Redeeming The Time: A Simple System

Article contributed by Stand To Reason
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“The days drag on, the years fly by,” the saying goes. So true. Our time is precious, and the older I get the faster it seems to go. James says life is like a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. So much to do; so little time to do it.

The sad truth is, much of the limited time we have is squandered due to disorganization and clutter. Not good. The Apostle Paul warned, “Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16).

Since I want my life to count for the Kingdom, for years I have been following a simple system of organizing my tasks, organizing my time, and organizing the great volume of stuff that invades my life each day. I’d like to pass that system on to you so your own life will be less chaotic and more productive for the things that really matter.

If you follow my instructions, you can rid yourself or every Post-It stuck to your computer screen and other surfaces around your home or office. You can be done with every scrap or stray list of to-dos cluttering your work area. You can say goodbye to stacks of paper and piles of confusion that’s kept your desk from being seen since the 90s. I’m going to give you a way to eliminate the mess, the confusion, and the constant frustration of organizational chaos.

My system is fairly simple, but you can add complexity if your own circumstances require it. This is not the “perfect plan,” but rather the basic groundwork to get you headed in the right direction. You can refine as you go. My goal is to:

Have a place for everything important
Never lose track of any name, number, obligation, document, appointment, idea, or task I need to do or might like to do sometime in the future, especially those things that are significant or time sensitive.
Keep my desk clear
Have a plan to follow to accomplish the tasks of each day

A Place for Everything

Here is the foundational rule for getting your organizational act together: A Place for Everything, and Everything in Its Place.¹ That means to get started you’ll need a basic filing system. This is your first step. There are many ways to do this, but I simplify the process by having only two places to file things.

First, I have a 6-inch deep, hard plastic holder made for hanging folders that I keep within arms reach of my desk. I use it to hold three sections of manila folders, and I use half a hanging folder to separate the sections. In one section I have 12 folders labeled with each month of the year (I use a simple Brother P-Touch for labeling tasks, but any marker will do). In another section I have 31 folders, one for each day of the month. In the final section I have folders labeled for projects I’m currently working on so any paperwork pertaining to them is handy. (If you want to do this electronically, you can arrange something similar on your digital devices with applications like Evernote.)

That’s the basic setup. Here’s how this part of my system works. When a piece of paper crosses my desk related to something time sensitive, I file it in either the day or the month it belongs to. Any paperwork for any date in the next 31 days goes into the appropriate daily folder. Anything for any date further out goes into the folder for its month.

I pay bills on the 1st (though I try to automate as much bill paying as possible), so any bill that crosses my desk gets dropped into the file for that date and I don’t give it another thought until then. If in January I get paperwork for a trip scheduled March 20, I’ll put those docs in the March folder and forget about them until the 1st of that month when I do my monthly planning. Then I’ll take that paperwork out of the March file and place it in the folder for the 20th. On the 20th my docs for that day are right where I need them, when I need them.

You get the idea. Any paperwork related to any task that needs attention on any particular day goes immediately into either a daily folder or a monthly folder. Then put it out of your mind until then. Simple. I rotate the daily files so the current day is always in front. When I’ve processed the paper for that day, I rotate that folder to the back of the group so tomorrow’s folder is front and center when I process its contents in the morning. I do the same with the monthly folders.

Finally, I make a folder for each project I’m working on that has paper needing storage. My project folders store any non-time-sensitive paperwork pertaining to a current enterprise. I have one folder labeled “STR” that travels back and forth with me to my Tuesday staff meeting and radio show. Any Stand to Reason or broadcast stuff goes in there. At the moment, we’re doing some roof work on our house, so bids, drawings, idea notes, or thoughts for the contractor get dropped into that folder, immediately available when I need them—nothing lost, nothing forgotten, nothing cluttering up my desk. Again, this can be done with digital apps.

The second filing location is for longer-term, archival-type storage. I use a file cabinet, but you can use something smaller to start out, especially if you don’t have a lot to save. Some use scanners for this purpose, too. It’s up to you. I use hanging folders to group manila folders into individual categories of like kind. I have sections for bills I’ve paid by category (mortgage, gas, water, electrical, etc.), various insurance accounts, credit card statements with tax-relevant receipts attached, IRAs and investment accounts, etc. Each section and each folder is labeled clearly for instant identification.

I keep a set of alphabetical hanging file dividers to hold folders for everything else. Christmas ideas, articles, songs, etc., are stored in a manila “Christmas” folder filed in the hanging divider labeled “C,” for example. “Warranties and Manuals” are under “W,” and “Earthquake Preparedness” under “E.” Basic, simple, straightforward.

Make as many folders as suit your purpose, being as particular or as general as you like. It’s your system. Just make sure there’s a place for everything you want to save and the categories have enough variety and are grouped in such a way that you can find things easily.

Here’s the rule that makes the system work: Don’t Put It Down; Put It Away.² The key here is to keep paper from building up. When something comes in, either throw it away or put it away. It can go in your file cabinet in a long-term topical file, or in your plastic file holder—in a future month file if it needs action then, in a day file if you need it in the next 31 days, or in a Project file. Remember: A place for everything, and everything in its place.³

Digital Duties

The next thing you’ll need is a place to electronically store tasks and vital information so you can put them into play when you need them.

I store all my passwords, Social Security numbers, driver’s license data, passport information, financial account numbers, and any other security sensitive data in a password program. (I use 1Password.) It also pairs with my smartphone, so no matter where I’m at, every important login or number is at my fingertips.

I’m a Mac guy, so Apple’s Contacts and Calendar suit me well and work seamlessly with each other for people and appointments. For task management I’m using Things at the moment, but some in the STR office like Omnifocus. Just be sure that everything pairs with your phone.

Regardless of what you use, the important thing is to have a place to quickly store any new thing that comes in: a new contact, a changed phone number or address, an appointment or an ongoing obligation (like a weekly meeting, a birthday, or anniversary), or any task of any sort.

As an aside, you may want to invest in some kind of financial software, too. It doesn’t need to be fancy, nothing more than an electronic checkbook to keep track of monetary transactions by category (checking and credit cards, mostly), to print checks, and to balance your accounts each month. (I use Quicken.) These programs also allow you to print summary statements periodically to show where all you money disappeared to.

Here’s how I keep track of tasks.

In Things I’m able to create folders for “Areas” and for “Projects” to file different kinds of tasks. There is also a “Today” category for the current day’s to-do list, and a way to schedule tasks to appear on any future date, or repeatedly (daily, weekly, monthly, or annually), as I like.

Areas and Projects function almost exactly like your manila filing folders, but for tasks, not paper. I have Areas like “Finances,” “House/Yard,” “STR,” “Shop,” “Personal,” etc., where I store things I need to do or would like to do at some unspecified time in the future.

The Projects folders are for enterprises that have related tasks. I have, for example, a “Skeeter” Project file listing improvements I’d like to make to my bass boat. When I go to Wisconsin in May, I’ll check that list to consider fishing enhancements. I’ll also look at my checklist for getting the boat operational at the beginning of the season.

You can have a “Christmas Cards” Project, listing in order the tasks for that annual chore. You might have a Project named “Bathroom Remodel,” or “Term Paper,” or “Birthday Party,” or “Crazy Dreams & Wild Ideas,” or whatever. It’s your world. You choose the categories meaningful to you.

Whenever any new task presents itself—a new obligation, a bright idea, a fanciful wish—absolutely anything you might need to do or want to do sometime in the future, you now have a place to put it so it doesn’t get lost. Post the task as a to-do for today, schedule it for some day in the future, place it in an Area, or drop it in a Project to be reviewed and scheduled at another time.

You may never get to many of these tasks, but you’ll never forget one or lose one. They’re all right there a mouse-click away, filed electronically so you don’t have to worry about them ever again. Your mind can rest because every task is right where you can find it easily in the future.

That’s the basic system. Here’s how to make it operational.

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

On the first of every month (ideally), I survey my Area and Project lists in Things to see if there’s anything I want to place in a Project labeled for that month. I also sort the paperwork in my monthly manila file and distribute the documents into the daily files where they belong. Now I have specific goals for the month in a single Project folder in Things, and all my paperwork in files for the day of the month they’re needed. Neat.

First thing every morning (again, ideally), I plan my work for the day using my Today file in Things.⁴ Some tasks that I’ve scheduled to show up each day are already there (e.g., “Bible,” “Pressing Emails,” “20 Pushups,” etc.). Others are unfinished tasks carried over from the previous day that I might keep on the list for the day, or may reschedule for another time, or may return to the proper Area or Project folders. I then add any other tasks I want to get done that day.

Next, I grab my manila folder for the day, enter any tasks related to those documents, then place the paperwork in an “In” box near my desk so the copies are handy when I get to their tasks. Any paper I don’t get to that day goes back into the folder for the day or the month I plan to look at it next, and the task related to it gets rescheduled.

Finally, I consult the Project folder on Things that has the current month’s goals. Any of its tasks I think I can get done that day I add to the list. The only detail remaining is to order my tasks in a productive way. I might group errands or phone calls together, for example, to tackle them all at once.

Notice the flow. I’ve stored my tasks in categories I can easily access to decide which ones should be action items for the month. I’ve stored my paperwork so I have it handy when I need it. I have a daily task list reflecting the day’s demands, scheduled items that populate automatically, and items I’ve transferred from my monthly Project list to my Today schedule.

I now have a single action list for the day. I’ve planned my work. Now all I need to do is work my plan. The plan helps me focus. I just put my head down and get to work, going down my list and ticking off tasks in order as I complete them.

For me, there is a tremendous satisfaction in checking things off a list. It’s a huge motivator. Something I might normally put off I’m driven to take care of just for the satisfaction of crossing it off. People are different this way, but it’s a big help for me.

If I don’t get to everything, no problem. I’ll get more done than I would have if I hadn’t made the list to begin with. That’s the value of working your plan. And there’s always another day.

Of course, the process rarely proceeds smoothly. There are distractions.

Time Bandits

A torrent of stuff flows into our lives every day screaming for our attention that can easily scuttle our plan. If we’re not vigilant, we’ll spend most of our day bailing just to keep our ship afloat, getting nowhere.

To make the most productive use of your time, do everything you can to prevent waves of disruption from shipping over the sides of your boat. Unsubscribe from silly email lists. Tell friends (with too much time on their hands) not to forward frivolous stories or alarmist missives from unreliable sources. Get rid of the nonsense. Trash everything that is not vitally important. Be ruthless here.⁵

For myself, I don’t read newspapers and I don’t watch the nightly news—any of it. It just makes me mad. Plus, it’s the worst way to stay informed. And I don’t watch TV, in general. That might be too big a sacrifice for some, but count its cost. The price is more dear than you think.⁶

With mail, I sift through my stack quickly tossing everything I possibly can—all flyers, advertisements, political mailings (the worst), coupons, catalogs—anything I’ve already decided my time is too valuable to waste on. Throw It Out is one of the wisest time management principles around. Trust me. Everything you keep has a cost. If you want your life to count, you must be merciless.

