Our next class will be a Discussion Group Tuesday, November 1 at 6:00 till we have no more questions. All students who are taking the class for Credit are required to attend.Everyone is welcome to come and discuss what you have learned from your readings. Be prepared to discuss The Old Testament and Genesis 1-11. We will be serving Pizza the first hour and dessert after.
Please rsvp if you are attending so I can order enough food.Email me if you have any questions barbarac@cornerstoneweb.org

The Middle East and the End-Times

Are the current events in the Middle East signs of the end-times? This question is posed way too often and receives too much attention in evangelical churches. In my opinion, and I will write about this in the future, the question is the result of a very faulty hermeneutic (how one reads the Bible). A far more important question is, 'what does all this mean for the Church?'--both the Church in the Middle East and the Church around the world. We will directly address this question at our conference on Christianity and the Middle East (Nov 18-19, 2011 in Livermore, Ca. at Cornerstone Fellowship--see our website . During my opening presentation at this conference I will contend that the Bible does not give us a roadmap of events that will transpire immediately prior to Jesus' return. Instead, we are told that 'no one knows' the time of Jesus' return (note Matt 24:42-44 says we do not know the 'hour', 'time', or 'day'). After all, if Jesus didn't know the time of His return, then I doubt seriously that He was giving us indications as to when it was going to occur! Instead, Jesus tells us to 'be ready!' (Matt 24:44). But what does 'be ready' mean? I will suggest that 'being ready' means 'caring for the least of these brothers of mine' (Matt 25:40). Interestingly, most people don't notice the connection with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25:31-46) to Jesus' sermon of Matt 24 (actually the sermon likely begins in Matt 23:2). That Matt 25 is included in the same sermon of Jesus is evidenced by two features of Matthew's Gospel: First, Matthew has five distinct sermons of Jesus each of which end with 'And it happened, when Jesus finished all these words' (my translation). This expression occurs in Matt 26:1 (see also: 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1). Therefore, we conclude that this speech of Jesus, which began in 23:2 or 24:4, continues through all of chapter 25. Secondly, there is no other break in the message of Matt 24-25 in which one could say that the speech ends here. The only break is found in 26:1. Therefore, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is the conclusion to Jesus' famed 'end-times' sermon of Matt 24-25 (or 23-25). This parable informs us that when He returns He will judge between the sheep and the goats and the basis for this judgment is how have we treated the people of God? (note: the phrase ‘Least of these' refers without exception to disciples of Jesus in Matt: cf 10:42; 18:6, 10, 14; 5:19; 11:11; and the phrase ‘brothers of mine’: throughout Matt this indicates followers of Christ: cf 5:22-24, 47; 7:3-5; 12:48-50; 18:15, 21, 35; 23:8; 28:10; cp Matt 12:50: ‘Whoever does the will of my Father . . . He is my brother, and sister, and mother’). So, instead of watching the news with excitement over the events of the Middle East as though they are portents of Jesus' return, we should heed the words of Christ to 'be ready'. Since being ready means caring for those in the body of Christ as our first duty, we must become informed of the well-being of the body of Christ, both locally and globally! Pray for the Church. Pray for our conference! See you there!

Peter the Son of Jonah or John

Matt 16:17 says that Peter is the son of Jonah; while John 1:42 and 21:15-17 says that he is the son of John--though the KJV says son of Jonah. so we have two questions here: what does the most reliable Greek texts say (Jonah or John)?; and if John reads 'the son of John' then how do we address the discrepancy between Matt and John the reading in John 1:42; 21:15-17 is simply a manuscript issue. The issue is raised because John says that Peter is the son of John (1:42; 21:15-17); while the Gospel of Matt says that he is Peter the son of Jonah (Matt 16:17). This discrepancy likely led some copiests to change the mss of John so that it agrees with Matthew. The result is a question among the mansucripts. The KJV of John simply sides with the mss tradition that favors Jonah (the mss tradition of the KJV, in my opinion, is not usually the most reliable tradition; the best mss of John 1:42; 21:15-17; say ‘son of John’). So was Peter the son of Jonah (Matt) or the son of John (John)? There are several answers available. 1) ‘son of’ means ‘having the characteristics of.’ Thus, the Jews say they are ‘sons of’ Abraham and Jesus says, ‘then do the deeds of Abraham’ (John 8). Matthew may then have referred to Peter as someone like Jonah (with his father’s name being John as the Gospel of John says); note that Jonah is not a common 1st century name; 2) Peter’s father could have had multiple names--Jonah and John; 3) We don’t know I would opt for option 1 or 3: We would then ask, why was Matthew referring to Peter as someone like Jonah?