Jul 6, 2016
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Jul 6, 2016 | Comments Off on Need a foolproof map to guide your life?
“The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps.”
Proverbs 14:15 NIV
פֶּ֭תִי יַאֲמִ֣ין לְכָל־דָּבָ֑ר וְ֝עָר֗וּם יָבִ֥ין לַאֲשֻׁרֹֽו׃
Picture a seasoned team of seamen with years of sailing experience making a blunder that practically shipwrecked their vessel. Remarkably, the 19th century polar expedition of the USS Jeannette, commandeered by Lieutenant George De Long ended in complete failure.
Captain De Long and his crew became thoroughly disoriented on their trek—not because of a faulty compass, but because of a mistaken map. De Long’s quest rested on a picture of the North Pole laid out in the maps of Dr. August Heinrich Petermann.
Petermann’s maps prop
osed a “thermometric gateway” through the ice that opened onto a vast “polar sea” beyond the ice. As it turned out the ship was sailing to a world that didn’t exist.
Rather than an open polar sea, the crew observed the perilous ice surrounding the ship. Immediately, the erroneous maps were scrapped and replaced with a comprehension of the way the Arctic truly is
Most readers conclude from this account Christians need a foolproof map from God to navigate His will.
Wrong!
I share this dramatic story to explain this is NOT how to identify God’s will.
The Lord does not have a hidden, faultless map to lead us to a treasure chest of priceless doubloons, aka His divine plan.
If there isn’t a GPS to steer us to the Lord’s will, what does Solomon in Proverbs 14:15 instruct us to do or not do to remove the mystery attached to “finding the will of God”. (more…)
Jun 26, 2016
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Jun 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Do You Know When To Keep Your Lips Zipped?
Proverbs 14:3
By the mouth of a fool comes a rod for his back, but the lips of the wise will preserve them. (ESV)
בְּֽפִי־א֭֭וִיל חֹ֣טֶר גַּאֲוָ֑ה וְשִׂפְתֵ֥י ח֝֝כָמִ֗ים תִּשְׁמוּרֵֽם׃
If all our words were put into print, the result would be: a single day’s words would fill a 50-page book, while in a year’s time the average person’s words would fill 132 books of 200 pages each! Among all those words there are bound to be some statements spoken in anger, carelessness, or haste. And someone is sure to get hurt.
Since often I write using
my laptop at a variety of Starbuck locations, I am exposed to a myriad of conversations. Loud, obnoxious cell phone calls. Stodgy business conferences. Idle talk meetups. Annoying boardgame banter. I hear it all.
One morning I overheard a young woman on her cell grilling the person on the other end of the line like an CIA operative. Eventually she droned on about her need to “lose fat,” fleshed out every gory details of her recent eye surgery and fished voraciously for every scandalous minutia about some mutual friends. It was painful to witness her unmanaged tongue at work.
To deal with the need to manage our tongues, in Proverbs 14:3 Solomon focuses on the communication of the wise contrasted to the verbiage that pours out of the mouth of a fool.
Speech management is a theme threaded throughout the Book of Proverbs. Solomon continually warns his listeners one area where we demonstrate either wisdom or foolishness is the control of our tongue. (more…)
Jun 21, 2016
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Jun 21, 2016 | Comments Off on Do You Think Before You Act or Just Act?
Proverbs 13:16
In everything the prudent acts with knowledge, but a fool flaunts his folly.
כָּל־ע֭֭רוּם יַעֲשֶׂ֣ה בְדָ֑עַת ו֝֝כְסִ֗יל יִפְרֹ֥שׂ אִוֶּֽלֶת׃
In a San Francisco Examiner (7/7/93) report the California State Automobile Association claims office received a package by Federal Express. The unknown contents were bundled in a Fruit Loops cereal box.
Workers quickly became suspicious. Security guards called the police, and about 400 office workers were evacuated from the building. The bomb squad soon arrived on the scene.
The Fruit Loops cereal box was “neutralized” with a small cannon, and its contents were blasted into the air. The bomb squad, however, found no explosives. Inside the suspicious package was $24,000 in cash. The box contained bundles of $20 bills, $1,000 of which were destroyed in the blast.
The response of the SF police was understandable. A suspicious package arrived that had to be dealt with. Only after the cereal box was neutralized was the identity of the contents determined.