When it comes to ordering important tasks, follow this rule: Big Rocks First. Try putting sand, gravel, and rocks into a container big enough for them all. You’ll never get them in if you add them in that order. Reverse the sequence, though, and it’s doable.

The lesson: Do the most important things—the “big rocks”—first. Then deal with the rest, if there’s any daylight left. This single concept is worth the price of admission because it will save your bacon time and again if you practice it.

I make an exception for tasks I call “quickies.” For these, I apply the 2-minute rule. If something worthwhile assaults my progress and can be dispatched in two minutes, I do it, then get back to work. It’s faster to get it out of the way than to reschedule it, and it keeps your task list from expanding instead of shrinking (very disheartening).

Simply Put

When paper comes in, throw it away, or act on it immediately and then throw it away, or file it immediately in the folder for the month it applies to, or if it’s for the current month file it in the folder for the day it applies to, or put it in a permanent file for future reference. Simple.

When a task comes in, act on it immediately (2-minute rule), or schedule it immediately for the day or month it applies to, or record it an Area or a Project for future action. Again, simple.

At the beginning of each day, plan your work from your task lists. Then work your plan giving priority to the most critical, important, time-sensitive things (“Big Rocks First”). Whenever new data comes in, immediately update your calendar, personal contact list, or sensitive information app (again, the 2-minute rule). Clear your desk at the end of every day, filing leftover papers in their proper folders using the system you’ve set up.

Remember these basic principles:

A place for everything, and everything in its place.
Don’t put it down, put it away.
Plan your work, then work your plan.
Throw it out.
Big rocks first.

That’s your system. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than scattered to-do lists, stray Post-Its, and piles of paper. Time and task management is a constant battle and you’ll get whipped in some skirmishes. A system inconsistently applied, though, is much better than no system at all.

One final bit of advice from Benjamin Franklin. Diligence overcomes difficulties, he counseled. If you engage your duties sluggishly, you double your toil. If you throw yourself into your tasks, the inertia carries you through. In his words, “All things easy to industry; all things difficult to sloth.”

Eloquently put.

Nike said it better, though: “Just do it.”

¹ This is a rule you should apply across the board to every room or workspace. It’s essential to keeping your kids stuff in order, too, by the way.

² Another great rule for kids.

³ You can add a digital storage filing system, too, for web archives, scanned docs, text files, PDFs, etc. Many have found Evernote to be a powerful and effective tool for that purpose.

⁴ It’s actually more effective to do this the night before so my task list is waiting for me on my desk when I get up, but my own life rarely allows that convenience.

⁵ I am not a workaholic. I take time to “veg,” but I don’t want to squander even my down time on drivel.

⁶ I do watch select DVDs with my family for viewing entertainment, however.

The Reliability Of Kings And Chronicles

Article contributed by Probe Ministries
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Editor’s Note: This article was authored by Michael Gleghorn and Rodger Young.¹ The graphic was created by Hannah Gleghorn.

Over the past year and a half my wife has been working on what might be called a “visual Bible.” By training and profession my wife is a graphic designer. She tends to understand things best when she can visualize them in some way. Hence, when she began team-teaching a women’s Bible study that covers the entire Bible in just two years, she felt the need to create visuals of what she was studying in order to help her grasp some of the key points in a single glance. Thus, week-by-week, as she readied herself for class, she also prepared a wide array of graphically-designed visuals of the written contents of Scripture.

Everything was going fairly well until she came to the Old Testament books of Kings and Chronicles. Since these books give us a great deal of information about the kings of Israel and Judah, including the order in which they reigned, the lengths of their reigns, and so on, she decided to create some charts that would present all of this information visually. She had no idea that she was about to enter one of the most baffling and perplexing issues of biblical chronology!

To put it bluntly, the chronology of Kings and Chronicles initially appears to be a hopelessly muddled, and even downright contradictory, mess! Examining this material as an intelligent layperson, my wife could make no sense of it at all. It also meant that she could not represent the material in a visually coherent way.

Feeling increasingly frustrated, she asked if I knew of any books that dealt with these problems. Although this is an area I know little about, I remembered a book which (I had heard) handled these issues quite well. That book, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, by Edwin Thiele, offered her some much-needed help in making sense of the apparently confused and contradictory information in the books of Kings and Chronicles.² Although this book did not solve all the difficulties she was facing, it did bring a great deal of order to the apparent chaos of this section of Scripture.

In the remainder of this article we’ll first consider the problems posed by “the mysterious numbers of the Hebrew kings.” Afterward, we’ll briefly look at how all these problems have been solved by contemporary scholars, so that what was previously thought of as a hopeless muddle is instead a testimony to the accuracy of the historical parts of the Old Testament.

Some Difficulties with Old Testament Chronology

In the original preface to The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, Edwin Thiele began his discussion with these words:

For more than two thousand years Hebrew chronology has been a serious problem for Old Testament scholars. Every effort to weave the chronological data of the kings of Israel and Judah into some sort of harmonious scheme seemed doomed to failure. The numbers for the one kingdom could not, it seemed, be made to agree with the numbers of the other.³

Indeed, the difficulties with Old Testament chronology at this point were so great that many scholars simply assumed that the biblical records were unreliable. But why? What was it about these numbers that made so many scholars think they were in error?

Since we’ll later be discussing the two different kingdoms of Israel and Judah, let’s begin by considering two imaginary kingdoms, both of which celebrate a new king coming to the throne on March 1 of the same year. In other words, both kings begin their reigns on exactly the same day. Now one would probably think that, as the ensuing years go by, court historians from both kingdoms would agree about how many years each of these kings have ruled their kingdoms. But in fact, this is not necessarily true.

Suppose that one of these kingdoms counts the first year of their new king’s reign from his first day on the throne. If he began his reign on March 1 of the year 2000, then this is considered the first year of his reign.⁴ On January 1, 2001, he thus begins the second year of his reign. But suppose that in the other kingdom, the year 2000 is regarded as the last year of the prior king’s reign. In this kingdom, then, even though a new king began to reign in the year 2000, the official first year of his reign is counted from the beginning of the new year, January 1, 2001.⁵

Hence, although both kings began to rule on precisely the same day, the years of their reigns are counted differently. The first king begins his second year of rule on January 1, 2001, while the second king only begins his first official year at that time. This is just one of many issues that complicate the dating of the kings of Israel and Judah as they’re recorded for us in the Bible. Once these issues are taken into account, however, a completely harmonious chronology of these kings becomes possible. Let’s now consider a biblical example.

A Biblical Case Study

We’ve been looking at some of the chronological puzzles in the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles. With apologies for the unavoidable names and numbers which follow, let’s consider an example.

After the ten tribes split from Judah and Benjamin to form the northern kingdom of Israel, their first ruler was Jeroboam. Jeroboam was followed by his son Nadab. With Nadab we have a series of synchronisms with the long reign of Asa of the southern kingdom, Judah. The first synchronism is that Nadab began to reign in year 2 of Asa.⁶ The Bible then says that Nadab reigned two years and died in year 3 of Asa.⁷ But it is only one year from Asa’s second year to his third year, so how could Nadab begin in year 2 of Asa, reign two years, and die in Asa’s 3rd year? Next, Baasha, who killed Nadab, is said to reign 24 years starting in year 3 of Asa;⁸ this should surely put his end, 24 years later, in Asa’s year 27. But the Bible says that Baasha died in year 26 of Asa, not year 27.⁹ Baasha’s son, Elah, reigned two years, and his death was not in year 28 of Asa (that is, 26 plus 2), but in year 27.¹⁰

At this point we have a decision to make. We could decide that all of this shows that the Bible is not to be trusted in its numerical and historical statements. This is the path taken by critics who say that these parts of the Bible were invented many years later than the happenings they describe. Or, we could give the authors of these texts the benefit of the doubt and consider that these texts show a consistent pattern. The pattern is that the northern kingdom was counting the years of reign for their kings in the fashion mentioned previously, where a king could count the year in which he came to the throne as his first year of reign, so that even if he only reigned exactly one year, he would be given credit for the calendar year in which he became king and also for the calendar year in which he died. This is a method that was used by other Near Eastern kingdoms. With this second approach, success has been achieved in reconstructing the history and exact chronology of the Hebrew kingdom period. We will now consider other factors necessary in understanding these so-called “mysterious numbers” of the Bible.

Coregencies and Rival Reigns

We’ve seen a pattern in the chronological numbers that the Bible gives for the first years of the divided kingdom. We saw that, in these early years at least, the northern kingdom was counting the year that a king died twice; once for him, and once for his successor, so that one year must be subtracted from a reign length when counting elapsed time. By carefully considering the facts as given in the Bible itself, we can determine when the two kingdoms were using this method of counting, and when they were using the other method in which a king’s first year was not counted until he reigned a full calendar year.

The Bible also gives us sufficient information to determine when there was a coregency. The word ‘coregency’ is not a Biblical word, but the principle is there. A coregency begins when the reigning king appoints one of his sons as his successor. This was always a smart thing to do. We have an example in our own time. When Kim Jong Il, the dictator of North Korea, became ill he appointed his son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor so there wouldn’t be any trouble when he died. In the Bible, after two of David’s sons, Absalom and then Adonijah, tried to usurp the kingdom from their father, the prophet Nathan told David to make it known who was to be his successor. David then had Nathan perform a public anointing of Solomon.¹¹ Another example of a coregency is when Uzziah was struck with leprosy and had to live in a separate house, so that his son Jotham became the real ruler of the land.¹²

Other coregencies are not quite so obvious, but the books of Kings and Chronicles always give us enough information so that we can determine when the years of a king’s reign are being measured from the start of a sole reign or from the start of a coregency. For the northern kingdom, Israel, there are also two cases of a rival reign, similar to the rival reigns of Egyptian pharaohs that Egyptologists take into account when reconstructing the chronology of Egypt. As an example, Omri, the father of Ahab, is said to have reigned for twelve years,¹³ but this only makes sense if the twelve years includes the five years in which he had a rival, Tibni, reigning in a different capital.¹⁴ Coregencies and rival reigns are the second major key to understanding the chronology of the Hebrew kingdom period.

