"This [is] the day [which] the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118.24).

Collaborative Exegesis of Ephesians 1.6

July 27, 2010
Exegesis of Ephesians 1.6

To “eis” – unto
Praise “epainos” – praise
glory “doxa” – splendour
His “autos” – trinity
grace “charis” – loving kindness
where “hos” - who
in “en” - with
made “charitoo” - bestowment of grace
us “hemas” - us
accepted “charitoo” - to honour with blessings
in “en” - in
beloved “agapao” - those who are dearly loved

Ephesians 1.5

"He appointed us before hand to be adopted to his children through the Son of God, Messiah, according to His satisfaction of what God wishes to be done by us" (Ephesians 1.5).

Ephesians 1.5

"Having appointed us beforehand to be adopted as children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His desire" (Ephesians 1.5).

"My Song in the Night" --Luther College Collegiate Chorale

Ephesians 1.5

"Through the gate of Messiah, Jehovah's Salvation, we have been appointed beforehand into public acceptance as sons.  For down from the self-same Trinity, there is a delightfully pleasing future in doing what He wishes to be done" (Ephesians 1.5).

Collaborative Exegesis of Ephesians 1.5

Ephesians 1:5

Having predestinated (prooizo) – appoint beforehand
Us (hemas) – us
Unto (eis) – into
The adoption of children (Huiothesia) – children
By (dia)– through
Jesus (Iesous) – the Son of God
Christ (Christos)– Messiah
To (eis) – for
Himself (Autos) – himself
According (Kata) – according to
To the good pleasure (eudokia) – delight, satisfaction
Of His (autos)– himself
Will (thelema) – of what God wishes to be done by us

"More Like Falling In Love" --Jason Gray

Click Here for the Video Link

What Makes a Cultic Movement or Organization?

Of Judaism, Paul noted “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he [who was] of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman [was] by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, [thou] barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him [that was born] after the Spirit, even so [it is] now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free” (Galatians 4.21-31).


Paul noted “Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they [are] not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these [are] not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this [is] the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. And not only [this]; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, [even] by our father Isaac; (For [the children] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” (Romans 9.6-13).

While the Koine Greek language of this passage speaks to Israel (The Princes of God) in the future tense, it can not be historically, grammatically, or literally known to concisely address either the future of then-living Hebrews who had rejected Christ Jesus, Messiah; nor, can it be known to concisely address the future of collective Israel at the Millennial reign of Christ Jesus, Messiah. Clearly, dispensational schools of thought rely upon the very allegorical interpretation and application that covenantal schools of thought are regularly criticized for. Of these passages, Augustine concurs with what has become a nearly universal consensus “...the elder people, the Jews, shall serve the younger people, the Christians” (Augustine, Homily on Romans [PG 60.547-596]). Therefore, the term “Replacement Theology” has come to assume that Christianity has replaced Judaism within the economy of God and the redemptive history of His people.

The assumption that the Hebrew people's group was only a type for the “...Israel of God;” or that and that their very temporal existence is only to serve as a lasting witness to the defeat of those who reject Christ, undermines the Sovereignty of God, the Supremacy of Christ, and the Providential Comfort of the Holy Ghost. “If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove. And thou shalt swear, The LORD liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory. For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench [it], because of the evil of your doings” (Jeremiah 4.1-4). 


Truly, the Most High Uncreated One actively abides through temporal and Divine Truth. He abides through the justice of right living. He reigns through righteousness. He commands that we make our uncultivated fields shine. He enjoins that we not impregnate the ground among thorn-bushes. Thorn-bushes take many forms. Some temporal grounds are unfit for Divine seed. “...But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which [vail] is done away in Christ” (II Corinthians 3.14). The object of this sentence may contain Divine truths which may be applied to more than one audience. Some Christians abide behind the vail of dogmatic singularity of application. Might is be possible that an organizational assertion of its own exclusively correct singularity of allegorical application is related to cultic tendency (as measured by religiocentric constructs)?

In the wider Christian community, debates over the merits and failings of literal, historical, and allegorical interpretation are riddled with ignorance. An allegory is but a typical “part-of-speech” within the Standard English-language. Not unlike the length of a lady's skirt, one's personal preference in music, or the style of a man's haircut—an allegory is amoral in nature. It is only moral or immoral in its use.

