Josiah Concept Ministries

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are 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. Therefore encourage one another with these words. [1 The 4:16-18]

The Rapture. It’s a nice thought, being saved from all of the horrible judgments described in Revelation. Global deception followed by war, then famine and disease, then death. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride forth from the Scroll, when the Lamb breaks open the seals. Martyrs by the thousands follow, then a great earthquake complete with the sun being blotted out and a blood red moon with falling stars round out what are called the Seal Judgments.

That is only the beginning. The Trumpet Judgments are much worse, including and especially the Fifth Trumpet: demon locusts pouring from the Abyss, stinging all nonbelievers (Rev 9:1-11).

Things get worse as the Vial Judgments are poured out: Boils (Rev 16:2), the sun burning people’s flesh (Rev 16:8-9), and darkness over the throne of the Antichrist (Rev 16:10-11).

It is extremely comforting for the Christian to hear of the Rapture: the catching up of all the faithful souls, first the dead and then the living, to meet with Christ in the sky and be with Him forever.

The predominant eschatology we see today makes no attempt to interpret the prophecies of Revelation. Instead, it looks to their literal fulfillment in a seven-year timespan at some point in the near future. This will be preceded by the Rapture of all the faithful Christians.

It’s convenient. Christians won’t share in the judgment of mankind. That’s always nice to hear. But who are these martyrs in Revelation 6:9-11, who were yet to join the others under the altar?

I’m afraid that Christians are to share in these terrible judgments. Am I scared? You bet I am; we all should be scared. I’m not comforted by the Rapture, since I believe that it will follow at the end of the judgments. I am, however, comforted by two things related to the end times.

First, I’m comforted by the fact that God is in control, and He makes all things (good and bad) work out for the faithful (Rom 8:28).

Second, I’m comforted by the fact that the prophecies given in Revelation have, for the most part, already happened.

Fans of the Left Behind series, and students of Tim LaHaye in general, are reading this post thinking, What the heck is this guy talking about? Well, that is what I hope to answer by examining, in depth, the historicist view of eschatology. It attempts to interpret the prophecies of Revelation in a similar fashion to the way that the symbolic language found in Isaiah and Daniel was interpreted. This is how students of Scripture knew to look for Jesus’ coming in the first century A.D. We will use historical events of the past 2000 years as the fulfillment of the prophecies from Revelation.

Historicism isn’t claiming to be an infallible interpretation anymore than the Left Behind novels are claiming to be prophecy. The sad truth of the matter is that only God knows the true meaning of Revelation. Historicism, unlike Futurism, is an attempt to understand 2000 years of human history from God’s point of view. This is the real meaning of the blessing promised to those who understand Revelation (1:3).

Historicism can be refined in light of new evidence. Historicism gives us an impetus to study the past and try to understand it. Futurism can only wait for fulfillment.

No matter the school of thought one subscribes to in eschatology, the urgency to disseminate God’s word is no less. Futurists, preterists, and historicists all await the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We believe that it will be soon, as some interpretations of Scripture we all agree on are coming to pass now: widespread apostasy, increased rebellion against God, religious apathy, and a veritable treasure trove of false teachers. The reconstitution of the nation of Israel was another sign all three schools of thought awaited.

The urgency created by these signs, therefore, necessitate aggressive evangelism and a continued push for God’s truth to be taught to our children. The last hours approach, quicker than anyone probably expects, and we are called to save as many as we can.

In the next series of entries, I will detail the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from a historicist perspective. I expect I’ll be very busy over the next few weeks, so I don’t know how quickly these articles will come. I will also put the finishing touches on the Jesus Tomb article.

This should prove to be an interesting few weeks for everyone concerned. Stay tuned.

Let’s face it: Everyone loves to be right. It’s a grand feeling, especially for an egomaniac like myself, to know that something is going to happen despite the optimist’s best efforts to prevent it. As the smug grin grows ever-wider upon my face, while watching the optimist failing at every turn to stop that which I knew was inevitable, I anticipate the climatic moment when the optimist knows that he cannot prevent my pessimistic prediction from coming to pass and I get to say “I told you so.”

Sometimes, I epitomize the famous movie line, “Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash.” Now having lived on this earth for 30 years, I have a wealth of life experience to draw upon and I can foresee more things based upon that experience. This means that I’m right more times than I used to be. And, as an egomaniac, that is an exhilarating feeling. In fact, roller coasters and sex may be the only things better!

