Jesus Called Them Commandments, Mr. Noble

Jesus Called Them Commandments, Mr. Noble

On Christmas Eve, not only did Perry Noble make the outrageously false claim that the Hebrew language has no word for command (see the graphic on this post to see the proof that this is not true), he claimed that God was the one who laid it on his heart to preach that.

To add insult to injury, this past Sunday Noble defended his false claim by saying, "I didn’t try to rescind the Ten Commandments. I simply declared that they are actually promises from God, because Ten Command…–that word command in Hebrew–it is not command, it is saying. I have resear… I have gone back and talked to people in Israel that confirm those things (Online Source)."

In other words, Perry Noble, rather than retract his false claims regarding the commandments has decided to dig in and double down. But, here's Noble's embarrassing problem, Jesus called them commandments, not promises.

A brief survey of the words of Jesus will suffice in proving this fact.

Quick note: the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, not Hebrew. The Greek word for commandment is entole, and it means:

ἐντολή, 

1. an order authorizing a specific action, writ, warrant,
2. a mandate or ordinance, command
a. of commands by pers. in high position
b. of commands given by divine authorities
α. of commandments of OT law.

Below, are examples of how Jesus referred to the Old Testament imperatives.

Matthew 5:18–19: “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 15:1–4: “Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’”

Matthew 22:35–40: “and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Mark 10:17–19: “And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.”

Notice that in Mark 10:17–19 Jesus quotes directly from the ten commandments, and Jesus does not call them promises, he calls them commandments.

Jesus speaks Hebrew. Jesus grew up in Israel, and Jesus is God in human flesh. In other words, Jesus is the very God who gave these commandments and Jesus knows full well what His intention was in giving them and Jesus calls them commandments of God and says they were commanded by God.

So, who are you going to believe? 

Are you going to believe Perry Noble who admits that he does not know Hebrew but claims that there is no word in Hebrew for command or are you going to believe Jesus who speaks Hebrew and is the God who gave the commandments and calls them commandments commanded by God?

As for me, I'm going to go with Jesus.

χάρις ἔλεος εἰρήνη σοι,

Chris Rosebrough

@PirateChristian

God Consults 4th Member of the Trinity

God Consults Gateway Church Pastor Robert Morris on Future of King’s University

January 4, 2015 by Warren Throckmorton 

 

I have heard many things from megac-hurch pastors that made me do a double-take. The subject of this post ranks up near the top of the list. According to Apostolic elder Jack Hayford, God asked Morris if it would be all right for The King’s University to move to Gateway Church.  At Gateway’s First Conference going on now, Hayford made this claim.

Watch: VIDEO LINK HERE

According to Hayford (who Morris had just compared to the Apostle Paul), Morris wanted Hayford to relate the story:

Three weeks ago I was with the Lord in my morning time with Him and He said ‘Robert, if Pastor Jack asks you to have Gateway be the host site for the King’s University, would that be all right with you? And Robert said to me, ‘And I said to the Lord, yes.’

Hayford then called attention to the incredible claim that God asked Morris if the move would be all right by saying God had never asked Hayford for permission. He then joked that Morris was the 4th person of the Trinity.

Do you suppose the Lord called Jack Hayford, Pastor Jack? I wonder if He had a back up plan in case Morris said no. Apparently, Gateway is such a big deal that even God addresses the Apostolic elders as “pastor” and asks permission.

*Finally* A Big Evangelical Leader Stood Up To Glenn Beck - Pen & Pulpit

A Big Evangelical Leader Stood Up To Glenn Beck

Audio File of Glenn HERE 

[Transcript provided below.]

On his December 9th Radio Show, Glenn Beck let loose a few interesting revelations- primarily that a big name in evangelical circles who was being lined up to appear on his show made his appearance conditional on the provision that he would be able to draw some clear lines in the sand separating and contrasting his beliefs [Christianity] with Beck’s beliefs [Not Christianity] . This drew the ire of Glenn who revealed that he almost hung up the phone at that point, sent some murderous thoughts towards his caller, and then went on a subsequent rant which demonstrated how right and true this “big evangelical” was to insist on being able to draw a clear delineation between a religion of works and one of grace. No doubt, part of the reason Beck was so upset is because he isn’t used to getting that sort of pushback. There’s a big laundry list of “evangelical leaders” who haven’t made those same distinctions with him (and likewise, must not love him much), and have gone along with him in partnership without making it an issue. From the audio, it seems like they could not come to a resolution, and so good on this man for standing firm and insisting on his prerogative. At a time when so many Christian leaders and pastors are caving to this theological phenomenon which attempts to muddy the theological waters for the sake of cohesion and cooperation on social issues, this man ought to be thanked, and appreciated, whoever he is.

