The Kingdom Come

Among the many topics the Reformer, Martin Luther addressed was the topic of marriage. Luther, as you know came out of a culture where Papalism said that priests should remain celibate. Eventually, Luther himself did get married. I want to take some time to review a treatise by Luther titled, The Estate of Marriage.

Luther discusses who should marry and whom to marry, per the Bible and further Luther discusses whom should be celibate and why. I will review his three-part treatment in even smaller segments. Please refer to this link to see Luther's actual treatise as translated into English by Walther I. Brandt.

The issue of God's sovereignty (complete control) and man's responsibility has been a major issue in theology. How do these two points interact? How can God be completely in control and yet man is responsible for the things he does and doesn't do?

This summary study brings forth at least some of the opposing proof-texts. This is part of a weekly Bible study. This specific study was put together and presented by another man in the study.

Christianity has always had a positive perspective. A perspective of continual, eventual, perpetual victory, even when it appears it is being defeated (2 Corinthians 10:4-5, Romans 8:36-38). Eventually, this perspective came to be called postmillennialism. Postmillennialism is simply the perspective that Christianity will continue to dominate the world. It was a postmillennial view that was behind the triumphantism of the original settlers of the United States of America. They believed that the kingdom was advancing even to the unknown parts of the world.

The 3 minute video below [see April 28, 2010 video] represents a good summary of postmillennial Christianity in opposition to what we might call "Left-Behindism" found mainly in premillennial dispensationalism.

Unfortunately, after the American Civil War and both World Wars, much of the Postmillennial perspective has given way to the defeatist theology of "Left Behindism". The view most prevalent among at least American Christians is the idea that we are on a sinking ship.

An interesting production is something called THE 99. My 16 year old daughter came home excited to have received tickets to the production. I have heard of "hell houses" before. They're like haunted houses but instead the theme is what it's like to be destined for hell and at the end there is typically some sort of evangelism. These productions usually spring up around Halloween along side all the haunted houses, but The 99 is a traveling production which is scheduled so far to appear in Myrtle Beach, SC, Indianapolis, IN, Louisville, KY, and Grand Rapids, MI.

Ning has been a popular, FREE website platform that allows for building a social site. Many people have used Ning to build their own little personal network of "friends" (or "followers", depending how you look at it). But now there is a problem. Ning is discontinuing the FREE version (ref).

So, what will happen to all these Ning sites where the administrators have built up a following?

I have sometimes been ridiculed for linking to Wikipedia or using it for reference. Wikipedia, for those who may not know is an online, open-source encyclopedia. Open-source in this case means that anyone can edit the entries. And it is because it is open-source, that people sometimes ridicule me for using it, since the implication is that the information is supposedly not professionally established and may be unreliable.

However, to me Wikipedia's strong point is exactly because its entries can be challenged, by anyone. Think of the "professional" media for example. They often put out information which we have little ability to challenge, let alone verify. The same can be said of school text books. Look at any public school text book on say history or science and you'll see hypothetical concepts that are presented to children as if they are fact.

We often ask ourselves what God wants us to do in any given situation. Some of these situations are obviously not personally specified in the Bible. What job does He want us to choose? Who does He want us to marry? And so on.

How can we know the "will of God" for our lives? Many of us have heard a person claim they are doing something because it is the "will of God", only to later see them doing something different.

First the "will of God" is not as simple as what God wants and doesn't want. Just like the human will, the will of God is more complex than simply wanting something, otherwise; God being God, anything He wanted would happen, right?

Okay, you've heard sermons where the speaker takes a bit of liberty in applying a text to you personally, even ignoring the actual context of the passage. But this Personal Promise Bible version actually will replace pronouns like you, we, my, and us with your own name. Ummm, I don't think this is what the phrase "the Bible is written not to you but for you" means.

I would feel rather narcissistic having this Bible version, not to mention how it distorts context. I am however curious if whatever program they use to convert the pronouns has been tweaked enough to watch out for pronouns associated with Satan and Judas so that your name won't be inserted there.

This is interesting because it claims:

"Pirate Christian Radio is an online radio station that is free from the scurvy plagues of pop-psychology, goofy fads, self-help, pietism, purpose-drivenism, the prosperity heresy, contemplative mysticism, seeker-sensitivism, liberalism, relevantism, Emergent nonsense, and the sissy girly Oprah-fied religiosity that is being passed off as "Biblical Christianity"

It's also interesting because it has a mailing address of Fishers Indiana, about 25 miles from me.

I'm going to check it out simply for the quote above. Listen to it below.

The following fanciful scenario begins thousands of years ago when man was living in caves and was writing on walls. One day Oreg the cave artist came rushing into his cave and said to Elag his wife, “Oh, no, guess what some Egyptian did, he invented papyrus, a material to write upon, and it’s portable; now no one will come by and see my picture writing!” “Elag, do you know what this means...were finished!”

A thousand years later we see Amenotep the papyrus maker in Egypt complaining to his wife Cleo, “This papyrus makers union strike is going to ruin us. There are people in Europe who have developed a smoother writing material called ‘parchment’...it’s going to put us out of business!”