Danny Tanner grew up in the Lutheran Church and later got heavily involved with the Brethren in Christ group.  He’s served as a worship pastor, an associate pastor, and an executive pastor.  Currently he’s involved in a church plant.  Over the years he’s questioned his faith, but never let himself dive in deep enough to reconsider his core beliefs.  He didn’t want to give himself permission to reconsider any of them, because he was worried he might end up renouncing his faith.  After hearing about biblical unitarianism from Jeremy Bowders, he began working through his understanding of God and Christ.  The bible starting making sense and coming alive in a fresh way for him.

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While working in a casket factory as an upholsterer, one day Jeremy Bowders reflected on the fact that he would be in one eventually. He began asking the big questions about his life’s purpose. He began reading the bible and became a Christian. In the course of researching open theism, he read an article by William Lane Craig that mentioned Dale Tuggy. He came to trinities.org and began listening to Tuggy’s podcast, specifically episode 6 where a Muslim, a biblical unitarian, and a trinitarian debated Jesus’ identity.  Strangely enough, he found himself agreeing with the biblical unitarian!  According to Bowders, understanding that the Father is the only true God and that Jesus is his human messiah was like finding the decoder ring in a cereal box.  Suddenly the bible made much more sense to him.

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Having overcome his desire to remain in the background, Jonathen Favors boldly shared his testimony of coming to understand who God is.  After a severe football injury, he had a lot of time to spend time with and think about God.  While attending BIOLA University, he had learned that the title “Son of God” is a messianic title, but he didn’t understand how God could be three in one.  He began reading through scripture to discover Jesus’ conception of God.

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Now that we’ve looked at many of the kingdom texts from the Old Testament, today we’ll get into the New Testament and see what Jesus and the apostles taught about the kingdom.  We’ll examine the titles of Jesus, a couple of his parables, some texts from Paul and James, and conclude in Revelation.  In this lecture, we’ll restrict our focus to just those verses that speak of the kingdom as future.  We’ll come back to the other kingdom scriptures in the New Testament in subsequent lectures.

This is lecture 5 of the Kingdom of God class, originally taught at the Atlanta Bible College.  To take this class for credit, please contact ABC so you can do the work necessary for a grade.

Notes:

My goal is to cruise through the New Testament and look at texts pertaining to the coming kingdom (Matthew to Revelation)

defining Messiah/Christ: the one God anoints to rule over the kingdom

defining Son of Man: the one Daniel saw in a vision to whom God gave the kingdom

defining Son of David: the promised descendant to rule on the throne of David forever

defining Son of God: same as God’s messiah (2 Sam 7.14) and God’s creation (Luke 1)

Jesus clearly believed in a coming (future) kingdom

Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

They [the meek] show by every word and gesture that they do not belong to this earth.  Leave heaven to them, says the world in its pity, that is where they belong.  But Jesus says: “They shall inherit the earth.”  To these, the powerless and the disenfranchised, the very earth belongs.  Those who now possess it by violence and injustice shall lose it, and those who here have utterly renounced it, who

Simply put, restorationism is the approach to Christianity that seeks to compare accepted doctrines and practices against the bible to see if they are valid.  Our intention is to recover authentic New Testament Christianity and live it out today.  We hold God’s inspired scriptures above traditions, creeds, and clergy.  The time is ripe for us to reach over denominational lines and dialogue with each other about our differences in a respectful and constructive manner.  We are restorationists and this is our manifesto.

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Last time we looked at the kingdom prophecies in Isaiah.  Today we’ll examine Amos, Micah, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Ezekiel, and Daniel to continue developing a biblical picture of the age to come.

This is lecture 4 of the Kingdom of God class, originally taught at the Atlanta Bible College.  To take this class for credit, please contact ABC so you can do the work necessary for a grade.

Notes:

We’ve already looked at God’s promises to Abraham and David as well as the richest kingdom book of the bible—Isaiah.  Now we will examine several other key prophecies and psalms.

Amos 9.11-15

Micah 4.6-8

Zephaniah 3.8-20

Let’s face it; it’s difficult to talk about pornography, especially among Christians.  We get overwhelmed with feelings of shame and embarrassment while fearing how others will regard us with disgust or disdain.  However, this issue is a huge struggle for a ton of Christians (and non-Christians) in the world today.  Drawing on some of what he shared last week about spiritual disciplines, Blake Cortright joins us once again to tackle this sensitive topic.  He explains why porn is so hard to quit as well as reasons why it’s worth it to gain freedom from this taskmaster.  In a remarkable display of courage and honesty, Cortright also shares his own 10+ year struggle with pornography and what measures he took that finally liberated him.

Warning, if children are around, although we do not discuss any graphic content, the general topic is probably inappropriate, depending on the ages.

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The prophet Isaiah spoke more about the kingdom than any other prophet in the Hebrew bible. Consequently, his book is a phenomenal place to begin developing our understanding of what the kingdom will be like.  Stitching together his various snapshots, we encounter a magnificent collage detailing a new world full of peace, justice, and healing.

This is lecture 3 of the Kingdom of God class, originally taught at the Atlanta Bible College.  To take this class for credit, please contact ABC so you can do the work necessary for a grade.

Notes:

God will make everything wrong with the world right.

Isaiah 2.1-4

Isaiah 9.2-7

Isaiah 11.1-10

Isaiah 25.6-9

Isaiah 35.1-10

Isaiah 51.3-8

Isaiah 60.1-22

Isaiah 61.1-7

Isaiah 65.17-25

What spiritual disciplines do you practice?  We’re all familiar with reading our bibles and prayer, but there’s so much more available.  In this interview, Blake Cortright guides us through his own journey into discovering ancient Christian disciplines that can help us today, including prayer, fasting, meditation, bible study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.  Pulling on the work of Richard Foster, Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard, and John Eldredge, Cortright shares how these spiritual disciplines can help center us and sanctify us so we can live for God better today.

Notes and Links:

It’s impossible to understand the kingdom of God or Jesus without having a grasp of the history-changing promises God made with Abraham and David.  To Abraham God covenanted the land and to David, a descendant to rule.  Ultimately these two covenants find their fulfillment in Jesus of Nazareth–the Messiah.

This is lecture 2 of the Kingdom of God class, originally taught at the Atlanta Bible College.  To take this class for credit, please contact ABC so you can do the work necessary for a grade.

Notes:

defining a covenant

Abraham (Land Promise)

Gen 12.1-4: the pre-covenant

Gen 12.5-7

Gen 17.1-12, 23-27: the blood covenant