“I had a conversation off-air with a big evangelical recently. And he said “you know, if I’m going to come on your show, it’s important for me to point out the differences between our religions. “ And quite honesty I almost hung up the phone. I was like…. but I didn’t. And the reason why I almost hung up the phone was because I thought “Are you really this small? Are you really this small? Do you see what’s happening to us right now?” Nobody cares what my religion is. Nobody really cares what your religion is. What they want are ‘are you putting your principles in action right now? What demonstrates me- don’t talk to me. Don’t preach to me, demonstrate to me. Who are you?  What do you believe?  What are you doing about it right now? Do you know why 20-something’s don’t go to church anymore? Because church doesn’t do anything. You gonna sit here and talk about it, are you gonna talk about the things that change lives, or you gonna do the things that changes lives. Don’t talk to me about theology. Talk to me about God in practice. How can I be a better man. How can I survive today?”

We see the problems here, obviously. Ours is not a religion of works. Beliefs do matter. Not everyone gets to heaven (another difference between our two religions) and the entrance is made by faith in a particular belief in a particular Person. And so, it’s not about what you do, but about what a God-Man once did.

But what’s truly amazing about this clip is the apparent rarity at which Beck – who often has evangelicals on his program to discuss religion – must hear any distinction between Christian monotheism and the most polytheistic religion on the planet, Mormonism. It also demonstrates, or so it would seem, that there hasn’t been an evangelical guest on Beck’s program who has cared to paint that distinction for Beck or loved him enough to evangelize him. Kirk Cameron? Ravi Zacharias? The Falwells? These guys haven’t been like, “Uh, Glenn…just so you know, you’re not a Christian”? Apparently not, at least if Beck’s testimony here is to make any sense.

[Contributed by Dustin Germain]

PS:   By the way, who was that guy? We’re taking no-money bets in the Pulpit Bunker and the best guess is Voddie Baucham, perhaps being invited to speak on The Blaze during his last media blitz to discuss Ferguson. Maybe? Maybe not? Who do you think this evangelical of integrity was? The list can’t be that long.

If All The Bible Translations Had A Dinner Party *humor*

If All The Bible Translations Had A Dinner Party

English Standard Version (ESV): Hey everybody, can I have your attention? Great, thanks. Look, I’m so glad that you’re all here for this reunion of sorts. It sure is great to have all of us translations together in one…

New International Version (NIV): Since when did you become the big cheese who gets to tell us what to do? Look, I know you’re the new kid on the block, and that a bunch of pastors are all like, “Rah, rah, ESV, our study Bible can beat up your study Bible.” But just because you’re new and polished doesn’t mean you’re better. Some of us have been around for a long time and have seen a lot of things.

King James Version (KJV): Hear, hear! Thou young Bibles have no sense of tradition or languages. Thou goest hither and yon, getting makeovers every three years.  NIV, in the last ten years thou hast gotten plastic surgery and thou hast begun dressing like a metrosexual. Thou hast lost thy manhood! I haven’t changed one jot or tittle in over 400 years! [Takes small sip of merlot from a goblet marked “Ebenezer”].

NIV: I am not dressing like a metrosexual! These are skinny jeans. They’re supposed to look…skinny. And in terms of my manhood, let me make something…

The Message (MSG): Dudes, why does Old Man James always talk like that? [Slurps on Redbull]. I mean, like, what’s the difference between “Thee” and “Thou”? And what are jots and tittles? Are they like “Mike & Ike’s”? Honestly, I feel like I’m talking to someone who speaks Mexican. Whatev’s. I totes don’t get it.

ESV: Okay, okay, listen. Yes, I have been getting a lot of attention lately, and I did have a snazzy marketing campaign, but that doesn’t mean I’m bet…

MSG: Dude, can you talk a little quieter. My son, The Message Remix, is competing in the X-Games, and I’m trying to watch on my phone. He’s totes shredding the half-pipe.

