my comment was to draw a comparison to the first and second comings of Jesus. (Suffering Servant, Conquering King).

“ The Bible is full of people who spoke with ignorant authority on what they believed He would or would not do in future – and low and behold they were the very people who did not recognise Him when He arrived. They were expecting a warrior and instead received a servant. Do you think there’s any danger that you may be thinking along the same lines?”

I understand that many people were incorrect and didn’t recognise the Messiah for who He is. There were also many people (for example the prophets) who did recognise the Messiah for who He is. In order for us to walk on the narrow road and enter through the narrow gate, an understanding of Gods Word is certainly helpful. Ignorance will not be an excuse that the Lord will accept.

If you look at Franks article Palestinians and Christian Reductionism, Peter recommends some good literature, including the Bible.

Also you will clearly have to find a university that gives you some better tuition for your money.

Daniel 2:21 – 22

21 He changes times and seasons;
       he sets up kings and deposes them.
       He gives wisdom to the wise
       and knowledge to the discerning.
22 He reveals deep and hidden things;
       he knows what lies in darkness,
       and light dwells with him.

Priceless.

The single most influential thing I learned at uni was that you don’t know what you don’t know. Always important to hold that one alongside any opinion.

I look forward to your response to the latest post. Hopefully you can offer me something new. I’ve read a few commentaries that would disagree with my position and read plenty of stuff on the net that offers rebuttals to it, breaking down the verses I have pointed to. I haven’t found any of it convincing or very thorough. I’m guessing you’ll be able to go a bit further than their scholarly efforts

As stated in the post though, I won’t be entering a lengthy discussion on the matter. The post was written to convey some of my thoughts and reasoning, not to enter a long drawn out debate.

Esther, I don’t get it… sorry for being a bit slow… you’ll need to explain that last comment to me.

Bishop Not Totally Wright is wrong.

I’ll save my fabulously serious comments for your new article – Israel & Israel in the Bible.
I didn’t realize there are, I mean were, um I mean ‘was’ maybe two, Israels.

Cheers.

Flendolyn,

I don’t like to think just how shocked and surprised people we be with Jesus – the perfect fulfillment of what is promised, yet nothing like what many will be expecting when he returns to bring judgment on the nations attacking Jerusalem and to show mercy upon Israel!

Frank could you quickly answer one question before you go back to being on holiday .. Who or what do you think is the greater reality that was Israel?

Thanks Esther

David, thanks for noting the wonderful passage Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Rome. I find Paul to be a wonderful thinker, adept at linking and weaving his thoughts together. Romans 11 is a fine example of this, especially when placed together with his whole section of thought from Romans 9-11 and then within the entire letter itself.

Needless to say we see different conclusions in the passage you have quoted. It would take too long for me to go into detail about my thoughts around the quoted passage, except to say that I am in complete agreement with the commentary of it offered by Bishop N.T Wright in The New Interpreter’s Bible commentary series. He unpacks the passage extremely well and relates it to Paul’s wider thoughts. His exegesis and commentary on Romans is fabulous.

I also agree with one of his concluding reflections on Romans 11:

The second obvious and necessary point is that Paul nowhere gives the slightest indication that ethnic Israel will one day return to their land and set up an independent state, which will in due course become the vehicle of God’s blessing to the world. Of course, in his day kinsfolk were still living in the land and worshiping in the Temple. Most Jews were already in the Diaspora, but many were living in the holy land, and had been for centuries. There was no thought of that awful second exile, of the desolations of 70ce and 135ce, of the banishment to which, in the eyes of many, the creation of the modern state of Israel has provided the answer. But even if there had been, there is nothing in Romans or elsewhere in Paul to give any theological support to the latter notion. The roots of the return-to-the-land theology that has become so extraordinarily popular among some churches in our own day are to be sought in the dispensationalist speculations of the nineteenth century, not in the apostolic writings of the first. As far as Paul is concerned, the promise to Abraham and has family was that they would inherit the world (Rom 4:13), the world would share in the freedom of the glory of God’s children (8:18-27). Any attempt to give a Christian gloss to the Middle Eastern political events of 1947 and thereafter is without exegetical foundation.

To further express my thoughts without having to write an essay myself (something I don’t have time for right now, as your latter request would demand, David allow me to also recommend Bishop Wright’s article – Jerusalem in the New Testament:
http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jerusalem_New_Testament.pdf

Esther,

I totally agree with you on this:

Isn’t it dangerous to take the words of God, place a particular theology over them and then come out with something completely contrary to the plain meaning of what God is saying?

Except I find the idea of a “plain meaning” to be a little naive. The natural question is, a plain meaning according to whom? If you isolate the passage, it would seem very simple – but when placed in light of many other passages, the depths of possible interpretation suddenly become a lot more colourful and then the idea of a “plain meaning” is betrayed by our preconceptions, cultural understandings and various other things.

I see my own thoughts around this in the past to have been somewhat arrogant – where I believed I could just come to the text as a 20th/21st century western male and assume that the way I understood everything in the Bible was the same way a 1st century Christian would have. People like Bishop N.T Wright have taught me that there are many more nuances to everything than I had even begun to understand and that the reality was way bigger and more significant than I had understood. Needless to say, many of my thoughts around such matters have changed over the years. I used to think that the establishment of the modern state of Israel was by divine appointment, that we were in the “end times”, that the temple was to be rebuilt in Jerusalem and manned by a Levitical priesthood whose bloodline had remained pure and that Christ would return and reign from there etc etc. I would have been described as a dispensationalist. This is no longer true of me, but nor could I be described accurately as holding to replacement theology. I think both overarching ideas, Dispensationalism and Replacement Theology, miss the mark

This is a topic that 3 of you (Peter, Esther and David) and I will have to respectfully disagree on. A comments section on a blog does not provide the space or time needed to enter a lengthy discussion about the theology of the matter and all the nuances in the Bible relating to it, though I am sure such a discussion would be wonderful as you seem like well informed people, plus disconnected commenting on a blog does not allow for all the colour of human discussion and does not allow us to be understood properly – things can be misread.

So from here, I will ask for your prayers – that I would remain humble and open to the leading and prompting of God – that where I need correction, that such correction would be clearly illuminated in a way that would enable me to be transformed where necessary – that I would always approach discussion with an open mind and be willing to listen – that love for all, including my enemies would drive all my actions – and ultimately that I would continue to be shaped into the image of the King, Jesus Christ even where that means pain and sacrifice.

May the lord bless and keep you.

The one that Esther is referring to is the covenant that God has with Abraham and his descendants. It is an unconditional and everlasting covenant.

Gods sworn oath to give the land to Israel as an ‘everlasting possession’ is referenced 46 times in Scripture.

The actual covenant is described in Genesis 17.