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Charts on the Book of Hebrews

By Jeremy Myers
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Charts on the Book of Hebrews

Book of HebrewsIf you have ever studied or taught through the book of Hebrews, you know what a challenging book it can be.

In many ways, it stands out as one of the most difficult and most challenging books of the New Testament. Not only are there challenges with how to understand and read this book, but it also contains some of the most difficult Greek and the most difficult theology. For example, Hebrews probably contains the most famous tough text of the Bible: Hebrews 6:4-6.

Charts on the Book of HebrewsSo I really appreciated Charts on the Book of Hebrews recently put out by Herbert Bateman through Kregel Academic. It contains over 100 charts on most of the difficult problems surrounding the understanding and interpretation of Hebrews. It has charts on the disputed authorship of Hebrews (Charts 1-7), the canonicity of Hebrews (Charts 25-29), and the difficult Greek of Hebrews (Charts 94-104).

For me, the most helpful sections were those which dealt with the Jewish background material in Hebrews. I firmly believe that the main reason the book of Hebrews is so difficult for people today to understand is simply because we are modern Western โ€œGentileโ€ Christians and the book was written to First Century Middle Eastern Jewish Christians.

If someone does not understand Jewish thinking, Jewish theology, and have an expansive understanding of the Jewish Scriptures (aka the Old Testament), there is almost no hope of understanding the themes and message of the book of Hebrews. This is especially true of the five warning passages in Hebrews which have caused so much trouble in the church during the past 1900 years.

But this book of charts by Bateman helps bridge that gap between our culture and that of the Ancient Middle-Eastern Jewish Christian. Well over 50% of the charts have some sort of connection to Jewish thinking, Jewish theology, Jewish culture, or Old Testament texts. For example, there is a whole section of charts devoted to โ€œOld Testament and Second Temple Influences in Hebrewsโ€ and numerous charts later in the book which show the dependence the author of Hebrew had on the Greek Septuagint.

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God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Books I'm Reading

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Jesus the Messiah

By Jeremy Myers
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Jesus the Messiah

Gordon JohnstonWhen I was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, one of my favorite professors was Gordon Johnston.

He had a way of teaching that brought interest and insight to the text of Scripture. He could take a passage you have heard taught a thousand times before and show you new and intriguing truths from it. One of the things I also appreciated about him is that he was extremely generous with his research and writing. During one class he passed around a thumb-drive which contained all of the research and articles he had compiled for a book he was writing. He told us that if we wanted, we could copy all the files over to our laptops.

I copied them all, of course, and the files he freely gave are still one of the valuable resources I have on my computer. His actions in freely giving to others is one reason I give away all the books I write.

Ironically, and I never told Professor Johnston this, but I also credit him for getting me fired from my ministry job while in Dallas. It was primarily the things I learned in his class which got me in trouble with the ministry I was working at. They were uncomfortable with some of the books and ideas that Johnston was promoting, and since they were afraid that I might one day believe these things myself, they terminated my employment.

Of course, I am not upset at Dr. Johnston or the people who terminated my employment.

Although it was a painful at the time (and sometimes still is), the loss of my job was one of the best things that ever happened to me. As a result of me losing my job, I was liberated and freed to follow Jesus in ways I never would have had the courage to do on my own.

So in light of all this, it was with great excitement and nostalgia that I recently received from Kregel Academic a review copy of a book called Jesus the Messiah which was co-authored by Gordon Johnston, Darrel Bock, and Herbert Bateman.

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God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Books I'm Reading

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Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart

By Jeremy Myers
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Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart
Ask Jesus into your heart
Okay, how do I do this exactly? And if I get a heart transplant, do I need to ask Him in again?

When I was a pastor, a friend of mine gave me an article called “Seven Reasons Not to Ask Jesus Into Your Heart.” The author of the article pointed out that the Bible calls us to believe in Jesus for eternal life, not ask Jesus into your heart. He gave seven reasons why we should stop using that idea when presenting the Gospel to others.

So it was with interest that I recently read a book calledย Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heartย by J. D. Greear.

