Category: Christian Doctrine

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:31

What role will angels play? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, we have a verse that many futurists assume is about something in the future. After all, look at angels going out and this gathering together and the sounds of a trumpet. A trumpet sounds at the resurrection. Right? Surely that’s what’s going on here! Let’s look at the verse.

“And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

This would be an incredibly vague reference to a resurrection and trumpets have many more uses in Scripture and in the Roman Empire at the time. They could be used for war and they could also be used as a royal proclamation. I would go for a mixture of both of these. The Kingdom of God wages war on the kingdoms of man and the proclamation is the gospel going forth.

What about angels though? Angels are heavenly messengers aren’t they? Are they not the ones that are around the throne of God? If they’re going out, then surely that must mean something future is going on. Right?

No. The Greek word is aggelos and it can refer to a member of the heavenly entourage, but it can also refer to a messenger. John the Baptists is referred to as an aggelos. The word describes more function than anything else.

By the way, it’s worth noting the high Christology here. These are not the messengers of God, though they are that indeed, but in the text, they are the messengers of the Son. It’s one of those casual references easily missed.

The gathering of the elect refers to those who are Christians. At this point, there is zero interest in whether this is meant in a Calvinistic, Arminian, or some other sense. I really avoid that debate as much as I can.

And what about to the ends of the Earth? For the first-century Jews, this would not mean going all the way to North America or something, contrary to Mormon claims. This would mean going throughout the Roman Empire. By the end of the book of Acts, we see that this has been done. Not a shock to a Preterist that shortly after that, the temple gets destroyed.

We’re nearing the end of the first part. We will continue next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Superheroes Can’t Save You

What do I think of Todd Miles’s book published by B&H Academic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m not someone who reads comic books, but I do like superheroes. When Smallville was on the air, I devoured everything I could on that series and I regret that I never got a copy of the comic strips for after the show went off, but alas, I didn’t have the money. Many of you might know I had every episode title memorized in order when it was on.

Fortunately, I also married a wife who likes superhero movies so we can sit down and watch Thor or Iron Man together as well. It is rare I meet a guy who doesn’t like superheroes. For many of us men also, we like to be the protector and imagine being those heroes for the ones we love.

Many times, we can also see these superheroes as Christ figures. To some extent, there’s some truth to this. There are many ways in which Superman is very similar to Jesus. However, there are many ways that they are different.

Those differences could lead to heresy even.

Superheroes leading to heresy? Holy Christology Batman! Yes, indeed. Superheroes can illustrate for us great Christological errors in history.

In this, Todd Miles covers 7. Superman is a docetism of sorts that is so much divine that we do not see him as really human. The humanity is just a facade. We can see Jesus the same way.

Batman is quite the opposite. Of all the superheroes, Batman is a regular guy. He just has a lot of knowledge and a lot of gadgets. In this, many people can say Jesus is just a regular guy. He was just really a man of great wisdom.

Hank Pym has made a comeback in the movies as Ant-Man, but he can also be Goliath and the Yellow Jacket. Three different ways one guy can be. Sounds like modalism? Indeed, it does.

Thor is the son of a great god, but he is just a god in himself. Is there any group out there that teaches that Jesus is the Son of God, but he is simply a god? That would be the Arian teaching and the Watchtower Bible has Jesus described as “a god” in John 1:1.

Green Lantern has an awesome ring that gives him great powers with the use of his will. In the same way, some groups teach that Jesus was adopted and given the Holy Spirit that allowed Him to do miracles. This adoptionism is for Miles, the Green Lantern heresy.

Hulk is a Christological heresy too? Yep. The great Bruce Banner is a brilliant thinker and scientist, but when he turns into the Hulk, he loses all of it and just wants to smash everything. Hulk doesn’t really have a human mind then. If you recognize Apollinarianism, move to the head of the class.

Finally, Peter Parker gets bit by a radioactive spider and becomes Spider-Man. His DNA is actually fused with spider DNA. At this point, he becomes a mixture of a spider and a human. Yes. We are talking about Euytchianism.

This is a really fun read through church history and at times, the footnotes at the bottom of the page can be just as funny. This book is also designed for small groups, so get a church group together and watch a superhero movie and then read a chapter of the book about that hero and discuss it. It would be great to see more like this. About the only major problem I have is the Superman chapter never mentioned the Smallville series. I don’t understand how a great oversight like that can take place still…..