The Accuracy of Kings and Chronicles

In previous sections we considered two factors to take into account when interpreting the rich chronological data of Kings and Chronicles. The first is that there were two ways of counting the first year of a king’s reign; whether it was to be counted twice, once for him and once for the king who died in that year, or just once so that the king’s first year was his first full year of reign. The second factor was that occasionally a king’s reign was measured from the start of a coregency or rival reign rather than from the start of his sole reign. Both principles were applied, although not consistently, by some earlier interpreters.¹⁵ A third principle, discovered by Edwin Thiele, however, was not used by these interpreters. This principle showed that the southern kingdom, Judah, started counting the years of a king’s reign in the fall month of Tishri, while the northern kingdom, Israel, started six months earlier in the spring month of Nisan. Many earlier interpreters thought that both kingdoms started their year in Nisan, but this produced several small errors that they were unable to reconcile. Unknown to Thiele, all three of these principles had been previously found back in the 1920s by a Belgian scholar.¹⁶ But Thiele worked out things in a more satisfactory way, and so his Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings should be the starting place for understanding the chronology of the kingdom period.

Regrettably, however, Thiele did not recognize that a problem he had with the texts of 2 Kings chapter 18 is explained by a coregency between Ahaz and Hezekiah.¹⁷ His chronology also needed slight adjustments for the reign of Solomon and for the end of the kingdom period.¹⁸ In our own studies we have followed the corrections to Thiele published in several articles by Rodger Young.¹⁹ Young responds to the specious claim that the harmony now evident in the chronology of the kingdom period might be the result of a clever manipulation of the data by those who follow the principles outlined by Thiele. Young answers, “The complexities of 124 exact synchronisms, reign lengths, and dates in 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Jeremiah and Ezekiel negate that possibility unless the data were historically authentic.”²⁰ With the proper understanding of the methods used by the ancient authors, the chronological data of Kings and Chronicles offer a remarkable testimony to the strict accuracy of the Bible’s 400-year history of the two Hebrew kingdoms.

¹ This article was written by Michael Gleghorn and Rodger Young. Gleghorn’s initial inspiration for writing this program resulted from conversations with his wife, who struggled with the “mysterious numbers” in Kings and Chronicles for quite some time before encountering the help provided in the book by Edwin Thiele and, more particularly, the articles of Rodger Young. Mr. Young received a B.A. degree from Reed College, B.A. and M.A. degrees in mathematics from Oxford University, and has done graduate work in theology and biblical languages at the Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He retired from IBM in 2003 and began writing about OT chronology. He and his wife attend the West Overland Bible Church in the St. Louis area.

² Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, New rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1994).

³ Ibid., 15.

⁴ Thiele describes this as “nonaccession-year dating” or “antedating.” See Thiele, Mysterious Numbers, 231.

⁵ Thiele terms this “accession-year dating” or “postdating.” See Ibid.

⁶ 1 Kings 15:25.

⁷ 1 Kings 15:25, 28.

⁸ 1 Kings 15:27, 33.

⁹ 1 Kings 16:8.

¹⁰ 1 Kings 16:8, 15.

¹¹ 1 Kings 1; 1 Chronicles 23:1.

¹² 1 Kings 15:5.

¹³ 1 Kings 16:23.

¹⁴ 1 Kings 16:21-23.

¹⁵ For example, James Ussher.

¹⁶ Valerius Coucke, “Chronologie des rois de Juda et d’Israël,” Revue Bénedictine 37 (1925): 325–64; idem, “Chronologie biblique” in Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible, ed. Louis Pirot, vol. 1 (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1928), cols. 1245–79.

¹⁷ According to Rodger Young, “Several authors put forth this rather obvious solution, among whom were Kenneth Kitchen and T. C. Mitchell, Siegfried Horn, Harold Stigers, R. K. Harrison, Leslie McFall, and Eugene Merrill.” Of course, we could also add Rodger Young’s name to this list as well. For details see Young, “When Was Samaria Captured? The Need for Precision in Biblical Chronologies,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47, no. 4 (2004): 580.

¹⁸ For a one-year correction to Thiele’s dates for Solomon through Athaliah, see Rodger C. Young, “When Did Solomon Die?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 46, no. 4 (2003): 589-603. By showing that the dates of Solomon through Athaliah must be moved one year earlier than in Thiele’s chronology, Young has resolved a problem that Thiele addressed by revisions in the third and final edition of Mysterious Numbers, but Thiele’s revisions merely moved his problem with the reign of Jehoshaphat to the reign of Athaliah. Among those accepting Young’s solution of the problem are Leslie McFall, “The Chronology of Saul and David,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 53, no. 4 (2010): 533 (chart), and Andrew E. Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology (St. Louis: Concordia, 2011), 133-34, 138. Young has also written extensively on why 587 BC, not Thiele’s 586 BC, is the correct date for the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. See “When Did Jerusalem Fall?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47, no. 1 (2004): 21-38; “Ezekiel 40:1 as a Corrective for Seven Wrong Ideas in Biblical Interpretation,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 44, no. 2 (2006):267-70.

¹⁹ For those who are interested in pursuing these matters further, please see “Rodger Young’s Papers on Chronology” here: http://www.rcyoung.org/papers.html

²⁰ Rodger C. Young, “Inductive and Deductive Methods as Applied to OT Chronology,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 18, no. 2 (2007): 116.

Related Topics: Apologetics, Text & Translation

Did Adam Really Exist?

Article contributed by Probe Ministries
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Paul and Adam

In 2011, Christianity Today reported on the growing acceptance of theistic evolution in the evangelical community and one possible implication of it. If humans did evolve along with other species, was there a real historical first couple? Did Adam and Eve really exist?

In this article I'll address a couple of theological problems this claim raises and a question of interpretation. I'll look at the views of evangelical Old Testament scholar Peter Enns who denies a historical Adam; not, however, to single him out as a target, but rather because he raises the important issues in his writings.

Enns denies a historical Adam for two main reasons. One is that, as far as he is concerned, the matter of evolution is settled. There was no first human couple.¹ The other is his belief that Genesis 1 describes the origins of the world in the mythological framework of the ancient Near East, and thus isn't historical, and that Genesis 2 describes the origins of Israel, not human origins.² So Genesis doesn't intend to teach a historical Adam and Eve, and evolutionary science has proved that they couldn't have existed.

Let's begin with the question of how sin entered the world if there were no Adam.

In Romans chapter 5, the apostle Paul says sin, condemnation, and death came through the act of a man, Adam. This is contrasted with the act of another man, Jesus, which brought grace and righteousness.

However, if there were no historical Adam, where did sin come from? Enns says the Bible doesn't tell us.³ The Old Testament gives no indication, he says, "that Adam's disobedience is the cause of universal sin, death, and condemnation, as Paul seems to argue."⁴ Paul was a man of his time who drew from a common understanding of human beginnings to explain the universality of sin. Enns acknowledges universal sin and the need for a Savior.⁵ He just doesn't know how this situation came about. The fact that Adam didn't exist, Enns believes, does nothing to take away from Paul's main point, namely, that salvation comes only through Christ for all people, both Jews and Gentiles. Is this true?

Paul and Adam: A Response

There are a few problems with this interpretation. First, there is a logical problem. Theologian Richard Gaffin points out that, in Rom. 5:12, 17, and 18, a connection is made between the "one man" through whom sin came and the "all" to whom it was spread. If sin really didn't come in through the "one"—Adam—and spread to the "all"—you and me—how do we take seriously Paul's further declaration that "one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all"?

Second, there is a piling on of error in Paul's claim. One of Enns' foundational beliefs is that God used human understanding to convey His truths in Scripture. God spoke through the myths of the ancient world when He inspired the writing of Genesis.⁶ If Enns is correct, one would expect that God was using the Genesis myth to reveal something true in Paul's claim about Adam. In other words, the Old Testament story would be opened up so a truth would be revealed. However, Paul's first point, that sin came through Adam to the race (Rom. 5:12), is in fact false, according to Enns. The following truth, about righteousness coming through Christ, is beside the point here. Paul's assertion about Adam isn't simply a historical one; it is a doctrinal one, too. The traditional teaching of the church regarding the source of sin, death, and condemnation is therefore false. Paul delivered a false teaching based upon a non-historical myth. He should have left Adam out of his discussion. It does nothing to buttress his claim about Christ.

Enns says that this matter of the origin of sin is "a vital issue to work through, . . . one of the more pressing and inevitable philosophical and theological issues before us."⁷ One has to wonder, though: if Paul didn't have the answer, and he was taught by Christ directly, and if the rest of Scripture is silent about such an important matter, can we really think we can ferret out the solution ourselves?

Paul's Use of the Old Testament

The use of the Old Testament in the New Testament is of great significance in this matter. How does Paul get the point he made out of Genesis if it isn't true?

Peter Enns believes the problem is related to the way Paul interpreted and used the Old Testament. Paul lived in an era which is now called Second Temple Judaism. Writers in this era, Enns says, "were not motivated to reproduce the intention of the original human author" in the text under consideration.⁸ Thus, we see Old Testament texts used in seemingly strange ways in the New Testament, strange if what we expect is a direct reproduction or a further development or deeper explanation of the Old Testament writer's original intent. Texts could be taken completely out of context or words could be changed to make the text say something the New Testament writer wanted to say. In this way, Enns believes, Paul used the Old Testament creatively to explain the universality of sin and of the cross work of Christ.

Some scholars speak of "christocentric" interpretation of the Old Testament. Enns prefers the term "christotelic" which refers to the idea that Christ is the completion of the Old Testament or the end toward which the Old Testament story was headed. Regarding Adam, Enns writes, "Paul's Adam is a vehicle by which he articulates the gospel message, but his Adam is still the product of a creative handling of the story."⁹ Paul presents Adam as a historical person, and then makes the further creative claim that Adam's sin is the reason we all sin. Neither of these are true, but this does no harm to the most important part of the text where Paul claims that salvation for all people came through Christ.

None of this should be problematic for us, in Enns' opinion, for he believes this view of the Bible is similar to our view of the Incarnation of Christ. In Jesus there are both humanity and divinity. Likewise, the Bible is a coming together of the divine and the human. God used the methods of Paul's day to convey the gospel message.

Paul's Use of Old Testament: A Response

How can we respond to this view of Paul's use of the Adam story?

Enns believes "that the NT authors [subsumed] the OT under the authority of the crucified and risen Christ."¹⁰ However, Jesus never referred to the Old Testament in a way that showed the Old Testament incorrect as it stood. Even His "but I say to you" in the Sermon on the Mount appears to be more a matter of teaching the depths of the laws than a correction of the Old Testament text. He upheld the authority of the Old Testament such as when he said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Mt. 5:17)."¹¹

Bruce Waltke is an evangelical Old Testament scholar who accepts theistic evolution but who disagrees with Enns on this matter. He wonders why Jesus rebuked the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:25-27) for not understanding the plain language of Scripture if the plain historical sense isn't sufficient.¹² He argues that Enns' method of interpretation can't be supported by Scripture.

