Opus 2025-447: Judge Not

I got to thinking about one of the promises that Jesus gave to the disciples,

Matthew 19:28 (KJV) And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

This sounds really glorious at first.  Who wouldn’t want to be the one sitting on the bench and making the judgments?  Then I got to thinking about what it meant to be a judge of Israel.  Go back and read over the book of Judges.  Look at I Samuel and see what he had to go through.  Now ask yourself, “Is this really something I would want to do?”

It’s a part of our carnal nature to think of the glory of being in charge, but the real issue would be having to deal with a bunch of pesky, belligerent, selfish tribesmen.  I’m not sure that would be such a wonderful way to spend eternity, or the thousand years if you’re into the millennium.  I find myself wondering also if this is the end times and people are supposed to be redeemed at that point, what is there to judge?  Won’t we just get along?

This might give us some insight into eternity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-012: Keep Reading

I have a friend who has a lot of strange doctrines.  He feels the same about me.  We keep trying to straighten each other out on certain parts of the Bible.  We were on the end times, a favorite of his, and he quoted verses the talked about the 12 apostles sitting on thrones and judging in the kingdom.  We looked the verses up and that seemed what they were saying.  After we hung up, my mind started coming up with, “Wait a minute, what about...”  I needed to look at that again.  I did a search for the two words “twelve” and “thrones” and came up with two sources.  I believe the one in Matthew is the one quoted to me.  There is a similar idea in Luke.  In Matthew it seemed clear from this that Jesus is talking about the twelve apostles ruling the twelve tribes.

Matthew 19:28 (KJV) And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Luke is similar but throws in the word “kingdom” which is also a favorite of my friend.  I imagine he did not share Luke with me is that it ends up working against his position.

Luke 22:30 (KJV) That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

In my mind there was a bit of tension with that thought as I vaguely remembered verses in Revelation.  So I looked up the verses dealing with the “thousand years” and the “thousand year reign of Jesus”, and so forth and looked for who would be sitting with Him.  Revelation did not seem to match with what Jesus was describing.

In Revelation I found it seems to have more than just twelve apostles sitting on thrones and reigning with Jesus for the thousand years,

Revelation 20:4 (KJV) And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

I did a search on the word “twelve”.  As expected, it was very frequent in the Old Testament so I narrowed it down to the New Testament and still got over 60 references.  I narrowed it down to Revelation where I got a quantity I could work with.  As I look through the references to twelve in Revelation, I saw the number twelve was never associated with 12 apostles.  This does not negate the conclusion presented from the gospels, Revelation does not say they were not there.  It doesn’t support it either.  The problem was with other points my friend was making.

It seems to me in my memory he somehow felt it was significant to say we don’t have priests anymore and how Peter was talking about the royal priesthood by quoting Exodus.  Priesthood is just a Jewish concept and does not fit with Christians.  His question had to do with the legitimacy of the writings of Peter but I found that it came up in my reading on the twelve and the kingdom.

Here I see a reference that would go against that.  Notice this is just two verses after the other passage I referenced in Revelation.

Revelation 20:6 (KJV) Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

It seems to be saying that in the thousand year kingdom there will be priests of Jesus.

It is things like this that make me unfocus on eschatology.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-279: Dark Thoughts: Is God a Chicken?, Part 1 of 2

One of the ways in which I begin my day is to contemplate what God is like.  That can morph into spiritual hallucinations.  You can touch on the futility of the physical aspects.  It could be intellectual.  Ultimately I come to the place where I accept the clear, concise, accurate description of God is beyond my comprehension.

Think of the different ways in which you would have to put the details together to get a literal description of God.  One of my favorites is that He is a big chicken.  Notice this,

(Psa 91:4 KJV)  He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Feathers?  Wings?  I would say no one in their right mind would ever genuinely consider God to be a chicken, but then I think of some of the people I’ve met, and discussed things with, and have to back away from that statement.

What this puts me in mind of is interpreting scripture.  We often come across things in the Bible that are either difficult to understand, or, to be honest, impossible for us to understand.  And that speaks of prophecy.  I’ve just finished reading Isaiah.  There are long passages of vague references to unknown places and people that I will never be able to figure out.  That is either because I can’t or I’m just too lazy.  Or it’s on my bucket list and I probably won’t get to it before I die.

But let’s take some thing where we understand every word, and can even get a picture of it in our minds, but we need to try and understand what the Bible is saying.  Take, for instance, the reference to a camel going through the eye of a needle.

(Mat 19:24 KJV)  And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Now you can approach this from several different ways.  A person of normal intelligence and goodwill would look at that, read the context, and understand that Jesus is using hyperbole to make a point.  It would be obvious that a camel cannot go through the eye of a needle.  The response of the disciples makes it sound like a literal statement and makes them seem a bit slow.  Jesus then goes on and explains that, yes, it is indeed impossible, but God can do anything.

You can get all that from reading but that is not good enough for some people.

To be continued...

homo unius libri