Theology is a deep field, but it can also be fun. If you like superheroes, you can learn Christology. Give this one a try.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:30

Is everybody looking for a sign? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So this next verse is again one that many futurists will jump at and say “See! This has to be future!” No. It doesn’t. I will again here be explaining why it is that I think the context better fits a first-century milleu described in typical apocalyptic language of the time. Let’s look at the verse.

“Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”

What we have to ask is what is being seen. Does it mean that the sign will be seen in Heaven or that the sign is of something in Heaven? I have traditionally been using the ESV, but let’s point out other translations renders this differently.

NIV:

“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”

Berean Literal Bible: And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

Berean Study Bible: At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

NASB: “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.

NKJV: Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

I could go on, but you get the point. Notice something about these other translations. Heaven comes after Son of Man each time. I personally think the NIV has it most accurately. However, if you think I’m being arbitrary….

καὶ τότε φανήσεται τὸ σημεῖον τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ καὶ τότε κόψονται πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς καὶ ὄψονται τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐρχόμενον ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ μετὰ δυνάμεως καὶ δόξης πολλῆς·

Go to a site like Blueletterbible.com and look up the verse in Greek and see that Heaven follows AFTER the Son of Man each time. Note also this fits with other passages. In Matthew 26, Jesus tells Caiaphas that he will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Father and coming on the clouds of glory. I plan to look at this verse in greater depth later, but note what it says. Sitting and coming both. It doesn’t mean Caiaphas will look out his window one day and see Jesus riding on a cloud like Goku on his Nimbus. Also, Caiaphas certainly won’t see Jesus at the right hand of the Father literally since no one can see God and live.

Coming refers to judgment and sitting refers to ruling. Jesus sitting means that He is ruling and Jesus coming means that He is judging. What Jesus is saying is that Caiaphas will see that Jesus is ruling from the right hand of God and judging. This is quite the turnaround! The Sanhedrin is trying to judge Jesus, and Jesus is promising that He will judge them instead.

So what is Jesus promising that will be seen? The destruction of the temple as the location of the sign is not specified. Note that only at the beginning do we hear about the temple being destroyed explicitly. This is where Jesus is saying this is happening. The temple being destroyed means something new is being set up or at least an old way of doing things is ended. The system of Judaism at the time is ended. The new temple has been built. It is the temple of the church with the Spirit living in believers.

Why will the tribes mourn? Because the mourning means that judgment has come and Jerusalem will be no more. Also, I think Jerusalem is the Babylon that is pointed to in Revelation. We will spend more time on Revelation later in looking at eschatology and touching other passages like 1 Cor. 15, Psalm 110, and 2 Peter.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse Matthew 24:29

What in the Heavens is going on? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Ah. Now we’re getting into stuff that definitely sounds like it’s more in line with futurism. After all, surely none of this stuff happened in the 1st century. Right? What kind of stuff? Let’s look at Matthew 24:29

” Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Years ago, Neil Degrasse Tyson sadly gave a more common reading of this passage.

“You know, one of the signs that the second coming, is that the stars will fall out of the sky and land on Earth. To even write that means you don’t know what those things are. You have no concept of what the actual universe is. So everybody who tried to make proclamations about the physical universe based on Bible passages got the wrong answer.“

Sadly, most churches today would accept this reading as well. After all, there’s supposed to be something sacred in taking the text literally. I prefer to take the text as I think Jesus really intended it. Jesus was more than a prophet of course, but he was at least that. How did prophets speak? We go to the Old Testament to find out.

2 Samuel 22 is one of my favorite passages to go to. Look at this song David sings about his lifetime.

7 “In my distress I called upon the Lord;
    to my God I called.
From his temple he heard my voice,
    and my cry came to his ears.