Paul said the gospel he preached was "in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3-4) by which he meant the Old Testament.¹³ Elsewhere he said that the Old Testament Scriptures are "profitable for teaching" in 2 Tim. 3:16-17.¹⁴

New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham disagrees with the belief that Paul followed the interpretive methods of his day. The apostles weren't guilty of reading into the Old Testament ideas held independently of it. He says, "They brought the Old Testament text into relationship with the history of Jesus in a process of mutual interpretation from which some of their profoundest theological insights sprang."¹⁵

In fact, it was the apostles' high esteem for the Old Testament that forced them to come to grips with the Trinitarian nature of God given the claims of Jesus.¹⁶

This doesn't mean, however, that it's always easy to understand how the apostles used the Old Testament. However, what the apostles taught was understood to be in continuity with what they had received before, not as a correction of it.

The Matter of Inspiration

It is inevitable that a discussion of the denial of the historical Adam will turn to the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. Old Testament scholar Peter Enns believes that Paul's incorrect use of Adam "has no bearing whatsoever on the truth of the gospel."¹⁷ That's true, but it has a lot to do with how we understand inspiration and its bearing on Paul's writings.

The apostle Paul said that "all Scripture is inspired" or "breathed out" by God (2 Tim. 3:16). Peter explains further that "no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. . . . but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:20-21).

Paul, who claimed in 1 Thess. 2 that his teachings were the word of God (v. 13), intended to explain how sin and condemnation came into the world in Romans 5. Elsewhere, Peter spoke of Paul's writings as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16). If Paul's explanation of this "vital issue," in Enns' words, was wrong, was it, then, of Paul's own interpretation? Either it came from the Holy Spirit and was inspired Scripture, or it was merely Paul's interpretation and was not. Which is it?

Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke writes this: "A theory that entails notions that holy Scripture contains flat out contradictions, ludicrous harmonization, earlier revelations that are misleading and/or less than truthful, and doctrines that are represented as based on historical fact, but in fact are based on fabricated history, in my judgment, is inconsistent with the doctrine that God inspired every word of holy Scripture."¹⁸

It might be objected here that I am confusing inspiration with interpretation. These are different things. However, if it is understood that all of Scripture comes from God who cannot lie, then we have to let that set limits on how we interpret Scripture. Interpretations that include false doctrines cannot be correct.

It seems to me that Enns has put himself into a difficult position. His conviction of the truth of human evolution isn't his only reason for denying the historical Adam, but it puts the traditional understanding of Adam and his place in Paul's theology out of bounds for him. It would be better to hold to what the church has taught for centuries rather than to the tentative conclusions of modern scientists.

¹ Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012), ix, xiv, 122-23.
² Ibid., 52.
³ Ibid., 124-26.
⁴ Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Grand Rapid: Baker, 2005), 82.
⁵ Enns, Evolution of Adam, 91. See also 124-25.
⁶ See for example Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 55-56.
⁷ Enns, Evolution of Adam, 126.
⁸ Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 131.
⁹ Enns, The Evolution of Adam, 102.
¹⁰ Peter Enns, "Fuller Meaning, Single Goal: A Christotelic Approach to the New Testament Use of the Old in Its First-Century Interpretive Environment," in Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. Stanley N. Gundry et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008) 208; quoted in Don Collett, "Trinitarian Hermeneutics and the Unity of Scripture," p. 10, n.26; accessed on the web site of Trinity School for Ministry, bit.ly/1iBGLYT.
¹¹ See Collett, "Trinitarian Hermeneutics and the Unity of Scripture," 10-11.
¹² Bruce K. Waltke, "Revisiting Inspiration and Incarnation," Westminster Theological Journal 71 (2009), 90.
¹³ See Collett, "Trinitarian Hermeneutics and the Unity of Scripture," 11; referencing Christopher Seitz, "Creed, Scripture, and 'Historical Jesus': 'in accordance with the Scriptures,'" in The Rule of Faith: Scripture, Canon, and Creed in a Critical Age, ed. Ephraim Radner & George Sumner (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1998), 126-35.
¹⁴ Christopher Seitz, "Canon, Narrative, and the Old Testament's Literal Sense," Tyndale Bulletin 59.1 (2008), 31-32.
¹⁵ Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 33.
¹⁶ See Collett, "Trinitarian Hermeneutics," 11-12. Cf. Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 54.
¹⁷ Enns, The Evolution of Adam, 102.
¹⁸ Waltke, "Revisiting Inspiration and Incarnation," 95.

Related Topics: Inerrancy, Scripture Twisting

Lesson 90: What in the World is Worldliness? (John 17:13-19)

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April 26, 2015

What in the world is worldliness? That issue has spawned confusion, legalism, division, and just plain weirdness among Christians down through church history. Some have thought that the cure for worldliness is isolation from the world. In the 5th century, Simeon the Stylite tried to escape from worldliness by living for 36 years on a platform on top of a pillar. Thousands flocked to see him perched up there and to listen to his preaching. He spawned a movement of other pillar-dwellers that lasted for 500 years!

In modern times, the Amish and some sects of the Mennonites are known for their distinctive clothing and lifestyles that separate them from American culture. Many of them think that it’s worldly to own or drive cars. Some, known as black bumper Mennonites, can drive black cars as long as they paint all the worldly chrome black! My parents used to know a German Christian woman who was disgusted with American Christians who judged her for drinking beer, while the American Christians went to bowling alleys, which she regarded as worldly! My parents grew up in the era when Christians thought that you were worldly if you did any of the “filthy five”: smoking, drinking, dancing, going to movies, or playing cards. I never went to a movie until I was 16 and I never have learned to dance.

On the other side, some Christians have reacted to separation from the world by becoming so much like the world that there are no noticeable differences. They claim that they’re trying to reach the world for Christ, but all too often their attempts to relate to the world end up compromising biblical absolutes. First John 2:15-17 commands:

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

John doesn’t let us love the world a little bit, while we still claim to love God. He draws the line: either you love God or you love the world. Take your pick, because you can’t have both!

So it’s important to understand biblically what worldliness is and what it is not. “World” (Greek = cosmos) is a favorite word for John, who uses it 78 times in his Gospel (including 9 times in our text), 24 times in his epistles, and 3 times in Revelation. It’s only used 85 other times in the New Testament, 47 of which are in Paul’s writings (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 126). It originally meant “order,” and it came to refer to the universe as the well-ordered creation of God. It may refer to the physical world (John 1:10) or to the people of the world (John 3:16; 1 John 2:2). In those senses, there is nothing wrong with loving the world. We should enjoy God’s creation and we should love worldly people who need to know the Savior.

But John also uses the word to refer to the evil, organized system under Satan, which operates through unbelieving people who are opposed to God. He writes (1 John 5:19), “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Jesus spoke of the world hating both Him and those who follow Him (John 7:7; 15:18-19). The world operates on the basis of ungodly thoughts, attitudes, motives, values, and goals. It does not seek to promote God’s glory or to submit to His lordship. It’s in this sense that we must not love the world. Here in Jesus’ prayer we learn that …

Christians are to relate to the world as Jesus did: to be in it, but to be distinct from it.

1. Christians are to be in the world, as Jesus was in it.

Note three things:

A. Jesus was in the world, not isolated from worldly people.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day thought that to be holy, you had to avoid all contact with sinners. So they were shocked when Jesus chose a tax-collector named Levi (Matthew) as one of His apostles and then went to a dinner party where Levi invited all of his notoriously sinful friends (Luke 5:29-32). Another time, a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus for dinner at his house. A well-known sinful woman came in uninvited, anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and some perfume, and dried His feet with her hair (Luke 7:36-50). Simon was shocked. He thought that if Jesus were a true prophet, He wouldn’t let such a woman even touch Him.

But Jesus’ philosophy was (Luke 5:31), “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.” What good is a doctor who never sees sick people? So Jesus was known as a friend of sinners (Matt. 11:19). If we want to be like Jesus, we also need to be in the world, not isolated from sinful people.

This refutes the idea of monasticism as the model of unworldliness. Perhaps we Protestants aren’t tempted to join a monastery or convent, but we often have our own form of isolationism. I’ve heard Christians happily exclaim, “All of my work associates (or all of my neighbors) are believers!” Great! But then where is your mission field? I confess that one of my problems as a pastor is that I don’t have many natural contacts with unbelievers.

Another problem is that we have often reversed what Paul commanded. The Corinthian church was boasting in their tolerant spirit of accepting a man who was sleeping with his father’s wife! Paul was horrified and wrote to clarify (1 Cor. 5:9-11):

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

I’ve known Christians who have no contact with unbelievers, but they’re friends with professing Christians who are living in sin. Even when a church disciplines a sinning member, these Christians continue friendly contact with the disciplined member. But Paul says we are not to associate with such a one.

But before you head out to befriend worldly people, a word of caution is in order. Paul warned (1 Cor. 15:33): “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’” So how do we befriend worldly, sinful people without being corrupted ourselves? The answer lies in the second way that Jesus was in the world:

B. Jesus was in the world with a divine mission.

Jesus came into this world with a clear purpose: to testify to the truth (John 18:37) and to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). John has repeatedly emphasized this by saying that Jesus was sent into the world (John 17:18): “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” The Father had sent His Son into the world with the message of salvation through faith in Him (John 3:16-18). He sends us with the same mission.

Jesus’ mission is behind His prayer in verse 19, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” To sanctify means to set something apart for its God-intended use. In the Old Testament, the sacrificial animals had to be sanctified or set apart before they could be killed and offered to God. In prayer Jesus here is setting Himself apart for the cross. His mission was that as a result of His death, His disciples would be set apart in truth. D. A. Carson explains (The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus [Baker], p. 193), “Jesus sets himself apart to perform his redemptive work on the cross, in order that the beneficiaries of that work might set themselves apart to the work of mission.”

So the way to be a friend of sinners without being corrupted by them is to stay focused on your mission. Your aim is not to carouse with them as you may have done in the past, but rather lovingly to warn them of the judgment to come and to tell them the good news of the Savior (1 Pet. 4:1-6). But, don’t expect them to welcome you and your message with open arms! This leads to the third way that Jesus was in the world:

C. Jesus was in the world with a realistic mindset: He expected opposition.

To be in the world and yet distinct from it because you hold to biblical truth will result in hostility from the world. Jesus prays (John 17:14), “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” God’s word, as Jesus says (John 17:17), is truth. The world can tolerate us if we water down the truth. But even if we say it graciously, if we proclaim God’s word as the absolute, unbending truth for all people, we’ll catch the world’s hostility. As Jesus told His still unbelieving brothers (John 7:7), “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” The minute you say that certain behavior is evil, you will be accused of being intolerant and judgmental. If you go into the world expecting to be popular and well-liked, you’ll be in for a rude awakening. By all means, be in the world as Jesus was in it. But go with a realistic attitude: you will not be welcomed by all.