But, there are many times when I dread being right, and this is one of those times. In an earlier post, I explained why I was distancing my ministry from the Buddy Christ icon. The most compelling reason was the fact that God is not meant to be my buddy or my pal. Our relationship to God is meant to be a patron/client relationship. God, the patron, has granted us, His clients, the gifts of this planet, life, time, people, etc. We are stewards of all of these gifts. We do not own our lives, our time, our planet, our money, nor are the people in our lives accidents of existentialism. These components are all carefully designed for us by God, and He intends an outcome for each dollar He allows us to touch, each person we meet, and each second we are alive. At the end of our lives, we will have to give an account to Him for how we spent this time, our money, and how we impacted the people that we came in contact with.

This implies that He is our Lord, and that we serve Him.

I was right in that post when I said that the latest trend is downplaying any aspect of the gospel where it teaches we are meant to serve God. The new way churches are teaching their congregates is that God is right next to us, like an invisible friend, cheering us on and helping us behave. As if He doesn’t sit in judgment over His creation. One pastor had this to say:

“If God is understood and viewed as within creation, acting inside of it, loving, compassionate, hopeful, creative — all of those produce a very different way of imagining the Christian life and living it out,” he said. “If you are always calling God ‘Lord,’ you are sticking him into that outside place. It seems to me, in order to avoid doing that, one of the first things you do is call God something different.”

God is more involved in our lives than we realize. However, He is not a part of His creation. He is outside it, above it, and greater than it. We, as His creation, owe our existence to Him and should be held accountable by Him for how we spent the resources He gave us. He created this universe from nothing, and molded us in His image from the very dust of the ground. He granted us a free will and gave us stewardship over His planet. This makes Him worthy of my worship, and certainly more than worthy of the title of Lord.

If you think in hierarchical terms, then yes, God would be far over and above us. We owe Him everything, and He owes us nothing. Yet, by His grace, we are able to come to Him through His Son. When we do that, He grants us the Holy Spirit, and recreates us in the Spirit, changing our lives forever for the better, and helps us improve the quality of life of those around us by granting us spiritual gifts that we can use to further His kingdom and for His glory.

Despite being worthy of our worship, worthy of being called King of kings and Lord of lords, some people say otherwise:

“We usually change ‘Lord’ to ‘love’ or ’soul’ or ‘light,’ ” [David] Wilkinson [senior pastor of St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church] said. “It’s pretty much a hierarchical, patriarchal image we’re getting rid of.”

The article I linked to is very disturbing. The truth is that we owe God everything from our very existence to the annual salaries we earn, to the clothes on our backs and the nice blanket I’m about to crawl under after I hit the “Publish” button. The wife I cuddle with and the child she carries are all His, and He entrusts them to me for a time.

All of us have things that God has entrusted to us, and all of us must use these resources as He would have us use them. How could anyone not think that God is above us, that He is unworthy of a title of respect such as Lord?

Praise God, for He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. How could anyone possibly think otherwise?

It has been a long time in coming, but I am finally ready to post part 3 of my response to the Jesus Family Tomb documentary that aired on Discovery Channel last month. The reason for the delay is the lack of good source information about chemical patinas.

I have noted that there are essentially three prongs to the argument that the tomb discovered in the Talpiot suburb of Jerusalem is the family tomb of Jesus Christ. The first is the statistical grouping of the names. The second is that one of the names, Mariamne, is actually Mary Magdalene of the gospels. The third is that the patina evidence from the James ossuary matches the patina sample from the Jesus family tomb ossuaries, but more significantly, does not match 100 random patina samples from other tombs.

What, exactly, is patina evidence? Although I’m loathe to use Wikipedia as a source, here is the Wikipedia definition of a patina:

Patina is a chemical compound formed on the surface of metal. Patinas form on metal from exposure to the elements. They are often deliberately added by artists and metalworkers. Patinas may be used to ‘antique’ objects, as a part of the design or decoration of art and furniture. [source]

That means that the filmmakers are scraping samples off the surface of the ossuaries, and testing them against each other. The assumption is that if one has the same patina composition as another, then they must have resided in the same tomb, or at least in the same general area as the one they matched with.