In our world it is necessary to use caution, but acting without more thorough investigation can destroy things more valuable than money.
In Proverbs 13:16 Solomon contrasts the wisdom of taking time to think before one takes action with the foolishness of taking active steps without thinking through one’s options. (more…)
Jun 20, 2016
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Jun 20, 2016 | Comments Off on Proverbs for Living Skillfully
Automaker Henry Ford hired electrical genius Charlie Steinmetz to build the generators for his factory. One day the generators came grinding to a halt, and the technicians couldn’t find the problem. Ford called Steinmetz, who tinkered with the machines for a few hours and then threw the switch. The generators whirred to life–but Ford got a bill for $10,000 from Steinmetz. Flabbergasted, the rather tightfisted car maker inquired why the bill was so high.
Steinmetz’s reply: For tinkering with the generators, $10. For knowing where to tinker, $9,990. Ford paid the bill (Today in the Word, MBI, April 1990, p. 27.).
Today we place more value on our unproductive, frantic efforts than the wisdom involved in “knowing where to tinker.” After all, “knowing where to tinker” is more than a mere indicator of knowledge, but a sign of wisdom. Anyone can offer a reasonable guess regarding the nature of a problem we are facing. However, it takes wisdom to know how to apply that speculation and make a wise choice that leads to a resolve.
Nested in the midst of the books of Wisdom (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes) is a goldmine of biblical counsel for learning how to live skillfully. King Solomon’s Book of Proverbs is a much neglected biblical work that contains timeless truths that show us “where to tinker” in the major issues we face everyday.
One of the areas where followers of Jesus are forever tinkering in trying to determine God’s will. Christians spend precious time in this endless and often fruitless pursuit. Good news! The Book of Proverbs is God’s guidebook for finding His will. This is the major source in the Scriptures that reveals not merely the information about God’s will, but discloses “where to tinker.”
Once we have read and understood this work of wisdom, we will no longer need to speak of “discovering God’s will.” His plan for our lives becomes more apparent the deeper we dig within Solomon’s volume of wisdom.
Besides being a manual that enables us to understand the ways of God, the Book of Proverbs describes the qualities of spiritual character. As we will discover in Solomon’s sayings, possessing spiritual character goes hand-in-hand with grasping the will of God. (more…)
Nov 7, 2014
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Nov 7, 2014 | 2 comments
The question of forgiving one another has plagued me ever since I became a follower of Jesus. I heard many pastors and Bible teachers comment on this subject, but I did not feel they were teaching the message of the biblical text. Instead, what I was hearing was helpful common sense advice and psychological healthy ways to look at the way we should forgive one another.
Recently a good friend of mine whom I deeply respect, challenged me on my beliefs regarding the need for repentance as a condition for forgiveness.
Where I agree on this issue with my friend is that we both are in harmony that for a person to be reconciled with God, there must be a display of contriteness or repentance to experience the eternal forgiveness of God. This is designated “vertical forgiveness” because it takes place between man and God.
Forgive One Another
Where my friend and I disagree is whether or not repentance is necessary when we as humans forgive one another. If I offend another person, do I need to go to that person or have that person come to me so that I can confess my sin, state my intention to repent and ask for that person’s forgiveness?
My friend’s viewpoint is that we can forgive the other person through the forgiveness Jesus obtained for us through His death on the cross. The grace of God shown in the sacrificial death of Yeshua on the cross should so overwhelm us, that the natural outflow of our awe towards God’s love is to forgive others because God has shown His merciful forgiveness to us through His Son.
There is not always the need for repentance when there is “vertical forgiveness.” On the basis of the atonement we have in the Messiah, we forgive one another. with or without any display of repentance. In the Sermon on the Mount, in the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:12, we read, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors (NIV). (more…)
Jun 25, 2014
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Jun 25, 2014 | Comments Off on Did Those Six Million Jews Die for You?
The Entrance to Auschwitz
By now the controversy surrounding the Jews for Jesus video “That Jew Died for You” has simmered down. Still the strong negative reaction by the Jewish community to the JFJ evangelistic effort remains a stain on Jewish-Christian relations.