To review: Jesus was in the world, not isolated from worldly people. But He was there with a mission, to testify to the truth. He knew that while some would receive Him, many others would not. We are to be in the world in the same way that our Savior was. We are to relate graciously to sinful people with the mission of testifying to the truth. But go with the realistic understanding that while some will respond favorably to the gospel, others will not.

2. Christians are to be distinct from the world as Jesus was distinct from it.

Twice (John 17:14b, 16) Jesus states, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The first time, He is explaining why the world will hate His followers. The second time, He is giving the reason why He asks the Father to keep them from the evil one. The repeated emphasis shows that we are to be distinct from the world as Jesus was. Consider these five things:

A. To be distinct from the world is the path to genuine joy, not to depriving you of all your fun.

Jesus prays (John 17:13), “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.” Be honest: When you think of holiness, do you think of genuine joy, or do you associate it with being deprived of a good time? Satan’s perpetual lie is that sin will bring you lasting pleasure, while holiness deprives you of having fun. The truth is, sin often brings immediate pleasure, but it always results in long-term pain and destruction. Holiness may be more difficult in the short-run, but it always results in lasting joy and pleasure. As David exults (Ps. 16:11), “You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

Here, Jesus prays that we would be holy or distinct from the world so that we may experience the fullness of His joy. Jesus’ joy was that of unbroken fellowship with the Father and delight to do the Father’s will (John 4:34; 8:29). To be distinct from the world, you’ve got to keep in mind that holiness is the path to genuine, eternal joy, not the path to depriving you of fun.

B. To be distinct from the world, you must have a separate origin.

Jesus was not of this world because He came from above. We are not of this world because we have been born from above through the Holy Spirit (John 3:1-8). The new birth sets us apart from the world that does not know God.

Through the new birth, we have a new nature that desires to please God. We have a new Master, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We have a new power to overcome sin, the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. We have a new purpose in life, to glorify our Savior in all that we do and to tell others the good news of His salvation. We have a new identity as the people of God, members of Christ’s body, the church. We have a new destiny; we will be in heaven with our Lord throughout eternity. (Some of these points are from A. W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John, online at pbministries.org.)

So the crucial question is, have you been born again? Has God changed your heart and your desires? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ and His shed blood as your only hope in life and in death? Apart from the new birth, every attempt to be distinct from the world will be legalism or asceticism, neither of which result in genuine holiness or lasting joy. As Jesus said to the legalistic Nicodemus (John 3:7), “You must be born again.”

C. To be distinct from the world, you must develop a separate mindset that comes from God’s Word.

In John 17:14, Jesus prays, “I have given them Your word.” Again in verse 17, He prays, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” And again in verse 19 He prays “that they themselves may be sanctified in truth.”

Marcus Rainsford (Our Lord Prays for His Own [Moody Press], p. 216) observed, “If there is one thing more remarkable than another in the recorded life of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is His constant endorsement of Scripture, and His evident faith in, and constant use of Scripture.” He adds that if anyone was ever qualified to speak on his own apart from Scripture, it was Christ. And yet He never did so.

In John 5:39, He told the hostile Jewish leaders, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me.” He said (John 7:38) that “the Scripture said” the Holy Spirit would be given to those who believe in Him. He later called the Scriptures “the word of God” and asserted that they cannot be broken (John 10:35). When He predicted Judas’ betrayal, He explained that it was “that the Scripture may be fulfilled” (John 13:18). After His resurrection, He told the disciples (Luke 24:44), “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Luke (24:45) adds, “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” Jesus was saturated with the Scriptures.

And here (John 17:17) He calls God’s word “the truth.” He doesn’t say that God’s word contains the truth or that it is one truth among many. Rather, its very essence is truth. It is the absolute, final, and eternal source and standard of truth against which all else is to be measured. God’s truth does not vary from culture to culture or from age to age. All spiritual and moral truth is contained in God’s written word.

Jesus says that God’s word will sanctify us or set us apart from the world for God’s purpose. Whether you are worldly or godly is primarily a matter of how you think. In Romans 12:2, Paul tells us how not to be worldly: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Our minds are transformed and renewed as we saturate them in God’s word so that we think biblically about all of life.

Thus to be distinct from this world, realize that it is the path to genuine joy, not the path to depriving you of fun. Make sure that you have been born again. Develop a separate mindset that comes from God’s Word.

D. To be distinct from this world, live in obedience to God’s Word.

Knowing God’s Word is foundational; you can’t obey what you don’t know. But I’ve known many Christians who know the truth, but they don’t obey it. Personal application is always the goal of Bible study. As you read and study the Word, always ask, “So what?” How does this Scripture apply to my life? Do I need to change the way I think? Do I need to change my attitude? Is my speech pleasing to God and edifying to others? Are there sinful habits that I need to destroy? Are there godly character qualities that I need to develop? Do I need to adjust my priorities and change my daily schedule? Do I need to be a better steward of the resources that God has entrusted to me?

Becoming an obedient, godly person is related to our mission of testifying to the truth of Christ. Andreas Kostenberger (John [Baker], p. 496) observes, “Personal holiness is not to be an end in itself but a means to an end: reaching the lost world for Christ.” J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 4:195) comments, “Holy living is the great proof of the reality of Christianity. Men may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a godly life.”

For example, when people at work are complaining about the boss or the lousy pay, you are cheerfully thankful because you’re obeying Philippians 2:14-15: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.” When someone cuts you down with an unkind remark, you respond with grace and kindness, because you’re obeying 1 Peter 3:8-9: “To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.” You’re distinct from this evil world because you’re obedient to God’s Word. Finally,

E. To be distinct from this world, realize that you’re in enemy territory.

Jesus prays (John 17:15), “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.” This may be translated, “keep them from evil,” but the definite article indicates that Jesus was referring to Satan, the evil one. Peter warns (1 Pet. 5:8), “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” In the context, Satan especially is prowling when you’re going through difficult trials. That’s when you need to be on special alert, resisting him by being firm in your faith. If a real lion was on the loose in Flagstaff, you’d be especially careful when you walked to your car after church. A real lion is on the loose in Flagstaff! Walk carefully!

Again, this relates to our mission of testifying to the truth. Peter himself had succumbed to the enemy’s attack when he denied Christ three times on the night of Jesus’ arrest (Luke 22:31). But thankfully, because of God’s grace, Peter was restored and God used him to preach powerfully on the Day of Pentecost, resulting in 3,000 being saved.

Conclusion

Each of us needs to apply our Lord’s words in our text according to our own needs. Some, like me, need to be more in the world. I’m too isolated. I can’t bear witness if I don’t have contact with worldly people. Others may need to be more distinct from the world. You can’t bear witness if you live just as the world lives. We should relate to the world as our Savior did: to be in it, but distinct from it.

Application Questions

Which side do you need to apply more: Are you too isolated from the world or are you too much like the world?
Do you have a sense of mission in your contacts with the world? How can this sense of mission be developed?
When does the attempt to avoid worldliness become legalism or asceticism? See Col. 2:16-23.
Obviously, some Old Testament commands are no longer valid in the New Testament era. How do we know which ones?

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

Lesson 85: How the Holy Spirit Works (John 16:12-15)

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March 8, 2015

Since the Pentecostal movement began a little over 100 years ago, there has been a lot of emphasis in evangelical circles on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But there has also been a lot of confusion and error. Pastor John MacArthur wrote (Strange Fire [Thomas Nelson], p. xiii),

It is a sad twist of irony that those who claim to be most focused on the Holy Spirit are in actuality the ones doing the most to abuse, grieve, insult, misrepresent, quench, and dishonor Him. How do they do it? By attributing to Him words He did not say, deeds He did not do, phenomena He did not produce, and experiences that have nothing to do with Him. They boldly plaster His name on that which is not His work.

He goes on (p. 6) to cite many examples, which you can see on You Tube: “Whole congregations doing the ‘Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey,’ people ‘tokin’ the Ghost’ (pretending to inhale the Holy Spirit and get high, as if He were an invisible reefer), and women writhing on the floor, miming he process of childbirth. Old-fashioned snake handlers look tame by comparison.” He cites several Pentecostal preachers who say that the Holy Spirit told them to punch, kick, and violently assault people in an attempt to heal them. An elderly woman died at a Benny Hinn “miracle crusade” when he pushed her over backwards (p. 7). Hinn’s wife made such ludicrous, vulgar statements about the Holy Spirit that her antics were later mocked on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (p. 8)!

Because of this widespread confusion about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it is essential that we learn from our Lord as He teaches how the Holy Spirit will work in the disciples and, by extension, in the church, after Christ’s ascension into heaven. It is important to note that Jesus’ words here apply first to the apostles. They were the ones whom the Spirit would guide in all the truth and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had said (John 14:26). We have the Spirit’s inspired teaching through the apostles in the New Testament. But in a secondary sense, our Lord’s words here apply to us, in that the Holy Spirit opens up the truths of the Bible to us as we diligently study it in dependence on Him (1 Cor. 2:9-13). In our text, we learn that …

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is progressive, personal, truth-centered, and Christ-centered and Christ-glorifying.

Before we look at Christ’s teaching here, I need to clear up one other error that the Pentecostal movement has promoted, namely, that believers need to receive the Holy Spirit. They base this on a mistaken interpretation of Paul’s question to some followers of John the Baptist in Ephesus (Acts 19:2), “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” When they replied that they did not even know that there is a Holy Spirit, Paul gave them further instruction and laid his hands on them. The Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. Based on that model, believers are urged to receive the Spirit (or be baptized in the Spirit) and speak in tongues. If you have not had this experience, then your spiritual life is deficient.

But that teaching fails to recognize that the Book of Acts is a transitional book from the Old Testament era to the age of the Holy Spirit. Under the apostles, in Acts the ministry of the Spirit spreads in line with the pattern of Acts 1:8 from Jerusalem (Acts 2), to Judea and Samaria (Acts 8), to the Gentiles (Acts 10), to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 19).

But in this church age, Paul states emphatically (Rom. 8:9), “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” He writes to the carnal Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:19), “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” He didn’t tell them that they needed to receive the Spirit or be baptized in the Spirit, but rather, to recognize that He indwelled each of them. To the same church, he said (1 Cor. 12:13), “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” Paul told the Galatians (3:1-5) that we receive the Spirit by believing the gospel. He makes the same point in Ephesians 1:13-14,

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

This means that receiving the Holy Spirit is not an experience that you’re supposed to have subsequent to salvation. You may not even be aware of the Spirit’s presence in your life until you are taught about it. Receiving the Spirit is not connected with speaking in tongues. It is definitely not evidenced by writhing on the floor, barking like a dog, or laughing uncontrollably!