Because the patina evidence allows Jacobovici and company to place the James ossuary in the Talpiot tomb, they can then add “James” to the statistical analysis and that makes the numbers jump through the roof. The James ossuary is thought to legitimately be the ossuary of James the brother of our Lord and author of the New Testament epistle bearing his name by many scholars. This evidence alone bolsters the case for this tomb beyond a reasonable answer by the Christian apologist.

But, there are a number of problems with accepting this answer as legitimate. Most of the experts associated with this film have since come forward and offered context to their comments on camera that usually torpedo that part of the case. Robert Genna, director of the Suffolk County New York State Crime Lab, the expert consulted on the patina evidence, is no exception. He had this to say about the patina conclusions quoted in the film:

The elemental composition of some of the samples we tested from the ossuaries are consistent with each other. But I would never say they’re a match… No scientist would ever say definitively that one ossuary came from the same tomb as another…We didn’t do enough sampling to see if in fact there were other tombs that had similar elemental compositions…The only samples we can positively say are a “match” from a single source are fingerprints and DNA. [source]

This alone is enough to refute the patina evidence offered in the film. This statement, from the film’s own expert, raises enough doubt to close the book on the patina evidence.

What about the entirety of the case of the Jesus Family Tomb? Well, we’ve seen that there are serious doubts about the methods used to obtain the names, using the gospel accounts on one hand and then dismissing them out of hand when they don’t support the case. The name “Mariamne” is never associated with Mary Magdalene, and that inscription was likely read incorrectly. The DNA evidence is almost completely useless. The patina evidence is questionable at best. The entirety of the case, I’m afraid, must be dismissed for lack of evidence.

Running a ministry can be an expensive prospect, especially for a guy like me who wants to do this full time. Therefore, I have decided to sell advertisement space in order to defer some of my costs.

Read the Purpose-Driven Message Bible. You’ll get a lot out of it.

HT to Deborah from One Beggar’s Bread for calling my attention to these. I had posted one before, but I didn’t realize there were others like it just waiting to be found! Visit the Sacred Sandwich for more!

It never fails to amuse me what a level of control that Catholic clergy holds over the faithful.  The faithful realize it on some level, but not enough (it seems) to break away from a tradition they’ve held all their lives.  It’s just easier to hold on, I suppose.  I’ve been there with other things in my life.

A young woman who posts at LJ under the pseudonym “peacefulcelt9“  had this to say in a recent post:

We are definitely married, but only civilly. We have made a lifelong commitment to each other with the intention to have children, so I dont [sic] see the difference. But no, our marriage isnt [sic] valid. It pisses me off, but I say, why not get married again? Its only going to be a small thing, just immediate family, and only 10 minutes long or so, just the vows and blessing. Since we already have our wedding certificate, we dont [sic] have to do that part again. The priest usually has a double responsibility of the legal as well as religious officiant, but he has to only do the religious aspect for us. [source, emphasis added]

The bold portion is exactly what, in my mind, constitutes a valid marriage.  No ceremony is described in the Bible, just the willingness to commit for a lifetime to the other person, described in Genesis and upheld by Christ.  That is the commitment I made to my wife on the happiest day of my life: May 30, 2005.  That is the commitment I intend to keep for the rest of my life.  I refuse to let any church tell me that my marriage isn’t valid; the intent in my heart is the only validation I need.

Later in that post, she said “Im [sic] sure we’re going to be reprimanded by the priest for not getting married in the Church to begin with, because we are technically required to, both of us being baptized Catholics.”  Why let a faith have so much control over you that you fear being reprimanded by one of its clerics?

A marriage is between a husband, a wife, and God.  There is no need to drag any church into this, especially one that gets as involved as the Catholic Church does.

The Church is a human institution, not a divine one.  They have no right to judge the validity of a person’s marriage anymore than I have that right.  Romans 14 has many, many spiritual applications.

I suppose this is why I’m not Catholic anymore.

The center of any worship service should be God.

How elementary is that?  Yet, churches today are missing the point by putting on an entertainment extravaganza designed to engage people and draw in ever larger crowds.  Meanwhile, no actual discipleship is taking place.  But that’s okay, because the tithes grow and the pastors get to turn in big numbers of baptisms and attendance figures to the home office.  The church is growing and everyone is happy.

But the focus on God just isn’t there.  His commandment to disciple people is swept under the rug, in favor of the command to evangelize.

