The Berean Manifesto

S2EP10 - The Afterlife Pre Revelation of THE Life

Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 10 of The Berean Manifesto, brought to you by The Ekklesian House.  This is Pastor Bill and over the next 10 minutes or so we are going to start a new series that’s going to ruffle some feathers and challenge some preconceived ideas, and that’s OK.  First, we have to lay some groundwork on the afterlife pre revelation of The Life, who is Christ, and piecing together from scripture what Jesus was up to from the point of His death on the cross until He sat down at the right hand of The Father in heaven over a month later.

 

The modern Western Church’s view of death is one where when we die our spirit leaves our body with an instant destination of either Heaven or Hell and we leave behind an empty shell.  In Biblical reality, we find death described as a kind of sleep in which the sleeper can wake from. It’s recorded in Matthew 5 and Luke 8 that Jesus told the dead girls family that she was sleeping.  Jesus tells the Disciples the same thing in John 11, that Lazarus is sleeping, and when they don’t understand what He means he resorts to using the word dead. We also have the event in 1 Samuel 28 where Saul has a witch summon the ghost of Samuel and the first words out of his mouth are roughly, “Who disturbs my slumber.”

 

Now, if you’re thinking all these references are before Christ died and His resurrection changed the nature of death, that’s good, it’s good that you’re thinking.  So let’s consider Daniel 12:1-2 where we find a prophecy about the return of the Messiah, at the event we’ve coined as rapture, it says, “At that time Michael, the great prince who stands watch over your people, will rise up. There will be a time of distress such as never has occurred since nations came into being until that time.  But at that time all your people who are found written in the book will escape. Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, and some to disgrace and eternal contempt.” They wake to eternal live or disgrace and eternal contempt. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 echo this sentiment, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”

 

So death is sleep.  Yet, sleepers dream, and in this dreaming, before Christ, everyone was deaths captive.  Before moving forward we need a bit of a vocabulary primer. The Old Testament calls the afterlife Sheol, and the New Testament calls it Hades.  It’s the same place, the same concept only translated into English from two different source languages. Also, in this next passage trees are people.  As near as I can tell, the trees of Eden are the patriarchs of the Old Testament, Lebanon is the Gentiles, and the well-watered trees are the descendants of Abraham.  It is Ezekiel 31:15-17, it says, “‘This is what the Lord God says: I caused grieving on the day the cedar went down to Sheol. I closed off the underground deep because of it: I held back the rivers of the deep, and its abundant water was restrained. I made Lebanon mourn on account of it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it. I made the nations quake at the sound of its downfall, when I threw it down to Sheol to be with those who descend to the Pit. Then all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees, were comforted in the underworld. They too descended with it to Sheol, to those slain by the sword. As its allies they had lived in its shade among the nations.”  So Ezekiel here is delivering a word from the Lord and in it the Lord says everybody is going to Sheol. Everybody when you die, you’re all going. Whether you are the trees of Eden, the best of Lebanon, the well-watered trees, no matter who you are, it doesn’t matter. Pre Christ, everyone went to Sheol.

 

When people died before Christ angels would come and escort them to Sheol showing them the way to one side of a gorge or the other.  The one reserved for the righteous was a peaceful place of contentment and bliss was known as Abraham’s Bosom, The Fields of Elysium, or Paradise, while the other side, The Abyss or Tartarus, was an unyielding fire where demons, or shades as the Hebrews called them, would torment the denizens.  In Luke 16:19-24 we read, ““There was a rich man who would dress in purple and fine linen, feasting lavishly every day. But a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, was lying at his gate. He longed to be filled with what fell from the rich man’s table, but instead the dogs would come and lick his sores. One day the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torment in Hades, he looked up and saw Abraham a long way off, with Lazarus at his side. ‘Father Abraham! ’ he called out, ‘Have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this flame! ’”

 

There with Abraham, is what Jesus was referring to on the cross as Paradise in Luke 23 when the thief asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom.  “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” We know, for a fact, that Jesus wasn’t talking about Heaven there, Acts 2:27 it tells us that Christ did, in fact, proceed next down to Hades.  Lets read it. Acts 2:22-27 says, ““Fellow Israelites, listen to these words: This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know. Though he was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him. God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death. For David says of him: I saw the Lord ever before me; because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. Moreover, my flesh will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me in Hades or allow your holy one to see decay.”  David there was talking about the time that the Holy One, that Jesus, that The Messiah would spend after His death in Hades. That God wouldn’t abandon Him there, that He wouldn’t leave Him there. That He wouldn’t allow Him to stay dead long enough for His body to see decay.