Rather, the Holy Spirit is God’s gift to all who believe in Jesus Christ. You must learn to walk in dependence on the Spirit so that you do not carry out the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). Another way to describe this is that you need to be filled with or controlled by the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). But if you have believed in Christ, you do not need to receive the Spirit, be baptized in the Spirit, or seek some dramatic experience with the Spirit.

With that as an introduction, let’s look at our Lord’s important teaching on how the Holy Spirit works:

1. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is progressive.

John 16:12-13a: “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; …” The Lord knew that the disciples were not ready at that point to bear all that He could teach them. This may have been due to their slowness to believe all that the prophets had spoken, especially the truths related to Messiah’s suffering (Luke 24:25-26). Jesus had repeatedly told the disciples that He was going to die and be raised from the dead, but they didn’t get it until after His resurrection (Luke 9:22, 44-45; 24:45-46). And there were other truths that they could not comprehend until the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them permanently. Here Jesus promises that the Spirit would guide them into (some good manuscripts read, “in”) all the truth.

“All the truth” does not mean “all the truth about science or math or world history.” It refers to all spiritual truth that the apostles and the church needs for growth in godliness. As Paul writes concerning the glorious things that God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:10-12):

For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God ….

The point in our text is that the Lord doesn’t dump the whole thing on us at once. As a loving Father, He knows how much His children can bear, and so He patiently teaches us what we need for the stage of growth that we are in. A wise father doesn’t teach nuclear physics to his five-year-old. He teaches him the A-B-C’s, simple arithmetic, how to read, and other basic truths. As he grows, you take him deeper. The Holy Spirit does that with us spiritually. A young believer needs the milk of the Word: to understand what salvation means, who God is, how to live by faith, how to read and study the Bible, how to pray, etc. Later, he can begin to digest some meat (1 Cor. 3:1-3; Heb. 5:11-14; 1 Pet. 2:2).

“Guide” suggests that this is a process and since the subject is “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8), it is a never-ending process. Years ago, we took a tour through the fabulous Hearst Castle in central California. They don’t just turn you loose to wander around on your own in that mansion. You have to go with a guide, who takes you from room to room, revealing to you the riches of that mansion. On our tour, there was a woman whose mother had been a personal guest of William Randolph Hearst at the mansion, and our guide was eager to talk more with her to gain some inside knowledge about the history of that place that he may have lacked.

There is so much to see that there isn’t just one tour of the castle, but three separate tours. So if you go through once, you can’t rightly say, “I’ve seen all there is to see at Hearst Castle.” Even after taking all three tours, you could go back many times and still not see it all. Our guide told us that even though he had conducted that tour many times, nearly every time he discovered something new that he had never noticed before.

That’s how your study of God’s Word should be. The Holy Spirit is the divine guide, who takes you from room to room, revealing the riches of Christ to your soul. Sometimes, you’re on your twentieth trip through a book and you see something that you’d never seen before, so you stop and revel at the glory of God in Christ. At other times, you make a connection between one part of God’s Word and another part that lets you see afresh that this book is not a product of human genius, but rather the inspired word of the living God. But you’ll never get to a place in this lifetime or even in all eternity (Eph. 2:7) where you can say, “I know it all; there’s nothing more for me to learn from the Bible!” So keep reading your Bible over and over, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal more of Christ to your soul.

2. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is personal.

Jesus says (John 16:13), “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” The combination of “He” and “the Spirit” an unusual grammatical construction in Greek, because “Spirit” is a neuter noun that normally would take a neuter pronoun, but the pronoun is masculine, “He” (literally, “that One”). The Holy Spirit isn’t a force; He’s a person, the third person of the eternal Trinity, fully God in every way.

This is important because false cults, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, deny the personality of the Holy Spirit (because they deny the Trinity). But as we’ve seen (John 15:26), the Spirit testifies about Christ; a force cannot testify. Here, the Spirit guides the disciples; a force cannot give guidance. He speaks, He hears, and He reveals what He has heard to the apostles. Beyond this text, Peter told Ananias that he had lied to the Holy Spirit, whom Peter calls God (Acts 5:3-4). You can’t lie to an impersonal force. Paul commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit by our sin (Eph. 4:30); you can only grieve a person who loves you. Paul talks about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14); you can’t enjoy fellowship with a force.

The comforting truth is, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in you and tailors His ministry to you personally. He knows what you’re feeling and ministers His comfort to you through the Word or through other believers or sometimes through your unique circumstances. As Jesus says here, the Spirit guides you in the truth, but He does that as you study the Word of truth. He knows what you need to know and when you need to know it. His aim is to make you holy in thought, word, and deed. When you don’t know how to pray as you should, the Spirit prays for you in ways that you don’t understand (Rom. 8:26). So it’s important that we don’t grieve or quench the Spirit through sin, but rather yield every area of our lives to the Spirit’s control.

3. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is truth-centered.

Jesus repeatedly refers to the Spirit as “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26). Here, He says (John 16:13), “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”

The designation, “the Spirit of truth,” implies, of course, that there is such a thing as knowable, unchanging truth in the spiritual realm. The fact that the Spirit communicates this truth by speaking shows that the truth is expressed by words and sentences that can be understood. That should not need to be affirmed among evangelicals, but the spirit of postmodernism has infiltrated the church so that fewer than one out of three who claim to be born again believe that there is such a thing as absolute moral truth. Among Christian teenagers, only 6 percent believe in absolute moral truth! (www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/67-americans -are-most-likely-to-base-truth-on-feelings#.VPYpZy7QOaY).

This de-emphasis on truth has also led to a de-emphasis on doctrine. The common refrain is, “They will know that we are Christians by our love, not by our doctrinal agreement!” A shorter version is, “Doctrine divides; love unites.” So we’re being encouraged to set aside the areas where we disagree with other Christians and come together around the things that unite us. Many even apply this to justification by faith alone and other vital truths that divide Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Of course there have always been cantankerous believers who pride themselves on being right about every fine point of doctrine. They rail against those who don’t agree totally with them. But the enemy has used that error to cause many to swing into the opposite error of tolerating damnable error under the banner of unity and love. But a major portion of the New Testament is written to warn us about false teaching. For example, Paul warned about the antichrist, who will come (2 Thess. 2:10-12) “with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” Not believing the truth of the gospel results in judgment!

When Jesus says that the Spirit will reveal to the apostles “what is to come,” He probably includes prophetic teaching. But in this context, it mainly refers, as D. A. Carson explains (The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 540, italics his), “to all that transpires in consequence of the pivotal revelation bound up with Jesus’ person, ministry, death, resurrection and exaltation.” Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 701) says, “‘the things to come’ is a way of referring to the whole Christian system, yet future when Jesus spoke, and to be revealed to the disciples by the Spirit, not by natural insight.”

The Holy Spirit has not given new, authoritative revelation since the completion of the canon of Scripture. As Jesus affirmed (John 17:17), God’s Word is the truth. Psalm 119:160 puts it, “The sum of Your word is truth.” That truth is sufficient for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). We need to ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding and illumination as we study the Scriptures, but He is not giving new revelation on a par with that given to the apostles and prophets as contained in the Bible.

Also, the Spirit does not reveal anything to anyone contrary to Scripture. For example, I’ve had young women tell me that the Lord told them that they could marry an unbeliever. But that’s contrary to His written Word (2 Cor. 6:14), and so it was not the Holy Spirit who revealed that to them. The Holy Spirit guides us in all the truth, which is now contained in the written Word of God.

Thus, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is progressive, personal, and truth-centered. Finally,

4. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is Christ-centered and Christ-glorifying.

John 16:14-15: “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” Jesus implicitly affirms His deity in these verses. No mere man and not even the greatest created being (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses erroneously think Jesus is) could say that the Holy Spirit will glorify Him or that all things that the Father has are His. But Jesus said it.

The Holy Spirit’s role is not to glorify Himself, but Christ. He does not call attention to Himself, but to Christ. He does not lead us to focus on our experiences, but on Christ. When people continually emphasize the Holy Spirit and their supposed experiences in the Spirit, they are not filled with the Spirit. The Spirit exalts Jesus Christ. Dr. Carson (The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus [Baker], p. 151) states: “Nothing brings more glory to our exalted Lord Jesus than for his followers to become steeped in all truth concerning him…. Glory comes to Jesus as the truths of the gospel are established in the lives of men.”

When Jesus says, “All things that the Father has are Mine,” and that the Spirit will take these things and disclose them to the apostles, He is referring to all the glorious truths about Himself that are written in God’s Word. As I mentioned, it’s what Paul called (Eph. 3:8) “the unfathomable riches of Christ.” If the Holy Spirit is working in your life, you will be reveling in Christ, exalting Christ, loving Christ, and telling others of His glory.

These verses can also be plumbed for their insights on the nature of the Triune God. The three persons are distinct and yet each is fully God. Each person has different roles or functions. The Father sent the Son and the Son sent the Spirit. The Spirit does not act independently (“on His own initiative,” v. 13), but rather in submission to the Father and the Son. Just as the Son only speaks what He hears from the Father (John 3:34; 5:19, 20; 7:16-18; 8:26-29, 42-43; 12:47-50; 14:10), so the Spirit only speaks what He hears. He completes God’s revelation of His Son to us. The three members of the Trinity are co-equal as God, distinct in their functions, and yet one God.

Conclusion

The Lord wants us to apply His teaching here to our walk with God: Is the Holy Spirit progressively guiding you in all the truth, especially the truth about Christ, as you study His Word? Do you see His personal ministry in your life as He works to conform you to Christ? Are you growing to understand more deeply the great truths of Scripture, centered in Christ and the gospel? And, is your life increasingly Christ-centered and Christ-glorifying?

If you honestly can’t answer “yes,” there could be two causes: First, you may not be walking in the Spirit or be filled with the Spirit. To walk in the Spirit means to depend on Him, not yourself. To be filled with the Spirit means to yield completely to Him, so that He controls your life. It’s a lifelong process, but you should be practicing it every day.

Second, it is possible that you do not have the Holy Spirit because you have never trusted in Christ. The Spirit is given to those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save them from God’s righteous judgment. Here is the Spirit’s invitation to you (Rev. 22:17): “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.”

Application Questions

Believers are never commanded to be baptized with the Spirit, but rather to walk in the Spirit and to be filled with the Spirit. Why is this distinction important?
Some argue that the Holy Spirit still gives non-authoritative revelation today. Agree/disagree? What are the practical implications of this?
To what extent (if any) does the Spirit guide us through our thoughts, impressions, or feelings? Give biblical support.
How can we know which biblical truths are essential and thus worth dividing over, and which doctrines should not divide us?