Amplified Bible (AMP) [nervously rubbing hands together, perspiration forming on mustache]: I just want to say that I’m really grateful, excited, thrilled, jazzed, stoked to be here. I talk a lot, say a lot of words, run my mouth when I get nervous, anxious, stressed, worried, so please ignore, deny, pay no attention to me. Did I say too much?

KJV [speaking very loudly]: Translations these days have no sense of history, no sense of tradition. I wast commissioned by King James himself. I am practically royalty. Back in my day, there was no New Living Message Voice Remix. There were no glow in the dark covers or Bible XTremes. There was only the king’s English, and we liked it that way. Message, who doth commissioned you? Was it a President or Prime Minister?

MSG: Uhh, a guy name Eugene. He’s from Montana, I think. Wears Birkenstocks. Totes awesome dude.

Scofield Reference Bible (SRB): Guys, I know that, technically, I’m not a translation, so I really appreciate you letting me be here. Gosh, it’s so exciting to be here with all of you. I don’t often get the chance to speak. I’ve prepared a detailed presentation I’d like to share with all of you.

ESV [muttering]: Oh boy. Here we go.

SRB: Anyway, I’ve got a lot of really neat charts and tables that I’d like to show you guys. I think that by the time this dinner is over, we can predict the return of Christ to within 24 hours.

NIV: Look, not to be a jerk, but I think all of us contain a verse in which Jesus says we can’t know the time or the hour.

ESV [snickering]: Are you sure you still have that verse?

NIV: Oh, is that how it’s going to be? Don’t even get me started. Old Man James over there has more errors than Derek Jeter, and The Message is practically having a rave. Then there’s Amp, who can’t stop talking, and Mr. Scofield who has managed to connect Israel, Michael Gorbachev, and Michael W. Smith. I’m the only sane one of the bunch!

AMP: I think you’re overreacting, being hyperbolic, exaggerating. Yes perhaps I do speak, pontificate, ramble on a bit, but it’s all for good. I think if you would just let me speak, talk, hold forth a bit more, you would see that I have wonderful, extravagant, delightful ideas.

NIV: And ESV, don’t get me started on your whole family. You’re brother, Study Bible, has a serious weight problem. I mean, he needs to go on Atkins or something. Your grandma, Mrs. Heirloom, likes to wrap herself in calfskin. Calfskin! Does she sleep on a bed of veal? And your little sister, Glo Bible, looks like she’s ready to hit the rave scene.

ESV [standing up]: You stay away from my family! We’re working on our problems. At least I didn’t have a vasectomy!

MSG: Woah…this just got intense. [cracks open another Red Bull]. What’s a vasectomy?

NIV: How dare you?!? Let’s make this clear. I was neutered. There is a big difference. It’s kind of like being a eunuch, but different.

[Awkward silence]

SRB: So like I was saying, I have these really neat color-coded charts that clearly show how the fall of the Berlin Wall was predicted in…

KJV: Oh just shut up, dear boy. Thou rants and rants when thou knowest nothing! I long for the good old days when a man protected his family with both the broadsword and the Bible.

SRB: Well then. I’ll be leaving.

Catholic Edition Revised Standard Version (CRSV): Guys, I know I haven’t said anything yet, but I really think I can solve this problem.

ESV: No, no. I know how you work. You think that because you have extra books, that somehow makes you special. Well it doesn’t!

MSG: Dudes! Dudes. It’s in these times that I like to quote that verse in Proverbs which says, “Can’t we all just get along?”

EXPOSITIONAL PREACHING: WHAT IS IT? RYAN BURTON KING ANSWERS

 

Pastor Ryan Burton King posted his three part series on Expositional Preaching that was printed in the worship bulletin of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green):

Preaching is vital to the church’s life and care should be taken with reference to context, time allotted, and biblical exegesis as to what should be preached and how. In any case, an expositional sermon draws its substance from God’s word, deals with the matters raised in a particular Scriptural text, and should consistently point to the message of the Saviour that undergirds all Scriptural texts…

Expositional preaching reads, explains, and applies the Scriptures in a way that is unrivalled by other styles of preaching. It requires attention as the preacher prepares then delivers the message drawn from the text, and as the people listen. It commands devotion, as people are driven to search the Scriptures more deeply and, if the messages are working consecutively through a book, drawn to meet again so as not miss the next segment. It demands a response, challenging head-thoughts, heart-feelings, and life-styles with the call to lay other things aside and seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness in Christ. That is why we preach expositionally.