 

Not to leave you hanging, but our format is 10-minute episodes in order to give you bite-sized chunks to process and assimilate.  So take these scriptures, look them up to make sure they read the way I’ve said that they do and let the Holy Spirit work in your heart to have the scriptures inform your theology instead of what tradition and misguided teachings may have created in you.  Next week we’ll pick up right here and find out what Jesus was up to during that time after his death on through to his ascension into Heaven.

 

This is Pastor Bill saying, “Until next time…”

S2EP9 Pearls Before Swine

Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 9 of The Berean Manifesto, brought to you by The Ekklesian House.  This is Pastor Bill, and over the next 10 minutes or so we are going to talk about holiness, pearls, dogs, and swine.

 

There’s this passage in Matthew that I’ve read repeatedly over the years that the last verse of seems misplaced.  It’s chapter 7:1-6, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.  Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the splinter out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.  Don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet, turn, and tear you to pieces.”

 

Verses one through five seem to be about a live and let live while you better yourself mantra and then suddenly Jesus pivots to not giving holiness to dogs or pearls to swine.  Given how Jesus communicates, it’s much more likely that verse six is actually the context for verses one through five.

 

Maybe Paul can give us some clarity, in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23 he wrote, “For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.  Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

 

I drove by a man this week holding a big sign at an intersection that read “The Good Shepherd John 10:11.”  This particular verse reads, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”  While I commend the effort to share the message of the gospel, the whole point here is that the message he is preaching with his sign is mostly lost on his audience of goats.  A metaphor of a good shepherd more or less falls on deaf ears to those who don’t live in an agrarian society, or who haven’t spent time in the church.

 

I believe this is the concept Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7.  There’s an entry in the Pulpit Commentary whose credit is given to a W.F.A. that reads, “At the first blush of it this reads more like a motto of the scribes than a proverb from the large-hearted Christ. It is quite as important to see what it does not mean as to lay hold of its positive teaching, because we are all tempted to abuse it in order to excuse our narrowness and selfishness.

I. MISAPPRENSIONS OF THE PROVERB.

1. In neglect of the poor. This is the most gross and insulting abuse of the principle which can be thought of. No one would venture to express it in so many words when he was thus misdirecting it. Yet virtually such an application of it is very common. It is thought that any coarse fare will be good enough for the poor; not only coarse food and clothes, but coarse treatment, coarse methods of religion, coarse amusements, and the ministration of coarse men. To bring works of art and good music to "the lower classes" is thought to be wasteful. Refined people are not to spend themselves on the common people. This is Pharisaism without its religion—the pride of the cultivated Roman with the bitterness of the scornful Pharisee.

2. In contempt of the illiterate. The Gnostics reserved their choicest ideas for the inner circle of the initiated. Ignorant people might walk by faith; Gnostics had attained to knowledge. This is not the religion of Christ. He rejoices that God reveals his best truth to babes and sucklings.

3. In despair of the sinful. We are tempted to shrink from speaking of Christ to the very lowest people. It looks like a profanation to set the treasures of the gospel before them. They can hear the Law that condemns their sin; the beautiful thoughts of God’s grace in Christ are too good for them. This, too, is unchristian. Christ brought his good tidings to all men, and the first to leap up and grasp it were the publicans, the sinners, and the harlots.”

 

The whole point being that as Christians we have the way, the truth, and the light.  When we go to share that light, we have to do so with respect for those we are trying to reach and taking into consideration the best way to share the Gospel that will actually reach their hearts.  Like Paul was expressing in 1 Corinthians, the Jews wanted signs and the Greeks Wisdom. It’s our job to figure out which and minister accordingly.

 

Now, thankfully Paul goes on, “Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  It’s our responsibility to minister with respect and to do that work of figuring out the best way to minister the Gospel, and at the same time the Holy Spirit goes ahead of us and works on their hearts.  So that when were not perfect, when we’ve done our best and our best wasn’t good enough. That the power of God and the wisdom of God that is Christ fills in those gaps.

 

Take all that into consideration, and go out and love on people.  Just love ‘em.

 

This is Pastor Bill saying, “Until next time…”

S2EP8 The Wisdom And Power Of God

Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 8 of The Berean Manifesto, brought to you by The Ekklesian House.  This is Pastor Bill and over the next 10 minutes or so we’re going to be looking at the power and wisdom of God.