8 “Then the earth reeled and rocked;
    the foundations of the heavens trembled
    and quaked, because he was angry.
9 Smoke went up from his nostrils,
    and devouring fire from his mouth;
    glowing coals flamed forth from him.
10 He bowed the heavens and came down;
    thick darkness was under his feet.
11 He rode on a cherub and flew;
    he was seen on the wings of the wind.
12 He made darkness around him his canopy,
    thick clouds, a gathering of water.
13 Out of the brightness before him
    coals of fire flamed forth.
14 The Lord thundered from heaven,
    and the Most High uttered his voice.
15 And he sent out arrows and scattered them;
    lightning, and routed them.
16 Then the channels of the sea were seen;
    the foundations of the world were laid bare,
at the rebuke of the Lord,
    at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

Search all you want through the life of David and you will not find this. You will not find YHWH hitching a ride on Gabriel and Michael and coming down Green Arrow style blasting the bad guys. You will not find the channels of the sea being seen and the foundations of the world laid bare. So either we believe that the writer of this text had to leave out one of the most amazing events in the life of David, or else that we are misunderstanding the way Jews speak if we take this literally.

Isaiah 13 is another such case.

9 Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
    cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the land a desolation
    and to destroy its sinners from it.
10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
    will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising,
    and the moon will not shed its light.
11 I will punish the world for its evil,
    and the wicked for their iniquity;
I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,
    and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.
12 I will make people more rare than fine gold,
    and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
    and the earth will be shaken out of its place,
at the wrath of the Lord of hosts
    in the day of his fierce anger.
14 And like a hunted gazelle,
    or like sheep with none to gather them,
each will turn to his own people,
    and each will flee to his own land.
15 Whoever is found will be thrust through,
    and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.
16 Their infants will be dashed in pieces
    before their eyes;
their houses will be plundered
    and their wives ravished.

Now some of you might be tempted to think this is future, but wait. God says in the next verse that he is raising up the Medes against them. The Medes did eventually come and conquer Babylon. However, none of the stuff if taken literally happened as described.

Ezekiel 32

“You consider yourself a lion of the nations,
    but you are like a dragon in the seas;
you burst forth in your rivers,
    trouble the waters with your feet,
    and foul their rivers.
3 Thus says the Lord God:
    I will throw my net over you
    with a host of many peoples,
    and they will haul you up in my dragnet.
4 And I will cast you on the ground;
    on the open field I will fling you,
and will cause all the birds of the heavens to settle on you,
    and I will gorge the beasts of the whole earth with you.
5 I will strew your flesh upon the mountains
    and fill the valleys with your carcass.
6 I will drench the land even to the mountains
    with your flowing blood,
    and the ravines will be full of you.
7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens
    and make their stars dark;
I will cover the sun with a cloud,
    and the moon shall not give its light.
8 All the bright lights of heaven
    will I make dark over you,
    and put darkness on your land,
declares the Lord God.

This describes God’s judgment on Israel in the past. Again, the language is eerily similar to what we find in the Olivet Discourse. Once again, either we need to take it all literally or we need to try to understand the way ancient Jews spoke.

Ezekiel 39 has the following:

9 “Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and make fires of the weapons and burn them, shields and bucklers, bow and arrows, clubs and spears; and they will make fires of them for seven years, 10 so that they will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any out of the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons. They will seize the spoil of those who despoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, declares the Lord God.

This kind of passage shows us that many prophecies were indeed for the near future. Many futurists interpret this as a great future battle. It will be an interesting one if we are using bows and arrows and shields and bucklers again. True, some prophecies had a long range far ahead into the future, but to read many dispensationalists today, you’d think the only times worth talking about were the time of Jesus and what is supposedly our time today.

So what is going on?

When the Jews spoke of intense political events, they often used cosmic language. War would be such an event. This kind of language was not meant to be literal. It was meant to indicate chaos on the realm of Earth as kings and others went to battle. The disciples would have understood that war was coming.

Don’t read the text like Tyson. Read it like a first-century Jew. If you do that and you read it as the language of warfare and judgment, then again, Jesus is still spot on. You are also being consistent with the prior first-century milleu found in the text.

But that’s one verse. What about others?

We’ll see when we get there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Olivet Discourse—Matthew 24:7

Have there been more earthquakes? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I remember being in a Bible study group for men in high school and sometimes we would talk about end times. Our leader told us that there was an increase in earthquakes. This was seen as a sign of the end times. Why would anyone think that? Look at verse 7.

” Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. “

We covered wars last time, so let’s look at famines and earthquakes. Note that the text doesn’t say there will be an increase in earthquakes. Even if we went with that, the truth is that there hasn’t been an increase in earthquakes at all. We just have a better means of detecting earthquakes and we hear reports of them from all over the world, something that wasn’t possible in the first century. See here for details.

Yet even in Scripture, we see earthquakes. There is one at the crucifixion of Jesus and there is another around the time of the resurrection. When Paul and Silas are in prison, there is an earthquake.

Various writers also wrote of earthquakes. You’ll find them in Tacitus and in Josephus. There was an earthquake before the eruption of Vesuvius. Earthquakes were happening. Thus, if we are looking for earthquakes as a sign, this can still fit in to the first century very easily.

How about famines? Yep. We have those too. The big one was the one Agabus talked about in the book of Acts. This is also likely the situation going on in 1 Corinthians 7 and the present situation where Paul said it might not be good to marry. After all, if you can’t provide for yourself, providing for a wife also will be much harder.

If anything, we have far more means to battle famine today. When they happen, it is likely because of evil governments ruling over innocent people. After all, we could airlift food anywhere in the world that we really wanted to.

So for those who are thinking what we see today could be a sign that Jesus is coming, don’t be too sure. We’re still well within a first-century context here. Some might be thinking later verses will sink this theory, but we’ll see when we get there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Do Protestants Have A Problem With Works?

Is works salvation really a major issue today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday at a Bible Study at the Orthodox Church my wife attends, we were going through Revelation 14 and I heard the priest get to the verse about those who die in the Lord for they will rest and their works will follow them. He remarked that Protestants have a problem with this verse. For me, I was sitting right there as the Protestant in the room and thinking, “I don’t have a problem with it.” I don’t know how we could get statistics on how many Protestants might have a problem with it, but I figured it could be something interesting to write on.

I think those of us who are Protestants have rightly emphasized salvation by grace through faith. It cannot be earned. It is a gift. It is not wages that are given out because we are good boys and girls.

So when I see this verse in Revelation, I think it means the work that the person has done immediately is done. They themselves will work no more, but the effects of what they have done will live on. Why would that be a problem?

If we go back to the Reformation, I am convinced the Protestants had the better arguments, but their exegesis was still not the best overall. Now I think there’s more evidence that what is being discussed in Galatians is not if salvation is by works or if it is by grace. It is instead being discussed what is the identity marker of if one is a Christian? Is it keeping the Law, i.e. circumcision, or is it faith in Christ?

If we’re Protestants, we shouldn’t balk when we hear works being talked about. Works are great and wonderful things. Picture a man who goes to an altar one day next to a woman he loves and says, “I do.” Then he goes back home to his parents and stays there. He never interacts with his wife or has sex with her or provides for her or anything, but he insists that he is married. We would all seriously question that one.

If you are a Christian, then along the way you ought to show the signs that you are a Christian. If you are not producing any fruit at all, we have reason to doubt your Christianity. This shouldn’t be a problem. It’s abundant in Scripture. Christ says He who abides in Him will produce much fruit. Ephesians 2:8-9 is followed by a verse saying that we are saved by grace through faith and the very next verse talks about the works that we do. While James 2 is often misunderstood, it is certainly right in the emphasis on how important works are and I would argue that James is talking about justification before men and not before God.

While I do think the comment yesterday might have been exaggerated, we who are Protestants do not need to shy away from doing good works and we need sermons on the importance of doing good works. Again, none of this is so that we can be Christians. We do good works because we are Christians and we have a job to do. We are to do the Great Commission.

It still is a tragedy to me today that there are three branches of Christianity today and I do look forward to the unity of all three one day. Still, we should all agree on the importance of doing good works. If a tree doesn’t produce any fruit, we can rightly speculate that the tree is dead. If we do not produce any fruit in our Christian walk, people can rightly speculate that our faith is dead.

Again, I don’t know how many Protestants really do have a problem with the passage, but we shouldn’t. We should be greatly emphasizing the importance of doing good works. Those start with loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Gospel Allegiance

What do I think of Matthew Bates’s book published by Brazos Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What is the gospel? Many pastors today write books on the topic and talk about how central it is and how important it is to be proclaiming the good news. Sadly, many of them don’t have the good news right, and these are not the liberals. These are conservative God-honoring pastors who truly want to build up the church. The gospel becomes all about what happens individually in a person’s life. Justification by faith is said to be the gospel or in some cases I’ve seen such as saying Calvinism is the gospel.

