In Its Own Good Time

Paul knew full well that the earthly and material Hebrew Kingdom would come in its own good time, but we claim most emphatically that none of the writers of the New Testament expected the Millennium within the first century, as has been very illogically reasoned by some.

Alexander Thomson


http://www.geocities.com/tws490/hebrewkingdom.html

The Bible is...

The Bible is the most radical book in print ...not so hard to understand as it is to believe.

Tom Ballinger

Giants in the Land

Tom Ballinger very rightly disputes a widely accepted yet mistaken interpretation of this passage as if it, means that those called "Sons of God" were the sons of Seth, and as if the incident recorded concerns the breakdown of a previously preserved separation between the godly line of Seth and the godless line of Cain, which we agree is NOT Scriptural. He defines the meaning of "sons of God" which he reminds us is a term set in contrast to "the daughters of men", but if the "sons of God" had been really sons of Seth there would have been no contrast, for "the daughters of men" included also daughters of Seth, and we are nowhere told that the sons of Cain saw the daughters of Seth "that they were fair". It is only natural that the sons of men are attracted to the daughters of men. What we are told here in Genesis is quite different; that the sons of God as one kind of beings were attracted to the daughters of men from a separate kind of beings. The sons of God did something NOT natural in taking the daughters of men as their wives and the progeny of that misalliance became giants, resulting in great wickedness on earth, so that God was grieved at His heart.

Cecil J. Blay

http://www.geocities.com/tws490/zTTgl.html

More Real

When an individual is called by God (and it is necessary to remember that He chooses us, and not we Him) and is joined to the body of those whom Paul refers to as "called saints", a process comes into operation which is as real and definite as anything which may take place in a physical sense although it may have no physical manifestation whatever. In fact, it is true to say that this process is MORE REAL than anything physical, because such manifestations are mortal and therefore temporary, while this is of a spiritual nature and therefore permanent. The things that are seen are temporary, while the things that are not seen are age-enduring, eonian.

Cecil J. Blay

http://www.geocities.com/tws490/zTTvt.html

Conscience

The word Conscience is a Latin term, signifying together knowledge, that is, a consciousness of all the facts taken together; an honest and full view of all the features concerned. The Old English word Inwyt means much the same, inner witness, and has nothing to do with the modern meaning of the word wit as referring to what is jocular.

Alexander Thomson


http://www.geocities.com/tws490/consc.html

Father and Son

John says that the liar is he who disowns that Jesus is the Christ. He is the antichrist, who disowns the Father and the Son. Everyone who disowns the Son, has neither the Father nor the Son. While he who avows the Son, finds he has the Father also.

Alexander Thomson

http://www.geocities.com/tws490/wisutd.html

Supplication

The very fact that God tells us to supplicate Him is proof that He requires our petitions and depends upon them. In this there is unlimited scope for everyone of us, provided we cast aside the ensnaring coils of fatalism.

Alexander Thomson

Life's Harsh Lesson

One of life's harshest lessons that we have to learn is that it is impossible to convince anyone against his will. We find from Scripture that God can, and sometimes does, achieve this; but apparently it is one of His reserved powers, seldom exercised, and probably never permitted to His creatures. However much we may struggle to convince a determined opponent, success always eludes our grasp even when we present unchallengeable facts.

R.B. Withers

Pitfall

During a fairly long life I have read many things about these matters, and I have become ever more firmly assured that all sectarianism comes from a bias beyond what God's Word actually says. We all, at times, hit on some bright idea about Scripture, a novel theory that appeals to us as going some way towards solving a problem. That is all to the good. It is the way to better understanding of the Word. But at the entrance of that way lies a pitfall: bias in favour of what we have ourselves created. That we must avoid at all costs. The moment we even entertain the idea of setting our own discovery on a sort of pedestal, we have become a sect and started a schism.

R. B. Withers

Why, then...

Why, then, ought not we Christian people, who have been declared righteous, lift up our prayers to God Almighty that He might change the hearts of evil men and women everywhere. Powerful prayer is profitable if we are really in earnest, and God is waiting for our prayers.

Alexander Thomson

God as God

God adapts, cuts slack, gives space, keeps his options open, can be changed, but in the big picture he never loses control. Sometimes he shares it to a degree, but he is the executive, the superior, the one who ultimately decides.

Wallace Roark

The Relative God

For many, the choice is clear: God is either nothing (doesn’t exist) or He is everything. The problem with this approach is whichever choice you make, God is unattainable, unapproachable, and unreachable. This is easily understood if you choose to believe that God is nothing. But what if God is everything? If that’s the case, how could you miss Him? But that’s the point. In being everyplace, God is no “one place”. The only God we can ever relate to (by definition) is the Relative God. Which doesn't mean that God is not everything, but it does mean, for our purposes, He does not need to be.