At the release of the video prior to Holocaust Remembrance Day, a Jews for Jesus press release, explained the video seeks “to help redefine the conversation and reshape views of Jesus and His relationship to the Holocaust.”
The intentions of JFJ in the production of this video were honorable and aimed to initiate conversation among Jewish people regarding Christianity’s relationship to the murder of six million Jews under the evil Nazi regime.
David Brickner, Executive Director of JFJ offered his public commentary on the video, “The horrors of the Holocaust and the 6 million who died has gnawed at the consciousness of Jews for over 60 years. We want Jewish people to understand that the sufferings inflicted at the hands of the Nazi’s were in no way based on the teachings of Jesus (underlining mine). In fact, he suffered and died on our behalf to show us the love of God.”
Oddly, the majority of Jewish people do not think the teachings of Jesus are responsible for the horrors of the Holocaust. Rather, the Jewish community is more concerned with the antisemitic attitudes of Eastern European Christians prior to and during World War II that helped fuel the racist ideology behind the Holocaust. (more…)
Apr 4, 2014
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Apr 4, 2014 | Comments Off on Not All Israel Is Israel Part 3
The controversy over God’s continuation of Israel as a viable nation despite their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah looms large in the Christian church.
Most followers of Jesus are not even aware of the various Christian theologies regarding the Jewish nation. Yet when uninformed evangelicals are exposed to such anti-Israel beliefs such as Replacement Theology (the view that Israel is no longer God’s elect people but replaced by the Church), these Christians are conflicted over what they are hearing and what the Bible teaches.
As a representative of Replacement Theology (though he prefers the term “Fulfillment Theology”) Gary Burge, New Testament professor at Wheaton College, in his book Whose Land? Whose Promises? the author states, “Abraham can become the father of many nations because when Gentiles share in Abraham’s faith, he becomes their father too (Romans 4:16). Physical lineage, therefore, has been spiritualized into a lineage based on faith (emphasis mine). The ‘land of Israel’ is likewise spirtualized now to include the entire world” (pg. 182).
The key concept to focus on from Burge’s theology is, “physical lineage . . . has been spiritualized into a lineage based on faith.” Israel is no longer a physical nation, according to the Wheaton professor, but has become a spiritual entity that one enters into by faith in Christ not by physical heritage through Abraham. If the physical seed has been “spiritualized” then the “physical” is no longer relevant, hence the physical nation of Israel is moot to God’s spiritual program.
The glaring mistake Burge makes is twofold: first, the physical lineage of a member of the nation of Israel never implied the individual within the nation has a relationship with God, and second, within the physical nation of Israel there has always existed a spiritual remnant of Israelites who remained faithful to God. These two truths do not redefined the nation of Israel, but describe the reality of a spiritual remnant within the physical Jewish nation.
In contrast to Gary Burge’s fulfillment theology which pushes aside God’s plan for the physical nation the Apostle Paul teaches that Israel still exists as a nation even after the first coming of the Messiah. In Romans 9:3-4a Paul pleads, “For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel.” To Paul, “those of his own race” are “the people of Israel” quite alive and not replaced by or fulfilled in the New Testament church. (more…)
Mar 20, 2014
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Mar 20, 2014 | Comments Off on Not All Israel is Israel Part 2
To many students of the Bible Paul’s comment in Romans 9:6 that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” (NIV) sounds very strange. Is Paul saying the part of Israel that is “descended from Israel” is no longer part of the nation known as Israel? Then that would mean the only people who are actually Israelites are Jewish people who believe in Yeshua as Messiah and the “not all who are descended from Israel ” group are no longer members of the Jewish nation. Yet if you follow that logic, any examples of the NT apostles addressing the segment of the Jewish nation who have not accepted Yeshua as Messiah as still “Israel” makes no sense.
Check out these examples from the New Testament:
Acts 2:22: “Fellow Israelites, listen to this:
Acts 2:29: “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.”
Acts 2: 36: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
Acts 3:12: “When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you?”
Acts 3:17: “Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders.”
Acts 4:10: “then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.”
No wonder Christians are befuddled by Paul’s reference to two Israel’s in Romans 9:6.
Twelve Tribes of Israel
In light of Paul’s head-scratching use of the phrase, “”not all who are descended from Israel are Israel”, Christian theologians come up with explanations that confuse the issue even more.