For those who enjoy the benefit of the Holy Ghost's indwelling, there can be no doubt that the Scriptural record speaks for itself. Its singular and literal English-language meaning can be readily known. Through contextual analysis, the text speaks literally, historically, and grammatically for itself. Being that the Scriptural text was not written directly to any presently-living human being, any application of the Biblical text is ALWAYS allegorical. Through the literary device of extended metaphor, the act of living human beings applying rightly-literal Scriptural understandings to their own lives, constitutes literal allegorical application.

Allegorical interpretation, on the other hand, presumes that the Contextual meaning is somehow an expression of extended metaphor. Is it possible that those who advocate allegorical interpretation are simply intending to apply allegorically and failing to delineate the embedded original literal intent first? Might the semantical understandings of an individual shade the heuristic filters through which he extrapolates meaning? Much research within the field of cognitive learning theory assuredly demonstrates such as fact.


“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2.9-16). To imply that Allegorical application is the same thing as Allegorical interpretation is to defame the very nature of God.  A cultic organization is an organization that actively asserts the exclusively correct nature of its particular allegorical application of a literally or allegorically interpreted Sacred text.

Cultic movements have been defined as those “movements” that present with marked levels of: Divisiveness; Separation from society-at-large; Doctrinal aberration; Isolationism from other religious groups within the same Faith; Overt indoctrination; An overemphasis on allegiance; and, the practice of shunning.¹ Where future research is concerned, it may be useful to operationally define cultic organizations as those organizations that maintain orthodox doctrinal positions and add unorthodox or aberrant doctrinal positions to them. Within statistical analysis, aberrancy may be controlled-for while examining the correlational affect of exclusivity of textual application.
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1Caner, Ergun. “Cultic Churches” (Class lecture, Sects of North America, THEO678, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, Liberty University, May 20, 2010).

JJ Heller--"Your Hands"

Exegesis of Ephesians 1:4

July 11, 2010
Ephesians 1:4

According as – Seeing that
chosen – To pick out
us – us
in – in
Him – Him
before – before
foundation – founding
world – planet earth
we – we
be – are
holy – most holy thing
and – also
blame – faultless
before - before the presence of
Him – the same (God, the Trinity)
in – within
love – selfless love

Study Update--

Hi All,

Please be sure to look at Keenan's post again (dated 7-6-2010). If you get the chance, rewrite it yourself in sentence form and bring it with you tomorrow night. Verses one and two are delineated in the originals as their own paragraph. Verses three and following are the beginning of the second paragraph.

Come as you are and bring a Bible and laptop or I-pad if you have one. If your first-language is Spanish, Russian, Korean or Japanese, a copy of the Scriptures in your first-language would be exceedingly useful.

Dinner is at six and we hope to begin worship by seven.

"Peace be unto you."

Allan

"Lord, Have Mercy (Kyrie)"

Psalm 123

“Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants [look] unto the hand of their masters, [and] as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes [wait] upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us. Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, [and] with the contempt of the proud” (Psalm 123).

Daniel 3.16-18

¶ "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we [are] not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be [so], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver [us] out of thine hand, O king.  But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up" (Daniel 3.16-18).

What is Religion?

Classically speaking, The term Religion has been etymologically defined by Augustine and Lactantius as re (Latin: again) + legare (Latin: connect).¹² Synergestically, these may be construed as reconnection. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11.1). In this usage, “Faith (Koine Greek: pistis [πίστις]) may be literally construed as trust that can not be disproved.³  Further, it connotes an objective internal state of belief and disbelief, with conviction being asserted on the part of belief. Accurately understood, then, Faith is an internal individual state of convicted belief and religion is an external collective expression of individual internal states.

Being that the literal meaning of the word “religion” is drawn from a sociological context, when studying sects and cults it may be useful to consider the meaning of the term “religion” within this context. As such, much empirically sound research within the field of sociology has thoroughly asserted that the measurement of religious exercise is best suited to correlational measures being undertaken with “ideal types” serving as a baseline.⁴ It has been further asserted that Attributional measures would more accurately identify an organization or individual defined as religious.⁵ the construct of religion may be best understood as “super-empirical” evidentiary metacognition.⁶ As such, it may be methodologically most expedient to evaluate Faith trough measures of behaviorally dichotomous religious expression and Pearson “R” correlation coefficients of attitudinal surveys of internal states.

