PREACHING THIS MORNING...'The Hope That Is In You' from 1 Peter 3:8-22. Through the resurrection of Christ we are to be a humble people of fearless hope. As an appeal to a good conscience before God, we submit ourselves to the saving waters of baptism that we might, like Noah, be separated from sin and death.
This evening...'The Handwriting On the Wall' from Daniel 5. Belshazzar learned not to mock the God of heaven. No matter how impregnable the walls around us seem, nothing can protect us from the judgment of God.
Showing posts with label Daniel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daniel. Show all posts
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Sunday, October 05, 2008
PREACHING THIS MORNING...'Duties of Elders & the Church' in view of an elder appointment process that is being initiated today.
This evening 'The Fiery Furnace' from Daniel 3. Like Daniel's three friends, we must be ready to stand by our commitment to God regardless of the consequences, knowing that He will never forsake us.
This evening 'The Fiery Furnace' from Daniel 3. Like Daniel's three friends, we must be ready to stand by our commitment to God regardless of the consequences, knowing that He will never forsake us.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
THE GREAT DANIEL COMMENTARY CONUNDRUM
Everyone knows Daniel: the fiery furnace, the lion's den, handwriting on the wall. Great stuff. It's those later chapters that can be a little trickier delving as they do into apocalyptic writing. As with New Testament apocalyptic book Revelation this has led to a lot of wild eyed speculation devolving into commonly accepted premillennial dispensationalism, an approach I reject.
On the other end of the spectrum are the standard commentaries that do reject the dispensational approach. Why not just get a couple of those, you might ask. Daniel is a prophetic book, one that is pretty explicit about its prophecies. So explicit, in fact, that many modern commentators reject outright that it could have been written during the period of the exile at all. Instead, they argue, the book was written later after the events it 'prophesies' as a retrospective. In short, these commentaries do not take Daniel as a historical figure seriously nor the early (ie, exile) date of the book seriously. As someone who does believe that the book was written by the prophet Daniel during the exile these commentaries are also of little use to me.
So what is a non-dispensational Biblical conservative to do as I seek to sail between Scylla and Charybdis?
Everyone knows Daniel: the fiery furnace, the lion's den, handwriting on the wall. Great stuff. It's those later chapters that can be a little trickier delving as they do into apocalyptic writing. As with New Testament apocalyptic book Revelation this has led to a lot of wild eyed speculation devolving into commonly accepted premillennial dispensationalism, an approach I reject.
On the other end of the spectrum are the standard commentaries that do reject the dispensational approach. Why not just get a couple of those, you might ask. Daniel is a prophetic book, one that is pretty explicit about its prophecies. So explicit, in fact, that many modern commentators reject outright that it could have been written during the period of the exile at all. Instead, they argue, the book was written later after the events it 'prophesies' as a retrospective. In short, these commentaries do not take Daniel as a historical figure seriously nor the early (ie, exile) date of the book seriously. As someone who does believe that the book was written by the prophet Daniel during the exile these commentaries are also of little use to me.
So what is a non-dispensational Biblical conservative to do as I seek to sail between Scylla and Charybdis?
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