I’m opposed to turning the gospel into an entertainment package, because it leads to what I described above.  But, there is a delicate balance to maintain.  God has given us incredibly diverse music styles, pronounced cultural differences, and short attention spans.  To use these things in worshiping Him would glorify Him, I believe.

To have a nontraditional worship service targeted to a specific demographic, provided it doesn’t replace the usual worship service, probably isn’t a bad thing.  So long as the focus remains on God.  The balance that one has to maintain is to design the worship service with God as the center, but design it in a way that appeals to the target audience.  A growing number of churches are doing just this for men.  I haven’t heard of any of these services in my area, so I can’t say I’ve ever been to one, that they are bad, or that the focus is off of God.

The teaching seems right on.  Men have a tendency to open up better to other men, especially about that which challenges us all: lust.  Rock music, a message that targets men, and encouragement to return to the traditional service with your family.  But the basketball theme and a “shot clock” for the sermon may be a bit much.

I used to be a “whatever works” kind of guy, but now that I’ve become a more critical theology student, I know that the axiom “What you win them with is what you win them to” is 100% true.  This is what I hate about watered-down gospel presentations, God Is My Buddy theologies, and the growing trend of not preaching about sin or judgment.  Yes, Jesus died for me, but why was that necessary?  And, how many mega-church attendees out of 100 could tell me why?

My concern is that as church services trend more toward supporting the demographics to grow numbers, will sin and judgment preaching take a further back seat to rock music and shot clocks?  Or will these things merely aid in the presentation of the gospel as outlined in Scripture?  We must pray to God that these things will aid in the preaching of His word.  We must also pray that God will limit the influence of those preachers who leave Him and His message of repentance and salvation on the back burner, favoring the love and “warm fuzzy” presentations.

I have begun to work on the initial research for writing the third and final portion of my response to the Jesus Family Tomb special that aired on the Discovery Channel last month. I have also begun footnoting a final article that will combine all three blog posts, supplemented with new information and theological perspective, that will permanently adorn my Articles tab.

In my research, I have noted that statistics expert Dr. Andrey Feuerverger, literary analyst Dr. Francios Bovon, and DNA expert Dr. Carney Matheson have all supplied the context in which their conclusions were given, and that shifts their meaning dramatically. All three experts were misrepresented by the filmmakers. The only scholar who remains firmly behind his conclusions is James Tabor, who insists still that this tomb is the tomb of Jesus Christ and His family.

But, in order to hold to a conclusion so flatly contradicted by the facts, Tabor has to resort to circular reasoning and fact-stretching. A blatant example, from a blog post on my birthday:

Although the names are “common” as is so often pointed out by so many, it does indeed seem to be the case that the statistical grouping of these particular names in this particular tomb is far from common. This is confirmed by the mathematical probabilities based on name frequencies, or more directly, by looking at the names in tomb after tomb of which we have record. Nothing like this occurs anywhere else.

Okay, the names are common. Got it. The grouping is the real issue. Got it. The next day, he posts this:

The name Jesus or “Yeshua” is a shortened form of the biblical name Joshua or Yehoshua. It is known of course, but to say it is common is incorrect. If you take all forms of the name Joshua known to us from inscriptions and literary sources as compiled by Tal Ilan (Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Palestine 300 BCE to 200 CE) one finds 100 examples of the name out of a total of 2538 male names, which is 3.9%. The specific shortened nickname “Yeshua” is of course much less common than that.

Okay, the name Jesus is . . . uncommon? Wait a minute! Yesterday, you said something different!

In order to remain in the argument, despite solid refutation from reputable scholars, Tabor has to resort to chasing his proverbial tail. It all stems from the initial rebellion in the Garden: now, instead of convincing us that God is simply wrong, enough time has passed and there are no eyewitnesses left to stop the enemy from convincing us that God just doesn’t exist. It started with the Father, but the Son has come under attack. Some deny His existence. Some deny His Resurrection. All deny His Lordship, and would try to convince us to do the same. They are unwitting pawns in a larger cosmic game, and they do not realize for whom they are fighting–nor where that leads.

They see death as the natural end to a natural life, not as the inevitable punishment for their sins against a just and holy God. We should pray for them, even though they persecute us. Perhaps thorough this mess they will see the truth.

