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New Covenant Israel is no longer physical (nor literal)!

If you've read my previous two articles on Israel, then this will probably seem familiar. This is a combination of the previous two combined into one study, focussing more on who Israel is under the New Covenant rather than the geopolitical/war situation of the Middle East. So Who is Israel? No doubt what I'm about to say will cause some knee-jerk reactions, but to properly understand the New Covenant, we need to address the issue of who is Israel, Biblically speaking? Yes, there is a modern nation known as "Israel" now since 1948, but is that the same Israel of the Bible? The same Israel to whom God made his promises? If so, does that mean...

Great Lent: The Season of Fasting

...er and/or Bible study. Read a chapter or two of a Gospel each meal time and work your way through the whole New Testament. Pray! “But I don’t have enough things/people to pray for!” you may say – Make a list and routine of people and/or issues you care about and pray for these each day and see where the Holy Spirit leads you. Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Pray for protection. You will no doubt experience some sort of spiritual attack and strong temptation. Keep your guard up and mind focussed on God. Put on the armour of God (Eph 6:11). Remember, even Jesus didn’t escape this attack from the devil during His long fast (Matthew 4:1-11)! Learn to pray c...

Fasting: A spiritual and physical discipline

...er and/or Bible study. Read a chapter or two of a Gospel each meal time and work your way through the whole New Testament, just as an example suggestion. Pray! “But I don’t have enough things/people to pray for!” you may say—make a list and routine of people and/or issues you care about and pray for these each day and see where the Holy Spirit leads you. Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Pray for protection. You will no doubt experience some sort of spiritual attack/oppression and strong temptation. Keep your guard up and mind focused on God. Put on the armour of God (Eph 6:11). Remember, even Jesus didn’t escape this attack from the devil during His long f...

The Coming of Jesus: The Olivet Discourse – Part 1

...ing James Bible rather than the underlying Greek and/or better English translations. For example, this verse is translated as "end of the world" in the KJV, whereas all other Bibles you read will (hopefully) say "end of the age". The Greek word translated "world" in the KJV is actually the word aion, meaning "age" or "eon", which has completely different connotations than the destruction of the physical universe. So the disciples have just been told that the temple will be destroyed, so their obvious question is when and how will be know it's about to happen?  Jesus answers them plainly by laying out everything that will happen in the run up to this mas...

The Coming of Jesus: Daniel's 70 Weeks

...ge in the Bible, we can find two other places where one day is equal to one year in a prophetic sense: Ez 4:6 and Num 14:34. There's also two other places where one day is equalled with one thousand years: Ps 90:4 and 2 Pet 3:8 – unlike the previous examples, these aren't spoken of in a prophecy or vision as to have a specific time meaning, but are rather hyperbole to make a point, as the surrounding context of those verses will show. If we were to calculate Daniel's prophecy based on 1000 years to each day, it would cover a timeframe of 70,000 years instead of 490 – which is just slightly ridiculous! So lets break down the prophecy to see what's going...

Creedal Christians: Introduction

...lieve the Bible”, are ironically making a creed, albeit a short one with no solid definition. The Church has been declaring creeds for as long as it has existed, despite the sometimes common accusation that creeds are “unbiblical” or “non-biblical”; statements which couldn’t be further from the truth! Even in the Apostles time they were making statements of faith in short creedal formats, and a few of them are preserved in the New Testament, primarily in Paul's letters. One of the longer examples can be found in the first letter to the Corinthians, and has a similar form and wording to what came to be known as the Apostle’s Creed: 1 Corinthian...