Kingdom Ready Blog

For those that subscribe to Anthony Buzzard’s wonderful monthly newsletter “Focus on the Kingdom“, you have undoubtedly seen several announcements for the 2012 Theological Conference (the 21st) that will occur next week May 3rd – May 6th in Atlanta GA. I will be making my way there for my 3rd straight year!  It truly is a wonderful conference where Biblical Unitarian/One God Believers from all over the world can hear speakers, make new friends, and fellowship with one another.  Last year we had people from Europe, South Africa, South America, Australia, Canada, and from all over the USA.  Hope to see you there too!

I read this article awhile back and found it interesting.  And I thought it would be good to post here on the KR Blog.  I hope you find it interesting as well. Enjoy!

Biblical Unitarianism from the Early Church through the Middle Ages

by Mark M. Mattison

The term “biblical unitarianism,” as used in this journal, denotes a non-Trinitarian theology which is consistent with the inspired Word of God. It is our belief that this understanding of the Scriptures is not new, but has been propagated at various times and places throughout church history. The purpose of this article is to lay a foundation for the future discussion of this topic.
 
First, however, we must define our terms.

Here’s the 6th installment in this series:

Biblical Common Sense – Death – An ENEMY!

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:26 says: “The last enemy that will be abolished is death.” Now everyone knows what an enemy is. It is someone or something that harms or opposes us.  However the typical sentiment one hears at a mainstream Christian funeral is that death has taken the deceased to a “better place”.  Other variants often expressed can be “God has called so and so home”, or “The Lord needed another member of heaven”.  But does anyone stop and think about what this actually means?  Such ideas mean that death isn’t so bad.  For the saved, death would be taking us to the best possible place we could ever hope to be!

Here’s the 5th installment in this series:

Biblical Common Sense – Death – Usage of the Sleep Metaphor

I’ve been to several funerals the last few years where I have heard the preachers often say that the deceased is now “more alive than ever” up in heaven.  Yet this runs counter to the most consistent description used in The Bible in reference to the dead. A description that isn’t something that means energized and alert, but the exact opposite with the word “sleep”.  Of course this is a metaphor (something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else) to describe the death.  This metaphor is repeatedly used throughout many of the Old Testament books.

Here’s the 4th installment in this series:

Biblical Common Sense – Death – You shall surely NOT die!

In all of God’s Holy Scripture, there’s not a single verse that tell us that human beings have an immortal soul. In fact the very word “immortal” is used only once in 1 Timothy 1:17 and there it refers once again only to God Himself.

However there is a verse in the Bible that does promote the idea that we don’t really die.  That verse would be none other than Genesis 3:4.

Here’s the next installment (Part 3) on death.

Here’s the next section (Part 2) on death.

Biblical Common Sense – Death – Who Possesses Immortality?

One might ask, is anyone naturally in possession of immortality? Yes! Scripture in fact clearly indicates who already has immortality.

1 Timothy 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

1 Timothy 6:15-16  “which He will bring about at the proper time– He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.”

Finally, after way too long of a delay since posting the first third (about Jesus) of my lengthy paper entitled “A Common Sense Approach to the Biblical Presentation of Jesus, Death, & THE Devil”, here is the 2nd main topic – DEATH.

Like the first section on Jesus (started on KR here: Biblical Common Sense – Intro – What & Why), this has several sub-sections that are best published in smaller, easier to read sections here on KR.  So for my next several posts, I’ll add the sections that follow one another.  I’ll also try to provide all the links at the end of each post to the entire series just for reference.

Alright, time for me to get back on track and start the New Year right with a post in Week #1!  So here we go with something short & easy.

Before Christmas I uncovered in a packed-away attic box – a TON more pamphlets, books, leaflets, and other treasures of theology that my parents had collected back in their day.  There’s a ton of stuff from individuals, Advent Christian publishers, The Restitution Herald (in Oregon Illinois), and the Layman’s Home Missionary Movement.  This particular one here is from the Layman’s – or LHMM for short.  There’s no copyright or published date on it so I’m not sure from when it originates.  But I’d guess from the 1940′s – 1960′s.  I saw the title listed on another site associated with the LHMM, but not the actual content of the piece.  Therefore I thought I would re-publish it to the world-wide-web for all to enjoy.

Well, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted an article here.  Far too long in fact.  I apologize for my hiatus. No real good excuses, just the usual things in life that pull us in all directions – job, kids, family commitments, home projects, watching too much football (yes I really do enjoy watching college and professional football – maybe too much), etc..  And probably the worst and certainly dumbest thing is just getting out of the habit.  Of course it seems that may be the case with a lot of my fellow KR contributors.  But let’s see if I can start a trend of coming back to the well here.  Let’s see if I can start off easy and work back into pushing out some fresh content for those have kept coming here and visiting the site.