From Genesis To Revelation

At my church we're going through a book called Sacred Bond in our adult Sunday school class. It's a brief introduction to covenant theology, and a very helpful resource thus for. It is a very accessible book for the person who is new to covenant theology, or the uninitiated layperson. Concepts are simple and well explained, and it is quite pleasant to read. I read a lot of theology for fun, but I find myself really enjoying getting back to the basics. This was very true when we went through the chapter on the Covenant of Grace.

When The Temple Fills The Earth

Today in church we continued our exploration of Hebrews 11.32. The past two weeks we've taken glimpses into the lives of both Gideon and Barak. Today, we focused on the life of Samson, a man a little more well known in bible stories. The sermon focused predominately on the death of Samson in Judges 16.23-31. In his death, Samson saved the nation of Israel from the Philistines; he destroyed the temple of Dagon, the Philistine God. This, of course, is a picture of Jesus Christ, the Greater Than Samson, who saved the Israel of God from the enemies of sin, death, and the Devil by dying and then rising again from the dead. One of the comparisons that my pastor brought out was that Samson destroyed the temple of Dagon, but Jesus destroyed the temple of God, at least the physical temple in Jerusalem. The glory-presence of God left the temple when Christ went to the cross and died, which was signified by the temple veil being torn in two.

Body And Spirit: An Analogy Of James

At work this evening I was listening to an iTunesU lecture by Dr. Robert Strimple discussing the nature of man consisting of both the body (soma) and spirit (pneuma). He briefly discussed their analogical use in James 2.26. "For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead". I found this interesting, but for reasons Dr. Strimple was not intending to address.