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

Related Topics: Pneumatology (The Holy Spirit)

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Revelation - Appendix 5: The Doctrine of the Tribulation

Definition

The word “tribulation” comes from the Greek word thlipsis (θλιψις) meaning “affliction, distress.” It is used in general of any kind of testing, affliction or distress which people experience throughout life, and especially of the church and her problems in this world (Acts 7:10-11; 11:19; Rom. 5:3; Rev. 1:9; 2:9, 10, 22). But Bible students have also used the term, “the Tribulation,” to refer to a specific eschatological time of trouble, a special time of judgment from God that will come upon the entire world, will be unprecedented in its affliction, and will be culminated by the personal return of Jesus Christ to earth. There are many passages that anticipate this time of trouble under a variety of names (see below), but two very special passages are Matthew 24:4-21 and Revelation 6-19. Others will be mentioned in the progress of this short overview.

For the purpose of accuracy, it should be noted that the word tribulation (thlipsis, θλιψις) is used prophetically to describe the distress that will occur in this specific future time of trouble preceding the return of the Lord only in Matthew 24:9, 21, 29; Mark 13:19, 24; and Revelation 7:14. Each of these passages are dealing with the time of Daniel’s seventieth week, also called the “time of Jacob’s distress” (Jer. 30:7). In five of the passages, the word “tribulation” refers to conditions in the last half of this time period and is either described by some qualifying terms like “great” (Matt. 24:21; Rev. 7:14), by a clause describing the unprecedented nature of the distress in the last half of this short period of time (Mark 13:19), or thlipsis (θλιψις) has the article and in some way refers back to the great distress mentioned in the preceding context (Matthew 24:29 has, “after the tribulation of those days” and Mark 13:24 has, “following that distress” [emphasis mine]).

But since this seven-year period is a time of trouble (distress) involving judgments that will be poured out as the Lamb consecutively opens the seven-sealed scroll, Bible students often referred to this entire period as “the Tribulation,” and rightly so. Since the judgments of the seals, the trumpets, and plagues grow in intensity, the last half is by far greater than the first half, and for this reason, it is called in Scripture, “the Great Tribulation.”

The Source of the Tribulation

The post-tribulational rapturist (those who believe the rapture occurs at the end of the Tribulation) often refuses to distinguish between the general tribulations of this age which the church will endure and the unique, universal, and unprecedented Tribulation of Revelation 6-19 and Matthew 24:4-31. As such, they insist that the Tribulation is not the judgment of God, but that it comes from man and Satan and that the church will go through the majority of the events of Revelation 6 and following. They often see any future tribulation as merely the devil’s wrath poured out against Christians.

True, the Tribulation will witness Satan’s wrath and the persecutions of his man, the beast (Rev. 12:12-17; 13:7), but Scripture shows that even this is a manifestation of God’s wrath using Satan and mankind as the instruments of divine judgment as Assyria was used as the rod of His wrath (Isa. 10:5f). The clear emphasis of Scripture is that the Tribulation (Daniel’s Seventieth Week) is a time of God’s special judgment poured out upon the earth. The events or judgments of the Tribulation (Rev. 6-19) are clearly specified as the result of the sovereign actions of the Lamb who opens the seals which produces the judgments that follow (Rev. 5:6-9; 6:1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12; 8:1).

Key Scriptures: Isaiah 24:1-13; 26:21; Daniel 9:24-27; Joel 1:15; Zeph. 1:18; Revelation 6:1-17; 11:18; 14:7, 10, 19; 15:4, 7; 16:1, 7, 19; 19:1-2.

The Nature and
Character of the Tribulation

Read Deuteronomy 4:30-31; Isaiah 2:l9; 24:1, 3, 6, 19-21; 26:20-21; Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 12:1; Joel 2:1-2; Amos 5:18, 20.

(1) It is a time of unprecedented trouble (Joel 2:2; Matthew 24:21). Everything about it will be unprecedented. Compare also Zephaniah 1:14-18.

(2) It is a time of God’s wrath or indignation and the vindication of God’s holiness (Zeph. 1:15, 18; Rev. 6:17; 1 Thess. 1:10; Rev. 14:7, 10; 19:2). God’s wrath against man’s sin and rebellion will be withheld no longer.

(3) It is a day of utter darkness, gloom and extreme cloudiness (Joel 2:2; Zeph. 1:15).

(4) It is a day of destruction and global catastrophes (Joel 1:15; 2:3; 1 Thess. 5:3; Rev. 6-19).

(5) It is a day of extreme lawlessness, sin and demonic activity (Rev. 9:20-21; 2 Thess. 2:12).

(6) It is a day of extreme deception and delusion (2 Thess. 2:9-12; Rev. 9:1f; 13:2-3, 11-18; Dan. 8:24f). This deception is caused by a number of factors: (a) the removal of the Spirit indwelt church with its restraining influence (2 Thess. 2:6-8), (b) the increase of demonic activity (2 Thess. 2:8-10), and (c) the blinding judgment of God (2 Thess. 2:11-12).

(7) It is a time of death (Rev. 6:3-11; 9:15, 18; 11:13). Large portions of the populations of the earth will be wiped out suddenly, both human and animal.

(8) It is a time of utter negative volition, cold indifference, and rebellion against God even though the world will know it is under the wrath of God (Rev. 6:14-17; 9:20; 11:10, 18).

(9) It is a time of internationalism religiously (Rev. 17), politically (Rev. 13:17), economically (Rev. 18), militarily (Joel 3:2, 9-14; Rev. 17).

(10) It is a time of extreme anti-Semitism (Rev. 12; Matthew 24:9, 13f).

(11) It is a time of unprecedented apostasy and blasphemy against God (Rev. 11:1f; 13:1f; 2 Thess 2:3f).

(12) It is a time of the martyrdom of believers, both Jew and Gentile (Rev. 6:9; 7:14f).

(13) It is a time of global and universal war, human and angelic (Rev. 6:2-4; 16:14; 19:14f; Joel 3:2, 9f; Rev. 12:7).

(14) But it is also a time of unprecedented evangelism (Rev. 7:9; Matt. 24:14).

Names Used of the Tribulation

(1) Jacob’s trouble or distress (Daniel 9:24-27)

(2) Daniel’s 70th week (Daniel 9:24-27)

(3) A time of trouble or distress (Daniel 12:1)

(4) The great day, the one of their wrath (Rev. 6:17)

(5) The hour of testing which shall try the whole earth (Rev. 3:10)

(6) The indignation (Isaiah 26:26)

(7) Tribulation and the Great Tribulation (Matthew 24:9, 21, 29; Mark 13:19, 24; Rev. 7:14)

(8) The Day of the Lord (Joel 1:15; 2:1; 1 Thess. 5:2)

In Scripture, “The Day of the Lord” is often associated with this time of great judgment which God will pour out on the earth against Israel and the nations. But it is also associated with the time of millennial blessings which follow during which the Lord will rule on earth. Compare Isaiah 13:6-22 speaks of judgment, but 14:1-3 the result which is peace with Israel re-gathered and in blessing (Joel 1:15f; 2:1f, 12-18f; 3:1f).

Key Players and Personages

(1) Unbelievers: The Tribulation will begin with only unbelievers since the body of Christ will have been removed through the rapture and kept from this hour of trial (Rev. 3:10; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9). The Tribulation is uniquely a time to test the earth dwellers (Rev. 3:10; Isa. 24:17), those who during the church age had no time nor interest in spiritual things and who therefore never received Christ as their Savior by faith (2 Thess. 2:10-12). The Tribulation is a time of God’s wrath or judgment. For believers in Christ there is no judgment (Rom. 8:1), we are not appointed to the Day of the Lord, the time of wrath (1 Thess. 5:2, 9).

(2) Jews and Gentiles: The participants of the Tribulation may be further categorized according to their racial heritage as either Jews or Gentiles. Scripture categorizes men today in three categories: (a) The church; (b) Israel; and (c) the Gentiles or the nations (1 Cor. 10:32). In the Tribulation the church will be gone, so the world will consist of only Jews (Israel) and Gentiles. Compare Ephesians 2:11-22 for the reason why the church is a new entity of people, i.e., a new man, a new creation where Jew and Gentile are made one in Jesus Christ.

The reason for these two categories is found in the dispensational purposes of God and God’s special calling and purpose for Israel according to the Old Testament covenants with Abraham and the patriarchs, and with David (Gen. 10; 11; 12; 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Rom. 3:9, 19; 11:1-32; Luke 21:24).

(3) 144,00 Bondservants of God: 12,000 Jews from each of the twelve tribes. These are Jews who will be saved after the Tribulation begins. They are sealed, which refers to their salvation, identification and protection for special service during the rest of the Tribulation. From the context of Revelation 7, it appears they will be the special evangelists whom God will use to lead multitudes to Christ from every nation, tribe, people and tongue (cf. Rev. 7:1-8 with 9-10).

(4) The Two Witnesses: This refers to the two men who will come on the scene as a virtual (though probably not literal) Moses and Elijah. They will perform miracles like those of Moses and Elijah, and will prophesy during one half of the Tribulation—most probably the last half (Rev. 11:1-14).

(5) Satan and his Demons: Revelation 9:1-11; 12:3-17; 16:13-14; 13:2. Obviously, as a day of delusion and great darkness, Satan and his demon hosts are key figures in this drama. All the lawlessness, the murders, drugs, wars and blasphemies of this period are a result of satanic activity in conjunction with the degeneracy of man (2 Thess. 2:9-12).

(6) The Beast: Revelation 13:1f; 16:13; Daniel 2:40-43; 9:27; 8:23f; 7:23-26; 11:36f. This title applies to both a man and his governmental system. The system is the revived imperial form of the Old Roman Empire which is a consolidation of ten European countries into one 10 nation confederation. But this system is headed up and controlled by a Satan-possessed man from whom the system gets its character and beastly nature.

(7) The False Prophet: While the beast is primarily a political figure (though he later becomes religious in that he seeks to be worshipped and claims to be God), the False Prophet is religious and promotes the ministry and person of the beast (Rev. 13:11-18). Since the first beast is Satan-possessed, this forms the unholy trinity, Satan, the beast, and the False Prophet. Satan is to the beast what the Father is to the Son, and the False Prophet is to the beast what the Holy Spirit is to Christ.

(8) The Fallen Angels and Michael and His Angels: Rev. 12:7. The entire Book is filled with the ministries of the angels of God in service to God and of the activity of fallen angels that do Satan’s bidding.

(9) The Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, The Lamb and Lion from the tribe of Judah: Rev. 4; 5; and 19. He is the central figure who is revealed in all His glory and splendor, person, and work and who puts an end to God’s enemies and establishes God’s kingdom on earth.

(10) The Bride of Christ, the Church: Rev. 19:7f. She is viewed as married to the Lamb and coming with Christ at His second advent for the marriage supper, the millennial kingdom where she will reign with Christ.