Open to Love

The biblical statement, “God is love,” is the defining foundation for open theism. Love is not God, but God is love. Holy Love is the very heart and character of the God revealed in Jesus the Christ. All other attributes and actions of God flow from his holy love. Love is a relationship–a personal relationship. It is neither a principle nor merely a power. It is a word used to describe personal relationships that are as God intends. Love by its very nature is grounded in freedom. Love cannot be forced; it must be freely chosen, else it is not love. This is why God created the human with freedom of choice. We are created for a relationship of love with God and with each other. God loves us and desires our love, but in the very nature of love cannot force that love. Our rejection of God always disappoints him; our love for, trust in, and worship of God always pleases him

Wallace Roark

Homage to Oneness

Romans 8

9 Yet you are not in flesh, but in spirit, if so be that God's spirit is making its home in you. Now if anyone has not Christ's spirit, this one is not His.10 Now if Christ is in you, the body, indeed, is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is life because of righteousness.11 Now if the spirit of Him Who rouses Jesus from among the dead is making its home in you, He Who rouses Christ Jesus from among the dead will also be vivifying your mortal bodies because of His spirit making its home in you.

Fleshly Perspective

God will certainly in due time profit very much through having created a whole race in human flesh, and He will be very proud of the race made in His own image. The Lord Himself had flesh and blood, but who would have the temerity to declare that the Lord never pleased His Father? If God had no respect to the flesh and its doings, how could He ever have loved mankind at all?

Alexander Thomson

Not Only Forests Can Be Petrified

And so it is in things divine. It is far better — yea, the only normal way for the disciple (learner) to blunder along slowly rather than to have imposed on him more than he can assimilate. It is far, far, better for the pupil to hold erroneous ideas for a while, if maintaining a teachable attitude, than for him to receive and memorize formulas that to him is incomprehensible. The imposition of doctrinal forms above what has been assimilated has made out of thousands of believers harsh sectarian contenders of credal correctness, and has brought the inner spiritual life into a state of stagnation. This condition is the ideal breeding ground of dissension and strife — and there is plenty of it.
Let us remember that even the most vital, the most fundamental, the most imperatively important divine truths can be made into "petrified dogmatism." Then let us give each saint a chance to develop and grow normally. It is not hothouse plants we want, but natural, normal and spiritual believers. Real life always makes its own forms, it needs no artificial pressure.

E. A. Larsen

Psalm 66:18

"If I, regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."
This verse has discouraged many from praying to God. It is not difficult to regard iniquity in our hearts, and the nearer we approach to God, the more do we become conscious of it. At this rate, the Lord would never hear us. At a prayer meeting for young people many years ago this verse was cited as an example of things that may hinder in prayer.
Some versions attempt to turn aside the difficulty. Darby renders by "Had I regarded iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not hear." Rotherham renders by "If iniquity I had cared for in my heart, My Lord had not heard me."
While it is an inescapable fact that God will not hearken to those who are bent upon evil, the context is against the A. V. reading. The order in Hebrew is as follows: "Trouble (aven; hardly quite iniquity or lawlessness) if I see in my heart, not is hearing Adonay." It has been suggested that the former clause was originally probably not AUN AM RAITHI B-LBl, but ANI AMR THI B-LBI. This would mean, "I said in my heart. . . " A great many verses in the Psalms require corrections such as this. The Psalmist had been extolling Elohim with his tongue. Then the suspicion entered his heart that perhaps after all Jehovah (as the primitive Hebrew appears to read) was not hearkening. Which of us has not experienced this gloomy doubt? Quickly, however, does the Psalmist reject this false thought, for he continues, "Surely does God hear; He attends to the voice of my prayer." If that has not been your experience, if you have not encountered the Living God, in Christ, in prayer, all your study of the Scriptures is in vain. Because your greatest need now is to KNOW GOD.

ALEXANDER THOMSON

Punctuation Exercise

“All of the Greek New Testament originals were written in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS with no spaces and probably no punctuation, and all of the earlier manuscripts are in this style, whether on parchment or papyrus. This is because the Greek alphabet did not have punctuation until at least the II century…”



PAUL TO THE THESSALONIANS (2)

Chapter 1

2 Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and Lord Jesus Christ.


Re –Punctuated

2 Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and Lord: Jesus Christ.

Our Comfort

Today, no less than in Paul's time, our comfort rests in the solid assurance that even now as the night progresses the day is near (Rom. 13:13). We already have "the earnest of the enjoyment of our allotment" so we are to confidently await the "deliverance of that which has been procured" (Eph. 1:14). Our hope and destiny are in no way contingent on the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy for Israel. Our blessings are found primarily in Paul's revelations for this present secret economy. While we are to walk by faith and not by perception, this after all is the highest quality of faith consistent with the highest plane of spiritual blessings among the celestials in Christ.

Melvin Johnson

John Wyclif

John Wyclif was probably the first person to translate the whole Bible into the English tongue. He was born about 1320, when the language of England was in process of formation. He commenced by translating the Revelation in 1356, and with help finished the entire Bible by 1382. He certainly lived up to his saying, "Christian men ought to travail night and day about holy writ". In his day the Greek originals of the New Testament Scriptures were almost forgotten in Europe, for the Latin Vulgate version had dominated the continent for a thousand years. In translating from the Vulgate, Wyclif never once used the expression "for ever" or "for ever and ever", and though he used "everlasting" he never used "eternal". Had the Authorized Version followed immediately after Wyclif, we should never have received the word "eternal" either, nor would the mass of false theology have been built upon it.

Cecil J. Blay