Despite the almost universal adoption of the creature known in Christendom as Lent, it is the resurrection that we need to exalt. If not for the resurrection of Christ, two things would be true: we'd still be in our sins, and once we die we'd be dead forever.

While we praise the Lord Jesus for suffering and dying on our behalf, without the resurrection we'd have no hope. God has no interest in us giving up chocolate for forty days and God knows no such creature as a "bodiless soul" running around heaven. Men have turned the resurrection into an asterisk by adopting Plato's idea of the "immortal soul" after Augustine inflicted it on the faith.

We don't judge the sincere believer in the pew. We cannot read hearts. We acknowledge our own limitations and failings. But can some of the egregious scandals that have rocked the Charismatic-Pentecostal movement since its inception be simply an expected byproduct of the theology itself?

We pull back the lens on the recent scandals (theological and moral) at Bethel Church and other places like The International House of Prayer (IHOPKC) and examine what makes these teachers and congregations so seemingly vulnerable to scandal and disappointment and error.

We look again at Calvin's Commentary, this time his harsh words for the enlightened and chosen apostles of Christ in Acts 1. Calvin's refusal to see that the God who promised a land and a kingdom to his earthly people will keep those promises.

In Acts 1 when the risen Lord teaches his apostles (to whom he promised would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel in Matthew 19:28) about the kingdom, they ask him one question. The Lord does not chastise them for asking the question nor does he accused them of misunderstanding his teachings on the kingdom. So John Calvin took it upon himself to scorch the Lord's chosen.

Just as his failure and refusal to see the fulfilment of the promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and the nation of Israel all through the Lord's ministry as we saw in our studies on Calvin and the Sermon on the Mount, so here does Calvin refuse to see God as a God who keeps his word.

The Lord's disciples believed the prophets and the Lord. The apostles believed the promise of the "new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah" replacing the covenant he "made with THEIR fathers in the day that I took THEM by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt." John Calvin and his disciples somehow want to make God a liar and greedily claim the kingdom for themselves. 

The irony here is that in doing so, they ignore the greater hope of blessings in the heavenly places revealed through Paul for the current age.

Teachers and Preachers often take us to Romans 13 when speaking of the believer's duty to "obey" the government. But did Paul give those instructions for all men of all ages? Obviously I don't think so or I wouldn't have posed the question as such! We will compare Romans 13 with the Post-Acts instructions in 1 Timothy (as we did with Paul's instructions for marriage and child-rearing in the two ages).

We speak briefly again concerning the convergence of a false Christendom and its outward revival. As we have noted, the only way for any semblance of what is called "Christian Nationalism" to emerge is for the true faith to compromise every single foundational truth.

If we are looking for a revival of a Christ alone, Faith alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone we are not going to find it. And in the eagerness to obtain some fantasy of cultural and political control, all of that will be jettisoned for the sake of "unity" to achieve an unachievable goal.

Christians have historically been persecuted by those who opposed the gospel of grace (grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, Bible alone). What we may be on the cusp of is a movement of those claiming to be Evangelical Christians rising against other Evangelical Christians.
 
Some Christians who have the ability to discern false Christianity and a willingness to stand against it will be attacked by those who refuse to make a difference. We may see what the believers who so desperately want a political windfall put aside the very basics of the faith in order to achieve temporal goals. 

The Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) world has long fallen prey to that temptation. And what makes it worse is the desire to be lauded as "loving" by openly refusing to defend the true faith.

We briefly review Vice President Vance's prayer in the aftermath of the horrible tragedy at Annunciation Catholic Church and School. As someone who attended and RC elementary school for 8 years, I can try, as best I can, to enter into the pain felt by that tight-knit community. But that does not exempt the VP from scrutiny over his words to the nation in light of God's message to mankind.

We briefly look at even more "real" Catholics telling me nobody needs to listen to the pope.

Finally, we examine other scriptures ripped from their contexts and revisit the basics of Bible interpretation and the essential of Right Division (2 Tim 2:15).

Another oft-quoted verse by Christians is Micah 6:8 ("what does the Lord require of you, but to act justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God..."). But what about the verses around it? Why aren't churches claiming those? Well, for the same reason they ignore a lot of verses around a lot of popular "claimed" verses.

On our journey, we look for positive things from the Hebrew scriptures that we CAN take comfort in. All scripture is profitable and we learn about the character of God in many places, even if we can't directly claim what is contained therein.

We look at Psalm 113, Micah 6, and then wander over into this age and look at some things in the Book of Philippians.

We finish our trip through the topic of Marriage and Divorce in scripture. We do a bit of review and then move through Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 7. We discuss God's practical solution for the problem of lust and the natural desires of the flesh.

God wants to provide both security and affection in a bond meant to last a lifetime. Paul also has to deal with the influx of grafted in Gentiles who may have entered the faith with an unbelieving spouse. What can we learn from this unique situation?

In Israel and in the Law, no such provision is discussed. In hie mercy and grace, the Lord understands we are fallen creatures and he provides various instructions to help us walk as closely to his will as possible.

We will revisit the woman at the well in John 4 and the woman taken in an act of adultery in John 8 and observe how the Lord deals with these woman and how that differs from both how the Law and Paul approach the issue.

We continues our path through the sometimes complex issue of Marriage and Divorce in a Christian context. W start, as we always should, with the original design, them progress through God's dealings with a mixed church in the Acts as they anticipated terrible days ahead.

We compare a few of Paul's instructions during the Acts age against his Post Acts instructions. We get a little into the marriages themselves and Paul's warnings about giving Satan a foothold in our homes.

Paul addresses, in a very practical way, God's remedy for the sinful tendencies of the flesh. Marriage is offered as a remedy for lust, and the coming together as one as a remedy for rampant fornication, adultery, and other perversions of the original design.

This is an enormous topic that is very simple in some ways and very complex in other ways. It started off simply in the Garden: one man, one woman, one flesh, without end. Sin and death was introduced into the world by our father, Adam, and God had to start dealing with men and women and our frailties.

We will look at marriage under the Law and how God had to make exceptions to his design for a fallen world and a fallen people. As he made his covenant with Israel and gave her the Law for the land, our Lord included concessions to the weakness of mankind. The Lord Jesus had to deal with this issue in his ministry to both Israel and to Gentiles.