My wife and I once attended a church where the pastor at the end of every sermon gave a call to accept Jesus as savior. Unfortunately, it seemed like the whole goal every time was to get someone to go to heaven. It’s as if it’s decided that the whole point of Jesus coming and dying and rising again is all about the next life and not here.

Matthew Bates says this must change. Now while it sounds like he’s wanting to change the gospel, what he’s wanting to change is our perception. He wants the gospel to go beyond forgiveness of sins. He’s not opposed to that as it’s certainly included in the message and he’s not opposed to justification by faith, but what is the gospel?

The gospel is about Jesus coming and living and dying and rising again and thus, being the Messiah, the King of the Jews, and everyone else for that matter. We treat Messiah like it’s a name. I have even had atheists ask me why a Jewish guy would have a Greek last name, as if Jesus was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Christ. The religion of Islam stresses that Jesus is the Christ, but it gives no content to this whatsoever.

When we say Jesus is the Messiah, we mean He is the king and He came to institute the Kingdom of God on Earth. Our response to this is not intellectual assent which is normally meant by faith. Instead, what is required is a life of allegiance. This does not mean that we earn our salvation, but that our lives model what we say we believe.

The kingship of Jesus means that we are not just agreeing with a proposition, but living lives of loyalty to the king. When we get the gospel wrong, we make the gospel be all about what happens to us. The gospel is all about what Jesus did and who He is. You could give a gospel presentation today to people that would not require Jesus being the Messiah or being the king. We are doing something wrong at that point.

Bates’s message then is that this a more biblical way of viewing salvation. Salvation is something that God does in us, but we willingly submit to him with a life of faith lived outward in allegiance to him. Bates does take on some of our modern pastors who emphasize too much justification by faith. He doesn’t disagree with them, but he does say that we need to move beyond that. He does have some problems with Catholicism, though he does not say Catholics are not Christians and is concerned when any Christian is restricted from partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

This is stuff I have already believed, but once you see it spelled out, it’s hard to not see it in other places. When I hear someone give a gospel presentation or read it now, it seems so lacking. While this is something I have even done a sermon on, it is something that needs to be stressed. We have made Christianity be about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which is reducing Jesus down to the buddy Jesus idea, and not about Jesus being king. When I introduce myself at a Celebrate Recovery meeting, I do not describe myself as a faithful believer in Jesus, but rather as a faithful servant of king Jesus.

I hope more pastors and more Christians read Bates’s book. Bates is doing the church a great service. He is taking the material of scholars and giving it to the public on these issues in a way that is easy to understand. This book is highly readable for the layman and I recommend it greatly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Makes Grace So Amazing?

Why do we call it amazing grace? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We really don’t understand grace. For many of us, there has to be a catch. No one can be like that. It gets to be a real problem when we talk about whether grace is deserved.

Earlier this week, I wrote an article on this kind of topic. Many of us I think fear being taken advantage of. We fear being in someone else’s debt. We fear having the floor pulled out from under us when we dare give someone else our trust.

In a thread discussing the article I wrote earlier, someone talked about God giving more grace than we deserve. That’s actually a contradiction. If you deserved any of it, it would not be grace. Go to work and do your job and if your employer pays you, you don’t consider that an example of unmerited favor. You gave of yourself, He gives back to you.

Grace is never deserved. Grace is never earned. That’s a contradiction in terms. We really don’t get this today. When it comes to love, we often put so many conditions on it. The wife and husband can say “I love you” but often thought to be secretly implied in that is “Provided you keep doing XYZ or you avoid doing XYZ.” They way the love is expressed can change, but the love should still be there. (This is of course, excepting serious cases like infidelity and abuse. With the former, love can still be there for restoration and with the latter, that is still true, but one must have serious work done to make sure it doesn’t happen again.)

