This document discusses two options for interpreting a parable about God inviting people to a banquet. Option A suggests the invitation was to Israel initially, but after they rejected it, God extended new invitations to Jews and Gentiles alike. Option B frames the invitation as an invitation to accept Jesus as king, which was rejected by Herod and Rome, coercing others. Jesus confronts power structures as the suffering servant and is rejected despite bearing humanity's afflictions. The document asks which option seems more like good news.
Hebrews 11:1-6. The Importance of faith.
I. FAITH IS VERY IMPORTANT - ABOVE ALL
II. FAITH IS AVAILABLE - TAKING
III. FAITH IS A PROTECTION - THE SHIELD OF FAITH
IV. FAITH IS POWERFUL - WITH WHICH YOU SHALL BE ABLE TO QUENCH
V. FAITH IS EXTENSIVE - ALL THE FIERY DARTS OF THE WICKED ONE
James 2:14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?
John 3:1-5. A New Life In Christ. In the new life we have been born again. In the new life we are a new creation. In the new life we crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. In the new life we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. In the new life we are renewed by the Holy Spirit. In the new life we are dead to sin but alive to God. In the new life we are washed from our sins. in the new life we put to death the old man and put on the new man. In the new life we died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. In the new life we were brought back from death in sin.
Hebrews 11:1-6. The Importance of faith.
I. FAITH IS VERY IMPORTANT - ABOVE ALL
II. FAITH IS AVAILABLE - TAKING
III. FAITH IS A PROTECTION - THE SHIELD OF FAITH
IV. FAITH IS POWERFUL - WITH WHICH YOU SHALL BE ABLE TO QUENCH
V. FAITH IS EXTENSIVE - ALL THE FIERY DARTS OF THE WICKED ONE
James 2:14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?
John 3:1-5. A New Life In Christ. In the new life we have been born again. In the new life we are a new creation. In the new life we crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. In the new life we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. In the new life we are renewed by the Holy Spirit. In the new life we are dead to sin but alive to God. In the new life we are washed from our sins. in the new life we put to death the old man and put on the new man. In the new life we died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. In the new life we were brought back from death in sin.
Pastor Elio Marrocco's "Serving God By Serving Others" sermon at New Life Christian Church in November 2012. You can learn more about New Life Christian Church here: http://www.newlifecc.ca
Tomorrow we are starting a new series of study:
“The New Man” is a seminar that will focus on the spirit of man, its soul and its body.
We will learn the properties of each one of these three parts of man.
Our spirit is called to be the ruling part of us, actually, our spirit is the main part of our being, and is the place where the spirit of God dwells in.
We meet in Room #3 at CTF Toronto Wednesdays from 7:00 – 9:00 pm. I invite you to come and participate with us in this discovery of how to let our spirit become the ruler of our life.
Mt 13:15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.'
What do you hope for? Do you hope for a new job? A new relationship? A new adventure in life? A new smartphone? But first let me ask you this question, what is hope?
Hope looks at the future. You are hoping because there is something to look forward to. Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Singles individual might hope in their work to achieve their goals and dream. Or they might hope for a relationship where they would receive the love they need. These can be the wrong anchors or sources of our hope.
Hebrews 12:2 says keep your eyes on Jesus who perfects our faith. It is actually also saying that we are to hope in God. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Wherever there is full assurance of hope, there is faith. Faith is the full assurance of hope. Hope is part of Faith. Therefore, in Hebrews 12 God is the one who initiates, He is the author or source of our faith and He is the one who is the source of our hope. He is the one we are to hope for because he will be one who will make what we hope for come into a reality. Look at what Romans 15:13 says also.
Romans 15:13 - May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
God of hope means God is the source of hope. I like how its translated in the NLT version, it says this: “God, the source of hope, will.” Hope here in Greek is elpis meaning expectation, trust, confidence and expectation of what is sure or certain. We can now relate this to God the source of hope as God our source of confidence as we expect something to be sure or certain
That’s why I would like to define hope as CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTURE ANCHORED ON GOD WITH GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Great Expectations because God can do more than what we could think of our imagine and because we expect it to actually happen. As one famous preacher said, biblical hope is just not a desire but it expects it to happen
Pastor Elio Marrocco's "Serving God By Serving Others" sermon at New Life Christian Church in November 2012. You can learn more about New Life Christian Church here: http://www.newlifecc.ca
Tomorrow we are starting a new series of study:
“The New Man” is a seminar that will focus on the spirit of man, its soul and its body.
We will learn the properties of each one of these three parts of man.
Our spirit is called to be the ruling part of us, actually, our spirit is the main part of our being, and is the place where the spirit of God dwells in.
We meet in Room #3 at CTF Toronto Wednesdays from 7:00 – 9:00 pm. I invite you to come and participate with us in this discovery of how to let our spirit become the ruler of our life.
Mt 13:15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.'
What do you hope for? Do you hope for a new job? A new relationship? A new adventure in life? A new smartphone? But first let me ask you this question, what is hope?