My favorite explanation is the one that states unbelieving Israel has been replaced by the Church. This is called “replacement theology.” In this theological system, “Israel” that accepted Yeshua is none other than the Church. Rather than create clarity, Replacement Theology (aka disguised as Fulfillment Theology or Transformation Theology or Promise Theology) contributes more fuzzy thinking since the reader of the New Testament is forced to think “Church” when he reads the term “Israel”. Try to think “Church” in reading Romans 11:26, “and in this way all Israel will be saved.” Thanks, but no thanks. (more…)
Mar 11, 2014
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Mar 11, 2014 | Comments Off on Christ at the Checkpoint Position Paper by Israeli Messianic Jews
A Position Paper of the Messianic Jewish Community regarding the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference (CatC)
1. The Word of God: the Tanakh and the New Covenant Scriptures together, are the one true, infallible, and unalterable standard of truth and life for all believers. As Yeshua our Messiah declared, “Your Word is truth” (John 17:17) and “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Therefore we affirm that “all the promises of God are ‘Yes’” and ‘Amen’ (not abrogated) in Yeshua (II Cor. 1:20), and that “the gifts and calling of God” for His chosen people, Israel, “are irrevocable” (Romans 11:28b-29 in context). “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew!” (Romans 11:2). Rather, “to them belong [present tense!] the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises” (Romans 9:4).
2. The Messiah Yeshua’s calling for His Body — in the Land of Israel and throughout the world — is to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19) by proclaiming “repentance for the forgiveness of sins…in His name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). Every movement or activity which does not promote or which, on the contrary, distracts us from that central purpose and calling is not of God, no matter what biblical or spiritual language may be used to describe it. Yeshua never commanded, or even suggested, that His followers were to “bring in” the Kingdom of God on earth. Yeshua Himself promised to establish His Kingdom upon His return (Matthew 25:31, 34), and we, who are heirs of His Kingdom and proclaimers of it in the present age (James 2:5; Acts 28:23, 31), are instructed to pray for that day to quickly come (Matthew 6:10; cf. Philippians 3:20-21).
3. Christ at the Checkpoint is, therefore, a false messianic movement, arrogating to itself the role of Messiah in establishing the Kingdom while promoting a humanistic, political “liberation theology.” [All the “evangelical” CatC speakers reflect the same approach and goals, as is evident from the Kairos Document which Yohanna Katanacho, CatC Committee member, helped compose and Bethlehem Bible College endorsed]. Although cloaking its “mandate” in biblical language (“the teaching of Jesus on the Kingdom of God”) and using seductively positive terms (“Peace, justice, and reconciliation”), this movement has one overriding purpose: to sway Evangelical believers worldwide away from belief in the eternal promises of God to Israel by slandering the Jewish people and delegitimizing the Jewish state; painting Israel as a wicked, oppressive, apartheid “entity”—especially in contrast to the supposedly ‘democratic, tolerant and peace-seeking’ Palestinian Authority and people. There is no Gospel here! (more…)
Mar 26, 2013
Posted by Scripture Solutions on Mar 26, 2013 | Comments Off on Not All Israel Is Israel Part 1
Is “replacement theology” becoming the newest fad among Christian? Lately I run across more and more Christians who claim the Church has replaced Israel as God’s people. The sad thing is that most of them don’t know why they believe what they claim. As I dig deeper speaking with these individuals, they all share the same defect – they are sadly deficient in their knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures.
For those who teach Israel has been replaced by the Church, Romans 9:6 is an essential verse in their arsenal. On the surface, the verse can be confusing. 
The verse reads, “For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” It’s like saying, “Not all players wearing a LA Dodger uniform on the field at Dodger Stadium and sitting in the dugout are really Dodgers.”
The replacement theologian would say, “Not all Jewish people who are wearing the Jewish uniform and sitting in the Jewish dugout are really members of the team. In fact, the real Jews consist of members of the Church who have placed their faith in Jesus as the promised Messiah.”
Replacement theology can be very confusing. If you follow their line of thinking, in some passages “Israel is the Church” and in other texts, “Israel is the Jewish nation.” Israel keeps switching leagues. Sometimes they are in the National League; then at other times they are in the American League. I don’t know who to root for because I don’t know who is who.
(more…)