What I have found as a secret to doing this in my own personal walk is to remember the love that I have been shown. God has forgiven me and anything I have done to Him is far worse than anything my fellow man could ever do to me or, dare I say it, anything I could ever do to them. Should I not give that same kind of love and forgiveness? If I do not, am I not being just like the unmerciful servant in the parable of Jesus? If I really believe I have been forgiven of divine treason against God, essentially wishing He was dead so I could sit on the throne, then should I not show forgiveness towards everything else which is petty by comparison?

And yes, all sin is divine treason. When we sin, we deny either or all of the following about God:

His omnipotence because He doesn’t have the power to judge.

His omniscience because He either won’t know about it or doesn’t see how He’s clearly against me and doesn’t have my best interests at heart and doesn’t know what He’s talking about with this sin deal.

His omnipresence because He’s not present to notice the event.

His justice because He either won’t enforce it or He is misusing it.

His love because we have to go against Him to get what is really good.

His eternality because the sin will eventually go away on its own.

I could go on and on. The last one comes to me as well since Lewis said once we have this idea that time will erase wrongs. It won’t. Sometimes I’ll remember things I did wrong even back in Elementary School and it could be tempting to just say “I was young and stupid then,” and that could be true, but I ask forgiveness. There is no expiration date.

Just now, my wife brought in our cat to see me. As I held him, I thought that we’re a lot like him sometimes. Our cat doesn’t really like to be held and is quick to whine when it happens. We can picture him sometimes saying he wishes we would love him less.

We might have to ask if we want God to love us less.

Some of you might wonder why we would want a thing like that.

Because when God loves us, He doesn’t just come and forgive us. That’s a big matter, but it’s just part of it. He comes and does a work on us because He loves us that roots out the very nature that led us to give in to temptation. He does divine surgery, and most of us don’t delight in surgery.

When I was nearly 16, I had scoliosis surgery done or else in a decade, I would be walking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Today, I walk and even run and jump just fine, but back for about a year after the event, I was not like that. I was not lying on a couch thinking it was so awesome that I was given surgery to recover. I was in excruciating pain constantly.

Sometime after that, I went through a time of deep depression. That lasted longer and I consider it far worse. Still, that time was essential for my growth. It made me into the person I am today.

We always have to remember God has a purpose for any suffering that comes into our lives. It will help others, but it’s not just for them. That suffering is for us. If we deny that, we are making a statement to God about how we see Him. This is why we often want Him to love us less really. We’d like to just get forgiveness without the change that comes with it, or if we have the change, please make it an American change that happens pretty much instantly like popcorn fixed in two minutes in the microwave or a problem on a sitcom that is resolved in half an hour.

That’s also because of our fixation with happiness. God will give us happiness in the long run, but the goal at the moment is holiness. It’s God’s love that we must relish in and long for all the more. We must make that love and that desire central. That comes over any family love, any sexual love, any romantic love, and friend love, any love of any kind.

But to get back to grace, it is always unearned. It is always a gift. It is foolish of us to reject the gift because we don’t deserve it. Of course, we don’t! If we did, it wouldn’t be grace. Wouldn’t it be the height of arrogance to go to God and say that He owes us a blessing or forgiveness because of the good that we have done? (And most of us, myself included, have done that.)

This I also find something to keep in mind in suffering. I look at all the good I do have in my life. How much of it do I deserve? The sun comes up and shines on our city every morning. How do I express my thanks? I sit here at the desk in my office looking out the window at a world of vibrant colors and life everywhere outside and a world bigger than any video game or comic book world that I could imagine knowing even more is coming someday than I could ever fathom. What thanks do I give? Do I treat this as if it was a given and expect more? It’s not and I don’t deserve more.

This is why thankfulness is so important to us all. If we could think about the good things we have, I think most of us would have a better mood. There can still be sorrow and sadness, and that’s okay, but could it be we’d have far more joy if we had more thankfulness?

Perhaps we could.

And maybe one of the first things to be thankful for is amazing grace. If you are a Christian, every sin that you have committed is not held against you. You are clear before the throne of God. Think about that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

How To Be A Prophecy Expert

How does one come to be an authority on prophecy? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I often get amazed when I go on YouTube or into a Christian bookstore and see the craziness that is prophecy interpretation. These are normally some of the most popular books in the bookstores. It doesn’t matter that these people keep getting things wrong and keep changing their views and using the exact same hermeneutic. They are still experts. How does this happen? Let’s have some fun and look at the making of a prophecy expert.