Hope looks at the future. You are hoping because there is something to look forward to. Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Singles individual might hope in their work to achieve their goals and dream. Or they might hope for a relationship where they would receive the love they need. These can be the wrong anchors or sources of our hope.
Hebrews 12:2 says keep your eyes on Jesus who perfects our faith. It is actually also saying that we are to hope in God. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Wherever there is full assurance of hope, there is faith. Faith is the full assurance of hope. Hope is part of Faith. Therefore, in Hebrews 12 God is the one who initiates, He is the author or source of our faith and He is the one who is the source of our hope. He is the one we are to hope for because he will be one who will make what we hope for come into a reality. Look at what Romans 15:13 says also.
Romans 15:13 - May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
God of hope means God is the source of hope. I like how its translated in the NLT version, it says this: “God, the source of hope, will.” Hope here in Greek is elpis meaning expectation, trust, confidence and expectation of what is sure or certain. We can now relate this to God the source of hope as God our source of confidence as we expect something to be sure or certain
That’s why I would like to define hope as CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTURE ANCHORED ON GOD WITH GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Great Expectations because God can do more than what we could think of our imagine and because we expect it to actually happen. As one famous preacher said, biblical hope is just not a desire but it expects it to happen
Do and Do Not to One Another
I. What we should we do to One Another
A. Love
B. Prefer
C. Receive
D. Admonish
E. Salute
F. Greet
G. Serve
H. Forbear
I. Forgive
J. Comfort
K. Consider
II. Do Not One to Another
A. Betray/Hate
B. Bite and Devour
C. Forsake
In order to rightly divide the word of truth, we must understand the context of God's word, which to at least some extent, is impacted by history and timing. This Bible study delves into the dispensations of time, revealing God's relationship with mankind in each.
NOTE: This study document contains images and graphs that are either available for common use (without sale) or copied by permission. No copyright infringement intended.
What Do You See In The Crucifixion of Jesus? Man's Only Hope For Salvation!Don McClain
Are there many ways to God? Are there different roads to heaven? In this study we will examine these questions and we will also focus on what the Bible teaches regarding what we must do in order to benefit from the crucifixion of Jesus. I would like to encourage you to not only view the charts - but also listen to this series.
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17. New invitations
Option A
GOD
Jews and Gentiles
Clothed in
righteousness
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.
Bear with one another and, if anyone has a
complaint against another, forgive each
other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so
you also must forgive. Above all, clothe
yourselves with love, which binds
everything together in perfect harmony.
Colossians 3:12-14
25. Jesus is the man with
no wedding robes
He confronts violent
power structures as the
suffering servant
of Isaiah
26. …He was despised and we held him
of no account; Surely he has borne
our infirmities and carried our
diseases; yet we accounted him
stricken, struck down by God and
afflicted; But he was wounded for
our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities; upon him was the
punishment that made us
whole….we have all turned to our
own way, and the Lord has laid on
him the iniquity of us all.
(Isaiah 53: 3-6)
27. Just as there were many that were
astonished at him….so he shall
startle many nations; kings shall
shut their mouths because of him…
(Isaiah 52: 14, 15)
And he was
…
(Matthew 22:12)
When my kids were little I worked at the hotel in Vegas and our shops were open from 8am to 1am every day of the year.
I had to be disciplined and guard my time at home very carefully. One evening I was at home mowing my lawn. Lona comes out to get me and says, “David Copperfield is on the phone.”
Do you remember David Copperfield; the world-famous illusionist?
So, I take the phone and say, “hello?”
“hey, Steve. This is David Copperfield. My friend, Arthure Kohn just was best picture at the Cannes Film festival in France and I would like to have a caricature drawn of me and my wife, Claudia Shiffer, with Arthur so we can fax it to him in the morning. Would you be able to come over to my house tonight and draw it”
I say, “hold on, I need to ask my wife.”
“Honey, can I go to David Copperfield’s house?”
I dropped everything and spent the evening at his house, hanging out with David and Claudia.
Had that been some average Joe, I would have told him to call me back tomorrow. What made the difference? The fact that it was a celebrity changed how I responded to the invitation.
Now, let’s turn the tables. How do you think David would have felt if I had said “No! I’m mowing my lawn. You’ll have to wait?”
Have you ever had an invitation rejected? How did it make you feel about the person who rejected you? How did it make you feel about yourself?
The lesson today is really about invitations, how we respond to them, and how we respond when we are rejected.
Now, I have to be right up front with you.
This is a very difficult parable to understand. So, here’s what I want to do. First, I’m going to give you some context for where it falls in the bigger story of Matthew’s Gospel. Second, I’m going to make sure we have the pieces of the parable clear. And then, I’m going to give you two possible ways to interpret the parable and see which one makes the most sense.
The scene really starts back at the beginning of chapter 21.