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1Allen, Thomas. The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2004.

2Moyers, Bill, ed. Betty Sue Flowers. The Power of Myth. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.

3Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for pistis (Strong's 4102)". Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2010. 20 Jun 2010. < http:// www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?
strongs=G4102 >.

4Weber, Max. The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Glencoe: The Free Press. 1949.

5Stark, Rodney, and William Sims Bainbridge. "Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 18, no. 2 (June 1979): 117-131. SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed June 20, 2010).

6Ibidem.

"Love is Not a Fight"

7/6/10 Breaking down Ephesians, word by word

July 6, 2010

Ephesians 1

Eph. 2-1 (verse 2 comes before verse 1) May grace and peace be yours, sent to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. This letter is from Paul, chosen by God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.

1:3

• Blessed; In a state of blessedness (holiness)
• God – means Trinity
• In Deed
• Father Generator
• Our
• Owner; Lord – one who owns us…one who is owned (we are His slaves)
• Jesus
• Christ – Anointed, literally means Messiah
• Who- This Jesus
• Blessed - To praise, to set apart
• Us – Our
• With – in, by or with
• All – collectively, everyone
• Spiritual – (Numatikos -breath, air) pertaining to the Spirit, (Spirit dwells with us, Soul –eternal identity) from the Holy Spirit, not of man
• Blessings – to laude (praise) “applaud”; a blessing from our faithfulness to God, a praise from God to you, He is captivating us
• In – by
• Heavenly- literally means heaven
• Places-
• In- by
• Christ- Anointed, Messiah

"...This is my Story..."

While I dearly love music in all its shades and textures it occurs to me that this 39 year old man is decidedly "old school" where the song of Faith is concerned. Surely, music is amoral. Of itself, it is neither good nor bad. Rather, its value lies in an end of goodness--or not. Because of the universal human tendency toward degeneration, beauty and nobility are often lacking within the human experience. Music is no exception to this generalization.

In this life, there are rare times when the beauty of music has the power to lift us out of the doldrums and to point our faces heavenward. A few weeks ago, it was my great joy to sing in church for the first time in quite some time. With great skill on the piano, drums, and bass, a jazz trio accompanied me as I chose to sing of an "...Assurance" that is altogether "Blessed...."

Mrs. Equilla Carter, of Joliet Illinois, once recited an oft' repeated cliche to me. "Rev....," she said, "...into every life some rain has got to fall." How right she was! How true her words are! In every life, pain, doubt, fear, confusion, loneliness, and despair riddle this present reality. The thoughtful may ask, “Of what may we be assured?"

Today, from 11 AM to 8.30 PM I studied faithfully with a friend. On my return, the house was empty. As I stepped through the door, wooden floors and vaulted ceilings resounded with my entrance. I placed this constraining cell-phone in its charger. I took-off my watch and shoes. I booted-up the computer and headed for the kitchen.

Loving the reverberation, I thoughtlessly began to sing. My song rang through the rafters.

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love" (Fanny Crosby).

My "Blessed Assurance" is found only in the fact that I am the "Purchase" of God. I can do nothing to merit redemption. I can do nothing to lose redemption. "Mercy" is the "Blessed" state of justice being withheld. I am indeed "...lost in His love." Of what may we be assured? We may be assured that Jesus is ours when we are "heir(s) of Salvation." This is a thought that lifts me from the doldrums and turns my face heavenward. It is my prayer that it does likewise for you.

"Peace be unto you."

Allan

Psalm One

"Oh, the joys of those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or stand around with sinners,
or join in with scoffers.
2
But they delight in doing everything the Lord wants;
day and night they think about his law.
3
They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
bearing fruit each season without fail.
Their leaves never wither,
and in all they do, they prosper.

4
But this is not true of the wicked.
They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.
5
They will be condemned at the time of judgment.
Sinners will have no place among the godly.

6
For the Lord watches over the path of the godly,
but the path of the wicked leads to destruction" (Psalm 1).

Phil Wickham-- "Safe in His Arms"

Britt Nicole-- "The Lost Get Found"