Step One — Declare yourself to be a prophecy expert.

This might sound like a small step, but it’s a necessary one. You see, the world will need to know that you’re a prophecy expert. “But I haven’t gone to Bible college and I have no degrees or credentials!” That can help, but it’s not necessary. You can set up a channel on YouTube and get instant notoriety that way. Of course, if you have any credentials, that could land you a bigger audience, but we all have to start somewhere.

Step Two — Watch the news first.

It would be really difficult to write a book in 2003 about how Trump will be elected president in 2016 and claim to find that in prophecy. A far better route is to start with what is already happening and then go back and see how that was truly prophesied in Scripture. Then, go and extrapolate from that what you think will happen. This is when you go to the Bible. You go there and look and see if you can find anything in there that will back up your claim. That brings us to our next point.

Step Three — Avoid context of Scripture.

One cannot be picky about what the author intended or what a historical or social situation was at the time of writing. Caring about the real message the author wanted to get will cause us to miss the meaning we want to find. Feel free by all means to play a kind of hopscotch where you just jump around from place to place and find whatever you mean and make it a vague reference. What’s that? Your audience might actually look up the passages and see what you’re talking about? Ridiculous. Won’t happen. Don’t worry about such nonsense.

Step Four — Like Prego, it’s in there.

Rest assured also that every event you want to talk about is in the Scriptures. Every president has been prophesied and every Pope has been prophesied and every war and new law has been prophesied. It’s in there. You just have to look hard enough. For my fellow Americans, rest assured God loves us and we are obviously His favorite country so naturally, we’re all over the Bible.

Step Five — Ignore it when you are wrong.

We all make mistakes. The important thing is to act like they never happened. That’s right. Got your blood moon prediction wrong? Don’t admit it. Did the Harbinger not come through? Don’t admit it? Obama really wasn’t the antichrist? Say nothing about that! The Pope really wasn’t the man of sin? Be silent!

You see, if you don’t acknowledge your mistakes, odds are your audience won’t either. What? You think people really will care about your mistakes? You can be sure that this isn’t the case because so many prophecy experts have gone before you and this has never held them back. They keep going on and on.

Step Six — Repeat the cycle.

Okay. So the time has come. You made your mistake. It’s out there for all to see. What do you do now? Go back to step one. Repeat the whole process once more. Past failures don’t matter. Amazingly, as someone who has been proven wrong over and over and thus have no right to be called an expert, you will still be called an expert. Now go out there and start writing your next book and making your next video or blog post for the world again.

Or, you could avoid all of this and just study the Scripture faithfully and not make predictions about what will happen trusting that God is in control and work on other things that well, they might not seem as important, but they could be. You could work on understanding and living out your faith. You could work on taking care of the needy in your area. You could work on building up your marriage and home life. Of course, most of these won’t lead to the status you’ll get as a prophecy expert, but that’s the price you pay.

If you’re also someone who really doesn’t care about being this prophecy expert, be on the watch for those who do and don’t give them credibility once they’re shown to be wrong over and over again. The Scriptures are too sacred an item to treat so lightly. I look forward to the day when these fad prophecy books are not out on display immediately in Christian bookstores.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Draw Of Sin

Why is it we get drawn into sinful things? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend about matters and he started talking with me about some of my writings on the topic of pornography. He told me that he thinks I don’t mention that it’s normally a sin people fall into unintentionally. I can fully agree with this which leads to some thinking on the nature of sin and its draw.

When I was growing up, the D.A.R.E. program was the big thing. This was a program meant to keep kids off of drugs. I never attended a meeting or anything like that, but I was well aware of the organization. There were several commercials done in that age with kids talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up and one common line in them was “No one ever says, ‘I want to be a junkie when I grow up.’ ”

And this is how it is with most sins in our lives. Very few spouses will get up in the morning and say “You know, I think today would be a good day to have an affair.” Someone stopping at the bar for an evening won’t likely be thinking “I really want to be an alcoholic.” Someone who overeats on Thanksgiving too much is not likely thinking “I want to get addicted to food and become really overweight.”