Overall, the book carried the same message, that if we are going to tell people about Jesus, and invite people to receive eternal life, we might as well use the terminology the Bible uses, because it is more clear and more accurate. Let’s face it, the invitation to “ask Jesus into your heart” is just plain confusing. So Greear provides some good explanation for why we should stop using this confusing term.

However, I cannot really recommend his book, because although he was clear on this issue, the rest of his book is not terribly clear. The subtitle for the book is “How to know for sure you are saved” but throughout the entire book, Greear based the assurance of salvation on good works! If we ever base the assurance of our salvation on good works, we can never, ever know for sure that we are saved.

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The Critical Need for Contextualization in World Missions

By Jeremy Myers
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The Critical Need for Contextualization in World Missions

contextualization of the gospelIn Roland Allen’s excellent book on missions, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, he tells the story of a Siouxย Indianย chief ย named Big Hunter who wished to become a Christian. The problem was that Big Hunter was a polygamist. He had several wives, as was customary in Sioux culture.

The Presbyterian missionaries who were working with Big Hunter told him that if he wanted to follow Jesus, he had to put away all of his wives except one. This is what the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ expected from those who were children of God.

Big Hunter was now faced with a dilemma. One the one hand, he really wanted to become a Christian, but on the other hand, he knew that any wife he got rid of would starve to death. So, not knowing what else to do, he hanged all of his wives except the one he decided to keep. Then he came to the missionaries and told them that he had done what they wanted.

They were shocked and outraged at his actions, and drove him away as a murderer. Big Hunter despaired of ever becoming a Christian, married two new wives, and lived as an unbeliever for the rest of his days.

Did the missionaries do the right thing? If not, what should they have done instead?ย 

How you answer those two questions is called “contextualization.”

What is Contextualization?

Contextualization is the way which mission workers apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the truths of Scripture to the various cultures in which the missionaries work.

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God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: Books I'm Reading, Discipleship

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A Cold-Case Detective Investigates the Murder of Jesus

By Jeremy Myers
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A Cold-Case Detective Investigates the Murder of Jesus

J. Warner Wallace was a homicideย detective who specialized in solving cold-case murders. His work on cold-cases has been featured on numerous popular television shows and have revolutionized the way capital offense trials are presented around the country.

One year, though he was an atheist, he decided to take up the biggest “cold-case” of all time, the alleged murder of Jesus Christ some 2000 years ago. As a result of his investigation, he became convinced that the claims within the Gospels are true, that Jesus really did live, die on the cross, and rise again three days later from the dead.

cold case christianityAnd he recently wrote a book about how he used his training and experience as a cold case detective to verify the truths of the claims in the Gospel accounts. His book is calledย Cold-Case Christianity,ย and he recently sent me a copy of his book for review on this blog.

If you have ever read Lee Strobel’sย The Case for Christ,ย this book is very similar, except that rather than the research performed by an investigative journalist, the research is done by a cold case detective. I really enjoyed Lee Strobel’s book when I read it about several years ago, and I enjoyed J. Warner Wallace’s book, ย Cold-Case Christianity, for many of the same reasons. Apparently, Lee Stobel likes the book too, since he wrote the foreword.

One of the things that makes the book the most interesting, is that Wallace begins each chapter explaining some of the tools and approaches he used as a homicide detective, and then he goes on in the rest of the chapter to show how he used this tool or approach to investigate the claims of the Gospels about Jesus Christ.

So, for example, chapter 8 ย is titled, “Respect the ‘Chain of Custody.'” This is basically the idea that when evidence is passed on from person to person in an investigation, there needs to be a paper trail to show who had the evidence, what they did with it, and where it went after they were done with it. Using his experience as a detective, Wallace showed the “Chain of Custody” of the evidence which was recorded in the New Testament Gospels and how they went from the actual life of Jesus to the “courtroom” or the Council of Laodicea in 363 AD where the four Gospel accounts were officially accepted into the New Testament canon.

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God is z Bible & Theology Topics: Books I'm Reading

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