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Lifting the Curse
This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.
In the midst of John’s blissful vision of the new heavens and earth, he records these simple but profound words: “and there will no longer be any curse” (Rev. 22:3). What’s the curse to which John refers? And who or what causes the curse to end?
John’s reference to the curse takes us back to Genesis 3 and the Fall. There, Adam’s sin plunges all creation into a morass of death and decay. John also whisks us through the pages of the Old Testament, where we see the parallel tracks of sin’s destruction and God’s promise of a virgin-born redeemer.
And he reminds us of the New Testament truth that Jesus of Nazareth burst onto the scene two thousand years ago, divinely conceived, perfect in humanity, and sent into a world sagging beneath the weight of sin. The Messiah’s sinless life and finished work on the cross conquer Satan, sin, and death, and his promise to return enables us to rest in the certainty that the curse cannot last forever.
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The Book of Life: A Real Book
This is another in a series of excerpts from The Book of Life: What the Bible Says about God’s Registry of the Redeemed from High Street Press and available at Amazon. This except comes from Chapter 2: A Real Book.
When studying biblical realities we’ve never seen with the naked eye, it’s good to ask whether a writer of Scripture is expressing his divinely inspired thoughts literally or figuratively. For example, is the millennium a literal one thousand years, or simply a long stretch of time (Rev. 20:1-7)? Is “the arm of the LORD” a muscle-bound appendage of God’s, or an anthropomorphism – an expression of God in human terms (Isa. 53:1)? And is the book of life an actual scroll-and-pen publication, or a way to explain God’s unrestricted knowledge of people and events (Ps. 69:28)?
To address the last of these questions, and to better set the tone for our study of the book of life, it may help to briefly explore how Scripture uses the words “book” and “life.”
Continue readingWhat have we done with the Christmas story?
Christians love to hear and tell the traditional Christmas story. The birth of Jesus includes Mary and Joseph seeking shelter on a winter night, no room in the inn, a baby born in a stable, and angels visiting lowly shepherds nearby.
But our modern telling of the account in Luke 2:1-20 embraces critical flaws, according to Kenneth E. Bailey, who spent 40 years teaching the New Testament in the Middle East and who authored Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels.
According to Bailey, a careful reading of the text, along with an understanding of Jewish culture, illuminate five biblical truths that challenge our Westernized version of the Christmas story:
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What have we done with the Christmas story?
Christians love to hear and tell the traditional Christmas story. The birth of Jesus includes Mary and Joseph seeking shelter on a winter night, no room in the inn, a baby born in a stable, and angels visiting lowly shepherds nearby.
But our modern telling of the account in Luke 2:1-20 embraces critical flaws, according to Kenneth E. Bailey, who spent 40 years teaching the New Testament in the Middle East and who authored Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels.
According to Bailey, a careful reading of the text, along with an understanding of Jewish culture, illuminate five biblical truths that challenge our Westernized version of the Christmas story:
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Jesus Before Bethlehem
High Street Press offers a unique resource for personal or group study titled Jesus Before Bethlehem: What Every Christian Should Know About the Angel of the LORD.
Written by Rob Phillips of the Missouri Baptist Convention, the 338-page book explores dozens of Old Testament appearances by a figure often identified as “the angel of the LORD.” This figure not only speaks for God; he speaks as God. He appears as a man, a voice from heaven, a flame within a thorn bush, and a divine presence in a pillar of cloud and fire – all of which come to us as Christophanies, or appearances of Jesus before Bethlehem.
The book addresses the question: What was Jesus doing prior to his conception in Mary’s womb? While we see the Father and the Holy Spirit actively engaged in human affairs across the pages of the Old Testament, the other member of the Trinity (Jesus) is foreshadowed in messianic prophecies but otherwise absent from the earth. Or is he?
Jesus Before Bethlehem is designed to show how the eternal Son of God has always taken a personal interest in those he created to be his imagers on earth.
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