With the last two, it’s not to say those automatically happen. A lot of people do overeat on Thanksgiving and manage to control themselves the rest of the year for the most part. Some people can go into a bar and get a drink and control their alcohol and be just fine. These can just be gateway points.

Here’s something to think about. When we are tempted with sin, we are in some way tempted with something that we think is good. This is not to say that the sin is good. No sin is. This is to say that this is our nature.

The porn addict has a desire to see a beautiful person of the opposite sex naked and has a desire to have sex. None of those are wrong desires. Most teenage boys growing up especially will have those desires and that’s normal for them. Having the desires is not a problem and is no sin. It’s what one does with the desires.

In this, C.S. Lewis gave a great piece of wisdom. Only good people understand temptation. Bad people do not. Bad people give in to it. Good people wrestle against it and can be grieved greatly by it. With her interest in saints in the Orthodox Church, I have told her that the saints are the ones who are most aware of their sin and struggle against it. Take the best saint you can think of in any tradition, and yes, we Protestants need to recognize there are some people who have led lives that we think are exceptionally holy, and realize that as they were dying, they still had sins they were struggling with.

This doesn’t mean that someone won’t want the sin. That is part of the struggle. You will not be tempted with something that is disgusting to you. Most of us will not be wrestling with the temptation to have sex with our mothers, for example. That seems absolutely repulsive to us even if we think our mothers are beautiful and wonderful women.

Some of you might be skeptical of the idea of temptations involving perceived good. What about murder? Usually, a crime is committed for one of three reasons. Money, sex, power. None of these are evil in themselves. It is how they are wanted and how they are used. A person wanting a murder could want justice. Justice isn’t a bad thing. It’s just the murderer wants to be judge, jury, and executioner.

Even the suicide wants something good. The suicide wants some peace from what is going on in their lives. Peace is a good thing. They just have a wrong way of wanting to get that peace.

In some cases, one does need to remove the object of temptation. It’s not in all cases, but some. If you have a problem with overeating, you can’t respond by removing all eating from your life. You’ll soon have another problem. It depends on the object of temptation entirely.

If one is tempted with porn, one should seek to cut things off entirely since porn in itself is a sin. It’s not wise to say that one needs a moderate amount of sin in their lives. In other cases, self-discipline is the idea. It also requires self-examination where you look into yourself and ask “What do I really want?” Don’t settle with a base answer like sex, power, justice, etc. Ask why one wants those things.

Suppose we go back to the guy tempted with porn. What does he want? On a basic level, he wants sex and he wants to see a naked woman, or in this case, women. Having a desire for the naked human female form is not wrong and having a desire for sex is not wrong. Yet we could ask what other things this guy wants. Perhaps he wants to feel like a man. That could be a root of the problem. Then we have to ask why this guy thinks he needs porn to feel like a man. He could ask what it really means to be a man. These are the productive questions.

Many an affair begins innocently. A woman starts talking with a man at the office and then they talk and talk and one day they go out together for lunch at the same time and just happen to go together and they just talk and talk and before too long, they’re in a hotel room together. At the start, she just wanted someone to talk to. That wasn’t wrong. What could we ask?

Why does she want this connection? What does it provide for her that she’s lacking? If she is already married, how is she viewing her marriage? Are there legitimate problems that need work? (And in every marriage, the answer is yes) What can she do to improve it?

Many times, dealing with the actions can be just like dealing with the symptoms of a disease without dealing with the disease itself. We Christians often talk about repentance so much, but that repentance which we rightly talk about is a process. It can be a long and hard and painful process. Repentance does not mean the temptation goes away or one no longer struggles. That we are struggling is really a sign of how seriously we are taking sin. People who don’t care don’t really talk about repentance. If you are feeling guilty for a sin and wrestling with it, even if there is a part of you that still wants it, as far as I’m concerned, you are in the process of repentance.

Finally, have some grace for yourself. Everyone is always struggling with some sin and for many of us, we’ve been struggling with the same kind of sin for years. Grace seems to be a concept we often think applies to everyone else instead of ourselves. Picture what you’re saying to yourself. If you wouldn’t say it to anyone else in the same situation, don’t say it to yourself. Grace is always there for people who are willing to struggle through the walk and God is always there with them even if one doesn’t feel like it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters