The Right Time, The Right Place. : A New Testament Survey: A New Testament Survey

By Limmer, Brian, E. R.

Book Id: WPLBN0100303517
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.1 MB
Reproduction Date: 3/4/2021

Title:	The Right Time, The Right Place. : A New Testament Survey: A New Testament Survey
Author:	Limmer, Brian, E. R.
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Religion, Bible Survey
Collections:	Authors Community, Christianity
Historic Publication Date:	2021
Publisher:	Limmer’s Loft Publishing

Member Page:	Brian Limmer
Citation APA MLA Chicago E. R. Limme, B. B. (2021). The Right Time, The Right Place. : A New Testament Survey. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.cc/

Description
There are two golden rules for reading scripture. The first is to get as close to the mind of the writer as you can, the second to get as close to the understanding of the original reader as you can. In other words, it is about getting into the right time and the right place. Without these considerations you can guarantee to introduce error. The amazing thing about Scripture is how the Old-Testament was so full of predictions that came true in such fine detail. To accomplish that, meant the subject of those prophecies had to be in the right time and right place. As the story of the New-Testament unfolds, we begin to see the hand of a Creator God, who has ordained a purpose and destiny for all history. The strangest thing to understand is why that purpose for all human-beings and all time, pivots on one event and one time, namely the cross and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. This New-Testament survey tries to help unlock this mystery.

Summary
The new is in the old contained, the old is in the new explained (Augustine). We cannot just simply move from the Old-Testament to the New without setting the scene of transition. The New-Testament fulfils what the Old-Testament predicted. It puts its seal of approval on all that was anticipated. The Old-Testament has made it clear that, although the promise was sufficient to save from the beginning of time, the means of salvation needed to be implemented at a certain point of time in history. Confidence in, and compliance with God are all He needs to deliver Salvation from the time of Adam through to the final Judgement day. Anyone can receive salvation and eternal life by a life of faith and obedience to God the creator. However: When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Excerpt
We close the Old-Testament with seven outstanding events unfinished, These things must take place before the New-Testament can open. First, the relevant parts of Daniel and Ezekiel’s prophecy must be fulfilled. Four conquering nations must come, each swallowing up the previous empire to enlarge it. Babylon and Assyria had come, Greece and Rome had yet to come. Second, The scriptures must be consolidated and canonized as the foundation. National prophets were about to hand over the baton to Priests for a time; There was to be no more national prophesy, until one like Elijah would announce the Messiah. Third, the promised seed line must hand over the baton safely to one who could combine the role of Prophet, Priest and King, ‘after the example of Melchizedek’. The LORD said unto my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand,3 until I make your enemies your footstool'. The LORD shall send the sceptre of your authority out from Zion: rule in the midst of your enemies until the people own your power. In the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning you have the dew of youth. The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Fourth, Judaism must refocus away from the central temple worship, to form congregational groups. The Temple is to be destroyed after the ‘abomination of desolation’, and synagogue congregations around the world must be ready to transform into the church. The Church is going to spread like wildfire and will need synagogue bases ready to receive the fire and pass it on. This process had already begun when they were carried away to Babylon, where they formed congregations up and down the land. We will return to this in a minute. Fifth, for the gospel to spread to the whole world, geographically the world must have road networks to carry it. This part of the pre-planning of God will be carried out by the Greeks and consolidated by the Romans. Sixth, the people need to be one tongue. Pentecost was an exceptional sign that the Gospel will be world-wide. While the gift of tongues is still present in the Church, it is rarely reported that evangelists speak to peoples of all tongues without an interpreter. Even Paul needed Mark to interpret for him in Rome. Greek and Aramaic were to become the common languages of the known world, and the language in which most people received the gospel. Seventh, but by no means the final point, the political climate needed to be right. Leaders must be both tolerant at times, and hostile enough to drive the Church further round the world at other times. What happened in that four-hundred-years was a seismic shift in world culture. But because it is not recorded in scripture it is often ignored by Christians. As a consequence, Church had and has become a hotbed of ‘Good News Plus’. Not only the teachings of Paul but also teachings of Jesus are interpreted without understanding why, where or when they were taught. Like the Judaizers of old, rules and regulations are added to the gospel without rhyme or reason. For that reason the introduction of this book will be longer. But it will considerably shorten the time needed to explain verses in chapters following. That is because the background is common to most of the world at that time, and the passages will become self-explanatory. God deals with nations. God chose Israel to deliver the seed line from Adam to Messiah, and also to demonstrate God’s ‘Kingdom ways’ to the world. Four other empires, prophesied by Daniel, Ezekiel, (and others), were also allowed (or chosen), to rise and conquer. Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, were all part of the preparation for Messiah’s coming. Each of the four nations shaped the world ready for one who will be Prophet, Priest and King. The New-Testament writers had to deal with many false ideas that had crept into the Church, almost as soon as it is born. Most are still around to this day. So, to avoid repeating them in each book or letter, we will deal with them here and refer back to them as we meet them later. Historically: Geographically, Palestine was the centre of God’s activity. God called Abraham out of Babylon and placed his descendants slap bang in the middle of three continents. Consequently, whenever one land had a disagreement with another they would invariably have to fight over the top of this little bridge point called Palestine where they lived. We left the Old-Testament with the Persians as the top nation. Daniel prophesied the Greeks would rise next, to conquer Persia and become the next superpower. They duly emerged to rule from three-thirty-one  BC to three-twenty-three  BC. A triangle of three small states, Macedon, Thrace and Sparta, were being starved of water by surrounding nations. Philip of Macedon made some deals with the crushing nations to take over the region. He quickly grew his army and conquered the surrounding nations. But he died young. His son Alexander-the-Great took up the mantle to conquer all the lands from Macedonia to India. Alexander’s new elephant-tank corps required new direct roads which they cut through the surrounding lands. Later the Romans upgraded them and took the credit as great road builders. On his way to Egypt, Alexander marched toward Palestine. Josephus records that the high priest, named Juddua, rode out to meet him and showed him the prophecy of Daniel. Whereupon Alexander, recognizing himself in the prophecy, favoured the Jews with a puppet priest rather than destroying them. He then passed through their land to conquer Egypt. This allowed Israel leeway to keep their laws and worship God for a while longer. Juddua befriended Alexander-the-Great and secured an exemption from paying the tribute. When Alexander built the great city of Alexandria, he invited at least seventy Jewish scholars to live there in his newly built university. The Jews continued in good favour under the next Polytomy General. Ptolemy II or Philodelphus ordered the Septuagint7 translation of Hebrew Scripture. This translation of the Old-Testament into Greek shows the strong Hellenisation that had occurred to Hebrew people who, up to now, would not write in anything but Hebrew. When Alexander-the-Great was dying, His generals asked him who would inherit the Empire. Alexander was reported to have replied ‘ The strongest’! Five of his generals each grabbed a part of the empire and started to fight among themselves for supremacy. This quickly turned to four as the weakest link was ousted. Cassander took Northern Turkey, Lysimachus took the Southern borders of Russia and Ukraine, Ptolemy took Egypt and Seleucus took Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The struggle for power between Polytomy and Seleucus with Palestine in the middle caused a permanent change in the politics and religious hierarchy of Palestine. In two-hundred-and-fifteenׄׄ  BC, Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), became king of the Seleucid region.9 He was certainly not favourable toward the Jews – nor indeed to anyone. The translation of the Scriptures into Greek began a civil war back in Palestine, the people divided between ‘progressives’, who formed the Sadducees, and ‘Conservatives’, who became the Pharisees. Epiphanes appointed a compliant Sadducee priest to the priesthood for the purpose of promoting worship of Hercules. When the people rebelled against that, Epiphanes sent general Antiochus to sort them out, but he made things worse by desecrating the temple. He took the treasures from it and erected a statue of Jupiter where the altar once stood. He also burned some scripture and forced Jews to eat pork. All this led to the people looking for a champion which they found in the Maccabees. You may have heard of the Hasmonean dynasty, these were the Maccabees. In a tiny town of Modi’in, A priest of this period named Mattathias, when told by Antiochus to offer a pig on the altar of the temple, refused. But another priest, sucking up to the Greeks, offered to do so. Mattathias killed that priest and when the Greeks tried again to enforce the order, Mattathias killed some of them also. Then he took his sons John, Simeon and Judas into the desert from where they carried out Guerrilla warfare on the Greeks. Judas Maccabee, (God’s Hammer), successfully recaptured the temple from the Greeks, with a handful of men, (despite the large Greek armies). He lit the lamp in the temple which was to never supposed to go out11. There was only enough kosher oil for one day, but the lamp stayed alight for eight days until they could produce some more kosher oil. This is the origin of the Jewish Hanukkah celebrations to this day — The festival of light. John Hyrcanus was a son of Simon Maccabee. He fused the Hebrew civil and the religious authorities together. Combining civil and priestly authority was a no, no under Mosaic law until Messiah should come. This evolved into the Sanhedrin, a council of priests with civil authority, the very authority that tried Jesus later. Thus began a dynasty, which saw human beings, trying to establish the kingdom by force rather than being patient for God to establish it under Messiah. ‘Palm-Sunday’ would not have been without this change in culture. God had already quietly taken care of the true kingly line. This was to come via David and Zerubbabel, but it had not been noticed during this four-hundred-year period. As so often happens when people do not see what God is doing, the new Jewish leadership attempted to fulfil the scriptures with a human solution. But, when the full and right time came, God sent his Son, who was born from a woman and lived under the law. God did this so that he could buy the freedom of those who were under the law. God's purpose was to make us his children. All of this is important to this silent period because it is setting the scene for the coming Messiah. How can Jesus now recruit the ‘sons of Thunder’ onto his team, and still proclaim a mission of peace?

Table of Contents
Table of Contents Introduction 7 Historically: 13 Philosophy and Religion: 18 Deviations: 29 Preamble to Synoptic Gospels and Acts 35 Matthew 42 The person: 42 The Gospel: 43 Mark 50 The person: 50 The Gospel: 51 Luke 56 The Person: 56 The Gospel: 57 John 62 The Person: 62 The Gospel 66 Acts 72 The Person: 72 The Book: 72 Preamble to the Letters 80 Galatia 90 The History: 90 The Letter: 92 James 98 The History: 98 The person: 100 The Letter: 102 Thessalonians 108 The History: 108 The Letter: 112 Corinthians 114 The History: 114 The Letter 115 Romans 126 The Person: 126 History: 127 The Letter: 130 Ephesians 134 The History: 134 The Letter: 137 Colossians 142 The History: 142 The Letter: 143 Philemon 148 The History: 148 The Letter: 148 Philippians 152 The History: 152 The Letter: 153 The people: 154 Timothy 158 The History: 158 The Letters: 160 Titus 166 The History: 166 The person: 167 The Letter: 167 Peter 170 The History: 170 The person: 170 The Letter: 171 Hebrews 176 The History: 176 The Letter 177 Jude 182 The History: 182 The Letter: 183 John (Letters) 190 The History: 190 The person: 190 The letters 192 Preamble to Revelation 195 Revelation 212 Things that are: (a View from earth) 212 The Letter 213 Interlude 1 218 The next Section also begins with- After This: 219 Interlude 3: 223 Postamble to Revelation 225 And finally: 234