 

There’s a passage of scripture that has caused quite a bit of a stir amongst theologians over the years.  Proverbs 8:22-31,

“The Lord acquired Me
at the beginning of His creation,
before His works of long ago.
I was formed before ancient times,
from the beginning, before the earth began.
I was born
when there were no watery depths
and no springs filled with water.
Before the mountains were established,
prior to the hills, I was given birth —
before He made the land, the fields,
or the first soil on Earth.
I was there when He established the heavens,
when He laid out the horizon on the surface of the ocean,
when He placed the skies above,
when the fountains of the ocean gushed out,
when He set a limit for the sea
so that the waters would not violate His command,
when He laid out the foundations of the Earth.
I was a skilled craftsman beside Him.
I was His delight every day,
always rejoicing before Him.
I was rejoicing in His inhabited world,
delighting in the children of Adam.”

 

There are three paragraphs in Proverbs 8 that was traditionally understood to be talking about wisdom.  The passage we just read is paragraph two of the three. The early church almost immediately identified that the second paragraph and most likely the third as well were in fact NOT the voice of wisdom speaking, but Jesus Himself.  The problem this caused, if you haven’t caught it already, starts right there in Proverbs 8:22, “The Lord acquired me at the beginning of His creation, before His works of long ago.”

 

That word, acquired, that the King James put as possessed, the latin Septuagint read created, and other translations have it as brought me forth, got possession of, this lent fire to the theories that Christ wasn’t an eternal part of God, but a created, lesser-being

That word in Hebrew is:

H7069 קָנָה qânâh kaw-naw' A primitive root; to erect, that is, create; by extension to procure, especially by purchase (causatively sell); by implication to own: - attain, buy (-er), teach to keep cattle, get, provoke to jealousy, possess (-or), purchase, recover, redeem, X surely, X verily.

 

This is the same word used in Genesis 14:19 when Melchizedek is blessing Abram, it says, “He blessed him and said; Abram is blessed by God Most High Creator of Heaven and Earth.”  It’s that word “creator.” It’s used eighty-four times in the Old Testament that in practical use paints a picture of creating ownership. You would use it with the idea of going to the store to buy groceries.  You would say that you kaw-naw’ or were a possessor of the groceries. Even though you hadn’t actually paid for them or taken ownership of them yet, but they’re in your hand. The main point though is that you have a plan to take ownership.

 

That leaves us with Proverbs 8:22 reading something along the lines of, “The Lord had a plan to take ownership of Me at the beginning of His creation, before His works of long ago.”  Which, on its face, makes absolutely no sense. No sense, until we consider John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That word is the Greek word:

G3056 λόγος logos log'-os From G3004; something said (including the thought); by implication a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension a computation; specifically (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (that is, Christ): - account, cause, communication, X concerning, doctrine, fame, X have to do, intent, matter, mouth, preaching, question, reason, + reckon, remove, say (-ing), shew, X speaker, speech, talk, thing, + none of these things move me, tidings, treatise, utterance, word, work

 

“In the beginning was the Motive, and the Motive was with God, and the Motive was God.”  A motive is the reason why you say something, why you do something, and that motive isn’t satisfied until it’s fulfilled, until it’s finished.  If in the beginning, Jesus was the motive of God that drove creation, it drove it toward what we find in John 1:14, the word or motive became flesh, talking about Jesus.  Luke 4:18 says that Jesus came to declare the good news to the poor, heal the broken-hearted, to herald deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind and to give freedom to the bruised.  And John 3:16 says that Jesus came so that no one would have to perish, but have eternal life.

 

So the kaw-naw’, the “plan to take ownership” that we see in Proverbs 8:22 would be for Jesus to be born to declare the good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to herald deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind and to give freedom to the bruised.  So that no one would have to perish, but have eternal life.

 

The arguments that plagued the early church over the implications of a word choice by Solomon to support theological beliefs that they already held instead of letting the scriptures refine their theology didn’t serve to enrich the church or further an understanding of God and our part in the cosmic tapestry of the universe.  What these arguments accomplished, and still do, was the work of the enemy to stunt the potential of the church as a whole and to splinter what should have been one body into separate denominations. We should strive to understand the scriptures together, and this can lead to heated conversation. But these conversations should always end in mutual respect and love, especially if you don’t agree.

 

I’ll leave you with this final thought, 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, “For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.  Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

 

This is Pastor Bill saying, “Until next time…”

S2EP7 Tithing

Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 7 of The Berean Manifesto, brought to you by the Ekklesian House.  This is Pastor Bill and over the next 10 minutes or so we are going to talk about tithing.

