I am constantly amazed at how radical Jesus was. The Pharisees had 660 rules that were necessary for the spiritual life. Jesus replaces them all with one. (John 13:34-35).
Today we covered: The Precept, the Pattern and the Promise.
What is the most clear evidence of a Godly life? The answer may surprise you. It certainly surprised the people around Jesus.
When the teacher of the Law asked "Who is my neighbor?", he got an answer that broke all his faith paradigms.
When we assume the Old Covenant is part of the Christian credo, we force an allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture. And that's never good.
An allegorical interpretation of the Bible is an interpretive method (exegesis) that assumes that the Bible has various levels of meaning and tends to focus on the spiritual sense, which includes the allegorical sense, the moral (or tropological) sense, and the anagogical sense, as opposed to the literal sense.
Paul could not be more clear in Galatians. Those who shared the "blended" gospel were distorting and perverting the truth and were to be condemned. That's pretty strong language!
The turning point for the church in the first century was the Jerusalem Council. Other than the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit upon believers, nothing compares to it's importance.
We're getting to the meat of the book's premise. Hebrews 7:22-24 is pretty clear. Christ is superior in every way!
"The challenges we face in mixing and matching covenants are not the result of the Mosaic covenant being flawed. Our challenges stem from our unwillingness to accept two undeniable historical realities. First, God’s covenant with ancient Israel was . . . with ancient Israel. Second, God’s covenant with Israel (Mosaic) was temporary. Important, strategic, divinely ordained, but temporary." - from the book...
Here are the notes from week 4. We talked about how the Pharisee's viewed Jesus' ministry.
We also discussed two important reminders:
1. Just because something is obsolete, doesn't make it irrelevant or untrue. Don't confuse inspiration and application.
2. God is NOT done with His chosen people.
Imagine if the people had listened to Samuel and there had been no king. No King Saul. No King David. No King Solomon. An no temple. This week we talked about the temporary nature of the temple... (all three of them).
This week we begin our journey through the book "Irresistible" by Andy Stanley. It's a fascinating book - you should read it.
So... we're finishing up our study of a biblical church by talking about how WE do church - specifically following up on opportunities that God gives us.
