Of course, it could also be that I rub people the wrong way, but I’ll leave it with the Lord and pray that perhaps I’ve matured. The essence of these theological conversations was significant and, in my mind, worthy of address. We need to be concerned about what we believe and discuss amongst ourselves especially those items that have ecclesiastical significance.

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The Evangelion

The bible tells us much about who God is and who He isn’t. The disclosure of His person is revealed in many beautiful ways including in His attributes which include His creatorship, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. But many believe that of all God’s revealed characteristics, His most prevalent attribute discussed in scripture is love, yet that’s not the case. The most emphasized attribute of God is in fact His Holiness. The term “holiness” signifies someone or something that is separated from sin and hence from anything impure. The holiness of God denotes his perfect purity and righteousness. which sets Him apart from everything else. All we can truly understand is that God is so Holy, so pure, so undefiled that He cannot stand sin, literally hates sin and refuses to be in the presence of it.

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Christian Nationalism & Postmillenialism

For the Christian, the hope of the future is bound to the promises of the scriptures and these promises don’t only show us the final destiny of humanity, but they’re like road signs directing us on how to get there. Our outlook on the end of history determines how much we steer in getting there and also what that involvement looks like. Some are less passionate about their contribution while others are hitting the gas pedal hard. Unless you’ve prematurely moved into your bunker and shut off your AM radio, you’ve surely have heard a few hot takes on the topic of Christian Nationalism. Admittedly, until just a few short months ago, I wasn’t acquainted with this expression and the movement behind it but now the elite have captivated me with another fearmongering name to exile all Christians whether they serve in government or not. If you’re not familiar with this term, I’ll do my best to share what I know. The idea of Christian Nationalism is a Christian political movement seemingly gaining some attention especially in the United States that is attempting to pass laws through government that would reflect God’s civil laws in their American society. Most mainstream media outlets who are our beacon of knowledge and truth identify it with a bunch of KKK rednecks and religious fanatics trying to usher in an American version if Iran but without all those pesty protests. Well, that’s the definition you will get from your local liberal and Tik Tok conducer but anyone with a shred of honesty will argue that it’s a little more complicated than that. The concept of a nation with Christian principles scares these folks who are fighting adamantly for an anti-Christian secular nation and are willing to engage in a little friendly civil name calling. But ultimately, like any other movement, there are different extremities, some extreme while some other are of the more mild version.

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A Stroll in a Cemetary & The Future

The work of tracing a family tree can be a daunting one especially if you care to do it right. Scouring records of genealogical data from multiple sources for hours on end is no laughing matter especially if someone in the past wasn’t a very good bookie. We all come from a long ancestorial lineage and few of us are privileged enough to have met but only a few of our familial forebearers and hence, an investigation in necessary. One thing for certain, while conducting our inquiry, we discover quickly that we may know very little about their past. Baptismal records may reveal some affiliation to a religion, work documents to their occupation, land surveys to determine where they lived, and, of course, court records may divulge their badness but ultimately, we know only sparse few details about our distant past relatives.

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The Christian Identity

I’d like to take time to consider further address our identity in God’s promises as Israel by reviewing some key passages in the New Testament. As we’ve seen, the recipients of the promises are Israel and few question this reality. We’ve been contemplating the question of the identifying attributes of Israel on a number of angles and have come to the conclusion that Christ is the true Israel. The same can be said of Christians since we’ve seen that we are identified as an expansion of the recipients of these promises. Christ’s death and resurrection fulfilled the promises to Abraham concerning his descendants and the nations and as we’ll see below, creating one man of the two. We can’t attribute this identity of Israel simply to a circumcised ethnic descendant of Abraham since these promises belong to those who find their ethnicity in a new creation in Christ by faith.

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Happy Reformation Day!

While the majority of my neighbours will be dawning ugly (and less than creative) ghoulish attire today, I will be focusing upon celebrating a much more significant event. October 31st will live in infamy, not for the celebration of Sam Hain, but for the day that a young monk by the name of Martin Luther decided to nail 95 debate theses to the doors of a Roman Church in Wittenberg. The firestorm that would proceed from that day in 1517 changed the world as we know it. It would spark a religious, economical and political change that continues to echo with us even in our generation. It would bring a time of the revival of the gospel and the centrality of the scriptures in the religious lives of Christians.

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Identity in Worship

The uniqueness of those who are in Christ is manifested in the important reality that only they are the true worshippers of Yahweh. Divine adoration is a fundamental marker of the people of God and we shouldn’t diminish this reality! The scriptures use concepts and identifiers to communicate that which is to be accepted as authentic worship. These include the place of worship, the worshippers and the offerings.

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Our Identity & Inheritance

Finding our identity as a people in Christ means that we should have a good idea of God’s promises to Christ and how we receive this promised inheritance through Him. Receiving the promises of Abraham as the children of God through Jesus requires a little further examination. As we endeavour, we also need to keep in mind the pattern throughout the New Testament of a fulfillment in Christ and then an expansion into greater blessings bursting forth from Him. If the OT was a shadow and had revelatory limitations, the NT certainly brings them to light without limits! I want to take a moment now to write about the most controversial of these ancestral promises mainly the promise of the land inheritance.

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