Whither Reformed Baptists? #1 of 4

It has often been stated that the Lord Jesus referenced only the church twice in His earthly ministry. The first time is in Matthew 16 wherein he stated that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church and the secondly in Matthew 18 wherein He envisions the necessity of church discipline against an impenitent member. In these two statements, it has been said, we have the church triumphant and the church militant (struggling). The history of the Church bears both these marks. There are glorious stories of triumph and grievous stories of shame, infidelity, and retreat.

For over thirty years I have been part of Reformed Baptist Churches. I have pastored one church for nearly 25 years and have sought to help other churches get planted. I have been involved in ministerial training in the US, Africa and the Far East. In recent months I have been thinking through the trajectory we, as churches, seem to be on. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet. My plan, in these blogs, is to identify four areas of concern and articulate some course of action.

The first area of concern is that of future leadership. While there are numerous Calvinistic Baptist movements marked by vigorous and youthful leadership, our churches are not yet among their number. There are many of our churches where there are sole pastors and some of those churches are pastored by men of advancing years. Not only can they not find a fellow elder to bring about a biblical plurality, they do not know who will lead their flock in the decades to come. No pastor I know wants their churches to fade away when they are gone. They desire that God will replace them with robustly confessional men who love the Lord and His people and who will lead them to the green grass and cool waters of His Word for decades till they themselves are replaced.

What kind of men? We desire biblically qualified men who have a passion to selflessly shepherd Christ’s flock. We desire men of giftedness who will be able to feed the flock. We desire men of confessional conviction. That means, for us, men who embrace the truths of historic confessional Christianity with firmness, conviction, knowledge and joy. Men who embrace Baptist Covenant Theology. Men who love the Lord’s Day and are not ashamed of its place in the Moral Law. Men who believe in the centrality of the church and the commitment of members to it’s life together. If our churches are to remain committed not only to Orthodox and Reformed Christianity but to 1689 Confessionalism then we must do at least three things.

The first we must do is pray that the Lord of the Harvest will raise up laborers (Matt 9:38). As one has well said, only the God who made the world can make a gospel minister. Secondly we must invest in our youth. We must lay bare afresh what we believe and why we believe it and pray that the Lord will instill in them a passion for these truths they have grown up with in a way that does not lead to pride, judgmentalism towards brethren who differ, and isolation. We can and must be a people of narrow convictions and broad affections and associations. Thirdly we must act. Encourage young men to consider the ministry. Pastors need to look for men to mentor and invest time and resources in. Look to give younger men opportunities for ministry—prison ministries, nursing homes, homeless shelters, youth gatherings, Sunday School classes, and eventually morning or evening worship services. Lead the people of God in prayer for the rising generation with hope that God will own and bless His truth till His Son returns in glory.

Jim Savastio, Pastor

Reformed Baptist Church of Louisville

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If you love god (whomever you think that is) we're on the same team....right?

The Warren Trajectory

A lot of folks wonder what exactly we do with our time up here in the frozen wilderness whenever the temperatures drop below – well – liveable.  I don’t know about everybody else, but I’ve spent my winters building a time machine.  It’s been absolutely a blast traveling about, discovering church history in Mr. Peabody fashion.  Why, just last week I sat in on a few of John Calvin’s lectures at the Genevan Academy!

But as exciting as it can be to travel into the past, the real fun is in discovering the future.   Armchair theologians like to speculate about where various theologians church celebrities are going to wind up.  Well, speculate no longer, because I’m back from the future with a thumb-drive, and I’ve discovered some pretty interesting video evidence of the near future.

It appears that recently a lot of folks are up in arms over Rick Warren’s comments on Catholicism (LINK HERE).  What exactly is Rick thinking?  What’s next?  Is this guy even stable?  Who can predict what he’ll say tomorrow?

Well here’s what we found just five years into the future:

VIDEO LINK HERE!!

So, Rick Warren fans, that’s really too bad about the hair.  It’s sad what five years can do to follicles.  On the upside, it appears that Rick’s theological discernment will nevertheless remain intact!