Full disclosure, I don’t like teaching about giving money, I’m not that kind of pastor.  I don’t ask you to send in money on this podcast, we don’t even take up an offering at The Ekklesian House fellowship meetings.  We are a non-profit whose finances come one hundred percent from donations, but our focus here and in our fellowship meetings is ministry, not fundraising.  If you would like to help support this ministry, that would be great, you can do that online at EkklesianHouse.com or in person at one of our fellowship meetings.

So tithing.  We talked about tithing before in season 1 episode 67.  A quick recap: the first tithe was given by Abraham before tithing was included in the law.  Tithing was then included in the law in order to support the priests, upkeep religious property, and to support religious ministry.  There is no commandment given in the New Testament for Christians to tithe, but Paul references weekly giving to the church based off of success in business as a regular thing that all Christians are expected to be doing.  And in the book of Malachi God says that He will bless the tither and rebuke the devourer for their sake. If you haven’t been listening to the podcast since episode sixty-seven then you might want to go back and listen to it and then come back and finish this episode.

I’ve got two points.
1.  You are not required by God to tithe.
2.  You should be tithing.

Under point number one, “You are not required by God to tithe” we turn to Matthew 17:24-26, “When they came to Capernaum those who collected the temple tax approached Peter and said, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”  “Yes,” he said. When he went into the house Jesus spoke to him first. “What do you think, Simon? From whom do Earthly kings collect tariffs or taxes? From their sons or from strangers?” “From strangers,” he said. “Then the sons are free,” Jesus told him.”

There isn’t a perfect one to one relationship between this bit of scripture and tithing.  The temple tax was a set amount of half a sanctuary shekel paid every year by all males over twenty years of age.  It wasn’t strictly a tithe as in ten percent, but it did fall under the umbrella of what had become known as the required tithe that actually ended up being about twenty-three percent of the average person's income.

So Jesus asks if sons or strangers are charged tariffs and taxes.  Then goes on to agree with Simon Peter that children aren’t required to pay.  Yet this is the reputation that tithing has, and it has that reputation because that’s the way it’s been taught.  That it’s this thing that you’re required to pay or you’re in trouble with God. It creates this false paradigm where you have to choose between being good little citizens paying a ten percent tax to God or you're in rebellion.  We don’t frame tithing as an offering to a father, given out of love, but a minimum obligation and then tell people to be cheerful about having to pay it and encourage a secondary gift that we call an offering. If you’re still not convinced you should definitely go back and listen to season one episode sixty-seven.

Now, while you are not required by God to tithe, you should be tithing.  This is for two major reasons. The first being found in Malachi 3:10-11 it says, ““Bring the full tenth into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house.  Test Me in this way, see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not ruin the produce of your land and your vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”  I don’t know about you, but giving the creator of the universe permission and avenue to open the floodgates of heaven, pour out blessing beyond measure, and rebuke the devourer for us sounds like a good idea.

The second reason why you should be tithing is one hundred percent pragmatic.  If you want your church to stay open and continue operating then you should be financially supporting it.  As of 2018 only ten to twenty-five percent of churchgoers tithe. That doesn’t mean that the other seventy-five to ninety percent of churchgoers aren’t giving to their church, they’re just not giving ten percent of their income.  The statistics show that the average churchgoer gives two and a half percent of their income to their church. To put that into some perspective, during the Great Depression the average churchgoer was giving three point three percent of their income to their church.

Imagine a world where one hundred percent of all churchgoers gave ten percent of their income to their church.  I’d wager that if seventy-five percent of churchgoers were giving ten percent of their income, even five percent of their income would be enough.  Enough that churches would not only stay open, but the staggering number of churches leasing space or making outrageous monthly payments on mortgages would be a thing of the past.  We would be able to launch programs to feed the hungry, to open shelters for the homeless, to minister with almost no limit to orphans and widows. Welfare would once again be the work of the church instead of the government.  Imagine a day where Food Stamps, Medicare, and Medicaid programs are no longer needed because the Church is taking care of these needs.

If you’re concerned that your church would misuse the funds you’d donate, which let’s not lie to ourselves has happened in the past.  Then you have two choices. Support your church with at least ten percent of your income and then get so deeply involved, so deeply ingrained, in your church that you know where your funds are being used and at that point you'll most likely even have a say in how they're being used.  Or, you aren’t at the right church and need to find a new church home. If you’ve been listening for a while then you know that I don’t list that as an option lightly. There are very few times when changing churches is a valid option and not trusting your church with your tithe is a good indicator that it’s time for you to move to a new church family.  

So, you aren’t required by God to tithe, but if you want to have an avenue to bless you, if you want to give God that avenue, or you simply want your church to stay open, then you should be tithing.

This is Pastor Bill saying, “Until next time…”