(11) The Great Harlot, Religious Babylon: This is the great religious system, the mother-child cult, the mother of all harlotry stemming from the time of ancient Babylon. It finally becomes a great ecumenical, one-world religious system of the Tribulation (Rev. 17).

(12) The Merchants of the World: Rev. 18. This refers to the conglomeration of multinational companies and organizations and their merchandising of the world.

(13) The Ten Nations of Europe: Rev. 17:12. This refers to ten nations, a Mediterranean or European federation which falls under the power and authority of the beast.

(14) The Kings of the East: Rev. 16:12f. This refers to an oriental block of nations who will march across the Euphrates River when it is miraculously dried up. Their goal is to enter Palestine for the final battle of the campaign of Armageddon to be fought on the plain of Esdraelon near the Mount of Megiddo.

The Time of the Tribulation

The Tribulation occurs after the removal of the church (1 Thess. 4:13-18; 5:l-9) and is followed by the 1,000 year reign of Jesus Christ (Rev. 20:1-4; Ezek. 20:33-38; Matt 24 and 25). It is that period of time through which the Lamb defeats His enemies and establishes His right to rule on earth (Rev. 4 and 5; 11:15-18).

Some arguments for the pre-tribulational rapture, i.e., that Christ comes for His church before the Tribulation are:

(1) It is a time of divine wrath and judgment upon sin and the church has not been appointed to wrath (1 Thess. 5:9; Rom. 8:1; John 5:24).

(2) The church has been specifically promised it will be kept out. See chart and the exposition of Revelation 3:10 in lesson 10.

(3) The church and Israel are two distinct groups or peoples of God (1 Cor. 10:32; Rom 9; 10; 11). The church age is a parenthesis in God’s program with Israel. The Tribulation is the resumption of God’s program with Israel, to conclude it and establish the kingdom. The Tribulation is thus Jacob’s Trouble, Jeremiah 30:7. It is for Israel and not the church, the Body of Christ.

(4) The coming of Christ for the church is seen as imminent in the epistles. By this we mean it is not preceded by signs. Christ could come for us today (1 Thess. 1:10; Titus 2:13; John 2:22). If the church had to go through the Tribulation, then His coming could not be imminent, but would be preceded by signs.²¹

(5) The contrasts between Christ’s return for His saints (the church) and His return after the Tribulation also support two separate and distinct events separated by some time. (See the contrasts at the end of this Appendix.)

The Purposes of the Tribulation

(1) For Israel: Being uniquely a time of Jacob’s (Israel’s) distress (Jer. 30:7), it is a time to discipline Israel for her stubbornness and rejection of Christ, to purge out the rebels and to bring the nation to faith in Christ and so prepare her for restoration and regathering for the millennium (Matt. 23:37-39; Ezek. 20:33-38; Zech. 12:10; Jer. 30:1-17). The Tribulation is also designed to break the yoke of Gentile bondage (Jer. 30:8, 11; 31:11).

(2) For the Nations: The Tribulation will serve as divine judgment for anti-Semitism (Zech. 1:15-21; 12:3f; 14:3; Joel 3:2; Jer. 30:8, 11, 16). The Tribulation will also be used to bring many Gentiles to faith in Christ (Rev. 7:9; 13:10). Finally, it is a test to try all the inhabitants of the earth.

(3) In Relation to Satan: The Tribulation will reveal the true character and program of Satan. The Tribulation will permit Satan’s program to come to its logical conclusion resulting in judgment from God. It will demonstrate that Satan is the cause of war, murder, and deception, and that he deserves his judgment from God (Matt. 25:41; Rev. 12:7-12; 20:1-3; Isa. 14:12-17; Ezek. 28:12-19).

(4) In General: The Tribulation is an open judgment against all mankind for rebellion to God and rejection of Jesus Christ (Zeph. 1:15, 17, 18; Joel 3:12-14; Rev. 6:16-17).

(5) In Relation to God: The Tribulation will demonstrate that God is holy, righteous, just, and still on the throne. That He has not ignored man’s rebellion or sin, but that He has held back only in mercy and longsuffering, not willing that any should perish (2 Pet. 3:9).

The Length of the Tribulation

Daniel 9:24-27 teaches us that the Tribulation (Daniel’s 70th week) consists of seven years. This is further verified by the time periods of Revelation which divide the Tribulation into two periods of three and one-half years. (Rev. 11:2-3; 13:5; 12:6; Daniel 7: 25; Rev. 12:14).

Understanding these basic truths concerning the Tribulation will help prepare the student for a study of Revelation 6-19.

Contrasts and Comparisons Between
the Two Phases of Christ’s Second Coming

Christ’s Coming for the Church, the Rapture	Christ’s Coming to the World
(1) At the rapture believers meet Christ in the air. It is the translation of all believers (1 Thess. 4:17).	(1) At His second coming to earth, no translation is seen (Zech. 14:4).
(2) His coming is as a thief. Only believers of the church will see him (Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:17).	(2) Every eye shall see Him, it is open, public, and manifest to the world (Rev. 5:16; Matt. 24:30).
(3) Believers are taken off the earth and unbelievers remain to go into the Tribulation (1 Thess. 4:13-17; John 14:3).	(3) Unbelievers are taken and believers are left to go into the millennium (Matt. 24:37-39; Rev. 19:17-21).
(4) Christ comes for His saints and they return with Him into the heavens (1 Thess. 4:17).	(4) Christ comes with His saints (1 Thess. 3:13; 2 Thess. 2:10-12; Zech. 14:5; Rev. 19:7f).
(5) It is imminent, not preceded by any specific signs (Tit. 2:13; 1 Thess. 1:10; Rom. 13:11-14; 1 John 2:28).	(5) It is preceded by specific signs included in the Tribulation (Matt. 24).
(6) Christ comes as our Deliverer from the wrath to come. He keeps believers out of the Tribulation (1 Thess. 4:18; 5:9-10; Rev. 3:10).	(6) Christ comes as Judge. The world is judged (Matt. 25:31-32, 46; Rev. 6-19; Matt. 3:11-12; Joel. 2:1-11; 3:1-17; Jude 15.
(7) It is a source of comfort to believers (1 Thess. 4:18; 5:9; Rev. 3:10).	(7) It is a source of fear to man (Rev. 6:15-17; 9-11).
(8) There are no recorded changes in nature mentioned in connection with the rapture.	(8) Many changes in nature recorded (Rev. 6; Isa. 35).
(9) It is a mystery, a truth hidden in the OT (1 Cor. 15:51).	(9) It is the subject of extended prophecy in the OT.
(10) No reference or dealing with Satan. Instead, his activity increases (cf. 1 Thess. 4:13-18 with 2 Thess. 2:1f).	(10) Satan is bound for 1,000 years (Rev. 20:1-3).
(11) At the rapture the Mount of Olives is unchanged.	(11) At His return, the Mount of Olives is split and forms a valley (Zech. 14:4-5).
(12) At the rapture we have the examination, rewards, and wedding of the bride (Rev. 19:7-10).	(12) Christ’s return to earth is followed by the wedding feast and the church is seen already rewarded.
(13) At the rapture believers receive a glorified body (1 Cor. 15:51-53)	(13) Believers of the Tribulation go into the millennium with mortal bodies (Isa. 65:20-25).

21 For an excellent discussion concerning the imminent return of the Lord, see the chapter by Earl D. Radmacher in Issues in Dispensationalism, Welsey R. Willis, John R. Master, General Editors, Charles Ryrie, Consulting Editor, Moody Press, Chicago, pp. 247-267. Also, see J. Barton Payne’s, The Imminent Appearing of Christ.

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Lesson 109: Zacchaeus-- The Seeker Who was Sought (Luke 19:1-10)

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It probably wasn’t easy being Zacchaeus. Even today, we’ve pretty much emasculated the guy through teaching our kids to sing about him being a “wee little man.” It may have been hard for him to get noticed, so he made his mark by taking advantage of his own people through rising to the low position of chief tax collector. But apparently, even having grown rich through his shady profession, he knew there was more to be had than money. This pull in his heart made catching a glimpse of Jesus worth climbing a tree like a child. Through this account Pastor Daniel challenges us to 1) Be encouraged as you seek God, 2) Don’t make excuses for rebellion, 3) Use dissatisfaction with life wisely, 4) Truly repent, 5) Trust in Christ, and 6) Gain assurance.

Summary by Seth Kempf, Bethany Community Church Staff

Curriculum

Below is a list of series on the site that have questions (and maybe answers) included at the end of each lesson which you can use to lead a bible study.

You are here

Redeeming The Time: A Simple System

A Place for Everything

Digital Duties

Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan

Time Bandits

Simply Put

The Reliability Of Kings And Chronicles

Some Difficulties with Old Testament Chronology

A Biblical Case Study

Coregencies and Rival Reigns

The Accuracy of Kings and Chronicles

Did Adam Really Exist?

Paul and Adam

Paul and Adam: A Response

Paul's Use of the Old Testament

Paul's Use of Old Testament: A Response

The Matter of Inspiration

From the series: John PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Lesson 90: What in the World is Worldliness? (John 17:13-19)

1. Christians are to be in the world, as Jesus was in it.

A. Jesus was in the world, not isolated from worldly people.

B. Jesus was in the world with a divine mission.

C. Jesus was in the world with a realistic mindset: He expected opposition.

2. Christians are to be distinct from the world as Jesus was distinct from it.

A. To be distinct from the world is the path to genuine joy, not to depriving you of all your fun.

B. To be distinct from the world, you must have a separate origin.

C. To be distinct from the world, you must develop a separate mindset that comes from God’s Word.

D. To be distinct from this world, live in obedience to God’s Word.

E. To be distinct from this world, realize that you’re in enemy territory.

Conclusion

Application Questions

From the series: John PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

From the series: John PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Lesson 85: How the Holy Spirit Works (John 16:12-15)

1. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is progressive.

2. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is personal.

3. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is truth-centered.

4. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is Christ-centered and Christ-glorifying.

Conclusion

Application Questions

From the series: John PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Chinese NET Bible - ePub download

From the series: Studies in Revelation PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Revelation - Appendix 5: The Doctrine of the Tribulation

Definition

The Source of the Tribulation

The Nature and Character of the Tribulation

Names Used of the Tribulation

Key Players and Personages

The Time of the Tribulation

The Purposes of the Tribulation

The Length of the Tribulation

From the series: Studies in Revelation PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

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From the series: Luke: Savior of the Outcast PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Lesson 109: Zacchaeus-- The Seeker Who was Sought (Luke 19:1-10)

From the series: Luke: Savior of the Outcast PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE

Curriculum

Pages

The Nature and
Character of the Tribulation