General Articles

Pentecost: The Church is Born! Part 1 :: By Paul J. Scharf

Published on: by RR7

 

Christians throughout the world celebrated Pentecost Sunday and the coming of the Holy Spirit—in a new and fresh way, to begin the church age—on June 5th.

Interestingly, these celebrations may not involve many of our readers as, oftentimes, the churches in our circles do not make much of this day on the calendar.

If you were like me, however—raised in a liturgical church that celebrated Pentecost Sunday every year—its chronological relation to the resurrection was likely fixed clearly in your mind. But, regardless of how we remember Pentecost, we certainly need to be familiar with it and understand its vast significance.

In this two-part blog series, we are going to consider the day of Pentecost as the birthday of the church and the launch of the church age—focusing on the fact that the church did not begin before that signal day, nor did it begin after it.

One very strong evidence that the church did not begin before the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 is Jesus’ teaching given prophetically to the disciples in His Upper Room Discourse in John 13 to 16. He is clearly speaking of a major change that the apostles were about to experience following His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

Jesus, in fact, spoke precisely about “that day” when His disciples would “know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). In other words, this was the specific day on which the body of Christ would be formed by the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:5; 2:2-3; 1 Cor. 12:13).

Of course, we know that many Jewish people were in Jerusalem on Pentecost, the 50th day from the resurrection (and also “fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath” [Lev. 23:16], when marked with relation to “the day of the firstfruits” [Num. 28:26]), to take part in the feast that God commanded His Old Testament people Israel to celebrate. In fact, “all (Jewish) males” were to “appear before the LORD your God” for this annual festival (Deut. 16:16).

General instructions on the observance of Pentecost, known to the Israelites as “the Feast of Weeks” (Ex. 34:22), were revealed in Ex. 23:16 (where it is called “the Feast of Harvest,” related to “the firstfruits of wheat harvest” [Ex. 34:22]), Lev. 23:15-22, Num. 28:26-31 and Deut. 16:9-12.

In the development of Jewish tradition, the day of Pentecost also came to be associated with the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. Although this is not supported by the text of Scripture, it is very interesting because Ex. 19:6 is the formal beginning of the theocratic nation of Israel. Thus, to that extent, it can be said that both Israel and the church each began, individually, on the day of Pentecost.

There is so much more that could be said regarding Pentecost in both Biblical history and Jewish tradition, as Bruce Scott recorded in lively fashion in chapter four of his wonderful book The Feasts of Israel: Seasons of the Messiah (Bellmawr, NJ: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, 1997). But one thing is certainly clear—nowhere in the Hebrew Bible do we see the inauguration of the church, on this day or any other, in the history of Israel before the time of Christ.

Those who believe that they can find the church in the Old Testament usually begin it all the way back with Abraham—or even Adam. They view all the redeemed as one united people of God, and Israel as the Old Testament church (and the church as New Testament Israel). Obviously, this removes all the distinctions which we as dispensationalists—who draw our doctrine directly from the literal interpretation of Scripture—believe truly exist between Israel and the church, making each one utterly unique.

In fact, the New Testament calls the church a mystery, using that term three times in Eph. 3:1-12—meaning that it was not revealed prior to that, or in the Old Testament. Indeed, the church, which includes Jewish people and Gentiles on equal footing in one spiritual body (v. 6), was not a concept that Old Testament Israelites could have fathomed.

We will pick up there next time, also seeing that the church did not begin after Pentecost but, rather, exactly on the day of Pentecost, in fulfillment of Jesus’ own words.

Reposted, with permission, from The Friends of Israel Blog.

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Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version

 

Murder and Its Source :: By Terry James

Published on: by RR7

 

While we memorialize June 6 each year as D-Day, we think about all the honored dead killed in action as they invaded the beaches at Normandy and at other places. Adolf Hitler had been the cause of starting World War II with the invasion of Poland, and Japan had brought America into the conflict by attacking at Pearl Harbor. Thus was brought about the killing of millions throughout those horrific years of death and destruction.  

The murder of as many as 6 million Jews in the genocide of the Holocaust added to the numbers of the many millions who gave their lives to stop the evil that threatened to kill, destroy, or enslave the entire world.

Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, and all those responsible for bringing about all the death and destruction are dead and gone. But the source of all death and destruction is alive and well at this very moment.

All we have to do to realize that the evil of murder and destruction continues is to consider the May 24 mass murders in Uvalde, Texas. It was the latest of a never-ending series of such shootings throughout America’s recent history. Nineteen young children and a teacher were shot and killed in their elementary school by an 18-year-old man who was thought to have mental issues exacerbated by bullying and hours spent dwelling on Internet maliciousness.

The result of Salvador Ramos’ descent into becoming the murderous shooter is chronicled here, in part:

The gunman who slaughtered 19 kids and two teachers at a Texas elementary school reportedly exhibited increasingly bizarre behavior leading up to the rampage – including cutting up his face with knives just “for fun,” friends said.

Gunman Salvador Ramos’ friend Santos Valdez Jr., 18, said the two had been close, playing video games and basketball regularly, until his friend’s behavior began to “deteriorate,” the Washington Post reported…

Valdez said he last interacted with Ramos just two hours before the attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

Valdez also described how Ramos used to drive around with another pal and shoot people at random with a BB gun – and also egged people’s cars.

He said Ramos last year posted on social media images of automatic rifles that “he would have on his wish list” – and a few days ago, he posted photos of two rifles he referred to as “my gun pics,” the paper reported…

Friends and relatives also said Ramos had been bullied throughout middle school for a speech impediment – a stutter and lisp, according to the Washington Post…

Ramos allegedly shot his grandmother before heading over to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with two assault rifles around 11:32 a.m. local time Tuesday, according to officials. (“Details emerge on Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos’ behavior before massacre,” by Yaron Steinbuch, NY Post, May 27, 2022)

No sooner had the story of the shooting broke than political entities making up the “get-rid-of-the-2nd-Amendment of the Constitution” began their rants. “Guns must be more strictly controlled because they kill children,” went the enraged rhetoric–same as always.

Members of the party of the anti-gun sort, like President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, immediately started proclaiming on camera that the murders of the children were attributable to guns, and to save future children’s lives, there must be more legislation and regulations against guns. They ranted that it was unconscionable that these children were murdered by guns, and said the “gun lobby” was responsible.

Their hypocrisy is what is unconscionable. These two politicians, so quick to go before the cameras to declare the tragedy of nineteen children murdered by guns, champion the same satanic ideology that say it is okay–even preferable—to murder more than 2,700 children each day in their mothers’ wombs. The “abortion lobby” is perfectly fine in their infanticide. It’s okay to murder children by abortion, but a travesty that nineteen children are murdered by guns.

The devil is alive and well and is the source of murder and destruction. According to His Word, God’s way of thinking puts this upside-down ideology espoused by the blustering politicians in the same category as that of mankind’s worst enemy.

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44)