Lovin' Tellin' The Story

Photo courtesy of grzswe Most everyone has heard an alarm go off. It may be something as mundane as the alarm clock every morning that tells us it is time to get up and get ready for work, or it may be something as frightening as a fire alarm. No matter what the specific purpose of the alarm they all share one common theme: they are meant to alert people and warn them of impending danger.   In Joel 2:1 the Lord commands the prophet to; Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain because the day of the Lord is coming. That is, God’s judgment is coming upon Israel for their sinfulness. Further along in the chapter, in verse 15, Joel is again commanded to blow a trumpet but this time it is to call the assembly of the people together so that they can, consecrate a fast . This tells us two important things about the role, or the duty, of the prophet of God. First, it tells us that the prophet is to act as an alarm to warn the people of God’s coming judgment. Seco

Courtesy of ba1969 Through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1:3b. If you ask people whether or not they believe in Jesus you would probably find the overwhelming majority of people answer affirmatively. In the face of the historical evidence for His existence denying that a man called Jesus lived in first century Palestine would be like denying gravity, or holding to the idea that the earth is flat. The simple fact is that history shows that Jesus lived. The trouble comes, not from verifying His life, but in understanding what that life meant and who, exactly, this Jesus was. The answers that people give to the questions of who He was and what He did provide us, as Christians, with a critical litmus test for discerning true and false doctrine, and true and false teachers. In his second letter Peter is tackling the problem of false teachers and profits in the Church. Just as Paul does in his first letter to Timothy, Peter not only

Picture from ocoeeridge1.com For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. 2 Peter 2:19. In chapter 2 of 2 Peter the disciple begins to give warning about false prophets and teachers (As a side note there is a strong focus in the New Testament on being aware of false teachers that we should take note of today.). Around about verse 12 Peter starts to paint a picture of the offerings of the false teachers which looks an awful lot like a list of sensual, fleshly desires and lusts, and it is. Then in verse 19 he explains that false teachers offer freedom but in the end all that is received is bondage to sin. As you see in the quotation above the last part of the verse tells us that whatever it is that overcomes us, or overwhelms us, is what will ultimately enslave us. The obvious take-home lesson here is that if we allow ourselves to be overcome by sin we will, undoubtedly, become slaves to it. That being said, Peter does give us a prelude to this "bad news" in