Jesus enters into the city of Jerusalem riding on the back of a donkey. We call this the Triumphal entry. The people all shout, “Hosanna, Hosanna! And treat him like a king.” This makes the city leaders very angry.
Then Jesus goes to the temple courts and throws over the money-changers tables, and drives them all out with a whip. Jesus is on a mission.
The leaders are outraged and they confront Jesus. Look in verse 23. They say,
“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
Jesus tells them three stories to explain it.
Our passage today is the third story..
Here’s the parable.
There is a king who is having a wedding banquet. He sends his servants to announce to the invited guests that the banquet is ready. The invited guests respond in two ways.
Some ignore the invitation and keep going about their business. They would rather mow their lawns than attend the royal banquet. Others respond with violence and they abuse the King’s servants, and even kill them.
The King becomes enraged. He kills them and burns the city. Yikes!
Then he tells the slaves to invite people from the main streets and gather them into the banquet hall. The hall is filled and all seems well,
until one guy catches the King’s attention.
This guy is not dressed for the banquet. “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless.
The king had the man bound, hand and foot, and thrown out into utter darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Wow! Isn’t that an uplifting parable. Thank you, Jesus, for that.
So, what do we do with this parable? How does it fit in our theme of living upside down?
I want to present to you two possible ways to interpret this parable.
Option A goes like this.
The parable is an allegory. The King represents God and the banquet represents the Kingdom of Heaven, the way God has always intended the kingdom to be. It is like we’ve been talking all year long about how Israel was the vineyard that was supposed to bear the fruit of God’s blessing for the nations.
The invitation was God’s blessing to Israel to be the blessing to the world. Israel rejected the invitation. Some ignored it, some became violent against it.
So, God wiped them out. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70.
The new invitation is the Gospel presented by Jesus that is for all people, good and bad. There is room for everyone at the banquet, Jew and Greek alike.
There is room for everyone, except for the one who is not properly dressed.
The wedding clothes represent the fruit of the Spirit. It is like the apostle Paul said in Colossians 3:12-14,
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
The man who was not dressed properly was like the person who takes God’s kingdom for granted. They are missing the point. God wants us to party in God’s love. Why would you not want to be part of that.
The take home lesson from this interpretation is this. You’re invited, so show up!
It emphasizes the tension between the radical grace of God on one side, and the responsibility and accountability of participating in the banquet feast, producing fruit, on the other.
That interpretation works, but it leaves me with one observation. God is murdering and destroying people who don’t do it his way. That seems like the opposite of what Jesus has been preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven.
Here’s option B.
What if Jesus were actually referring to an historical event that happened in the city of Jerusalem that everyone would have know about when he was telling this parable. The way he opens the story is slightly different than his other parables where he says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…” Here he says, “the Kingdom of Heaven has been compared to a man king…”
This interpretation says that the king does not represent God, but represents Herod the Great, back when Herod took over the city of Jerusalem. At that time, the Hasmonean family was the royal family of Israel and were the rightful heirs to the throne. There was a man named Antigonus who was from this family and was the king in Jerusalem for three years, before Herod.
We have to remember that all of this is taking place under the oppression of the Roman Empire. Herod was made the King of Israel by the Roman Emperor, but the people of Jersualem did not want to accept that.
Herod came to the city of Jerusalem with an invitation. He was going to marry one of the Hasmonean women. This was the big wedding feast. He invited the people of Jerusalem to accept his marriage, and to accept him as their king, peacefully.
Antigonus advised the people to ignore Herod. Others responded violently against him and murdered his messengers
This enraged Herod. He went off, married the woman, then returned with the Roman army and burned down the city of Jerusalem.
He took it over by force and demanded that the people accept him as the king. The were coerced into coming to the banquet. Herod then took over the temple, and started rebuilding the city under his rule.
Only one man stood up against him. Antigonus. He would not “put on the wedding clothes.”
Herod had him bound, hand and foot, humiliated in front of the city, and executed.
According to this interpretation, Jesus is identifying himself with Antigonus. And, more importantly, he is identifying himself as the suffering servant from Isaiah
…He was despised and we held him of no account; Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted; But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities/ upon him was the punishment that made us whole….we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (53: 3-6)
Just as there were many that were astonished at him….so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him… (52: 14, 15)
The leaders asked Jesus, “By what authority do you do these things?”
Jesus points out that the way people usually run kingdoms is through power plays, violence, and fear. Jesus takes that system and turns it upside down. He takes all the violence of the system; all the sin, and fear, and hatred; and he takes it upon himself.
He allows himself to be crushed. He is thrown out into utter darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
So, which interpretation aligns most with the Good News that Jesus has been preaching all along? The bottom line of both interpretations is actually the same.
You are invited to the Kingdom of Heaven.
No matter how you slice it, the way to the kingdom is to follow the way of Jesus. His way led him to the cross, where he laid down his life for us. When we realize that the world is upside down, and we have to die to the power, the violence, and the hatred, then we can be ready to live the new life that Jesus gives.