I hate changing articles of faith, because then it appears that I’m indecisive.  As a manager, I know that the last thing I want to appear to the folks under my command is indecisive.  People notice that right away, and then they make you sorry you ever said, “Maybe we should drop a basket of fries” instead of issuing a direct command, “Drop a basket of fries, please.”  It isn’t a pretty sight.  The fallout has happened to me, and I’ve witnessed it happen to a few trainees.  I’ve also walked had to run the shift after the fallout, which is never fun.

But I think that it is different in ministry.  In ministry, I preach that humans are fallible creatures, and that we are fallen.  Fallen, meaning that we are under a curse.  As such, I cannot claim to be perfect, even in what I believe about God and the universe.  So when I’m convicted by God of being wrong, I have to confess my sin and then move forward with a renewed sense of purpose.  I’ve already done this once with the Buddy Christ, I just never thought that I’d have to admit to being wrong so soon.

I subscribed to the Day-Age Creationism theory.  I linked to two sites, Geocreationism.com and GodAndScience.org, that taught forms of Old Earth Creationism.  I even tried to volunteer at the latter site. God, though the ministry of Ken Ham, has shown me the error of Old Earth Creationism.  By compromising with secular science, Old Earth Creationism destroys the foundation of the Atonement and the eternal penalty of sin.  These foundations are only clearly understood by a literal reading of Genesis chapters 1-11.  This is a subtle attack, and there are probably many readers who will disagree that this is even an attack.

That doesn’t change the fact that it is an attack.  A millions of years model means that, prior to the Fall, there was animal death, disease, and at least three great waves of extinction.  Three great waves of extinction means that God’s creation wasn’t “good,” as He Himself stated, that means it was “kinda OK, but I can do better, so here’s a meteor!”  This indicates that plants and animals can screw things up enough to warrant a judgment from God, which makes the great Flood nothing particularly unique (since mass extinctions had already happened at that point).  It further means that a curse never entered the world through Adam’s rebellion, but that curse was already present when Adam was created.  Again, this means that God’s work wasn’t “good,” it was “mediocre.”

If the curse was here anyway, then why do we need an Atonement?

So I am now a convinced Young Earth Creationist.  As with the renouncement of the Buddy Christ icon, this new renouncement means searching my links and my pages to remove links to sites that have an Old Earth Creation thesis.  I’m not sure that I will edit or change articles, since YEC vs. OEC didn’t color much of my writing, just some of my reading and surfing.

I expect that this announcement will trigger two things.  First, an outpouring of congratulations from family and friends (in comment sections and in person) who were praying or hoping that I would come around to this.  That happened with the Buddy Christ icon removal.  Second, this could trigger a new debate with the webmaster of Geocreationism.com, assuming he still reads my blog.  Unfortunately, his website was one of the links I had to remove since I no longer view OEC as glorifying to God.

I enjoyed our previous debate, so I look forward to sparring with him again if he reads this and wants another go around.

Yes, the NIV Quiz is finally up.  Take it with your trusty NIV, or dust off your venerable old KJV.  It is my firm belief that you can pass it with either version, and this article will show you how you can do it, even though the KJV Only Camp doesn’t think you can!

In a recent debate with Rick Warren, Sam Harris (an angry atheist and virtual god-like man to the Rational Response Squad next to Richard Dawkins) said this very telling item:

How is it fair for God to have designed a world which gives such ambiguous testimony to his existence? How is it fair to have created a system where belief is the crucial piece, rather than being a good person? How is it fair to have created a world in which by mere accident of birth, someone who grew up Muslim can be confounded by the wrong religion? I don’t see how the future of humanity is in good care with those competing orthodoxies.

Well, Sam, guess what?   The world has hazy evidence for God’s existence, because the Bible states that He is an invisible God (Col 1:15).  But how hazy is this evidence?  It’s just hazy enough that the apostle Paul, in reference for knowing of God’s existence, could tell the Romans “. . . his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Rom 1:20).

We could answer his statement, but I think I’ll let the apostle Paul speak from 2000 years ago, as what Paul wrote is perfect still:

. . . who are you, [Mr. Harris], to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory . . . ? [Rom 9:20-23]

Atheism comes down to arrogance on the part of the atheist.  I wish that Warren had let Harris have it with both barrels for the above quoted comment, but I still think that he did a better job with that debate than anyone thought that Rick Warren would have done.