Kingdom Ready Blog

The following is another new article from my website. 

It is amazing how many people who call themselves “Christian” don’t actually know what the word means. A “Christian” is a follower of Christ, but like most people, I did not know what the word “Christ” meant for many years. Like some, I assumed that it was part of his name. Others know that it is a title, but don’t know exactly what it means. The fact is, however, that the word Christ comes from the Greek word christos, which means “anointed one.” It is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word, mashiyach from which we get our English word, Messiah. The titles Messiah and Christ mean exactly the same thing: an anointed one.

by William M. Wachtel

From Anthony Buzzard’s web site; can be viewed here.

For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven (Col. 1:13-20).

The following article by Anthony Buzzard is from the August 2010 issue of Focus on the Kingdom: 

What does the word “beget” mean? Definitions are easy to come by. Just type the word into a search engine, or consult a dictionary anywhere. To beget is “to sire, to father, to bring into existence, to procreate, to generate.”

This word is crucial to our understanding of who Jesus, the Son of God, is. For centuries churches bearing the name of Christ argued over whether the Son had a beginning of existence or not. Of course there is a vast difference between a person who has no beginning and one who comes into existence, that is, has a beginning of existence.

Thinking Biblically about One of the Most Important Titles in the Bible

As Christians, we are so used to calling Jesus the Son of God that we can easily forget that the phrase “Son of God” has serious theological and biblical content. Though most believers conflate “Son of God” with “God the Son” and interchange a biblical notion for a philosophical one, I contend that it is a much better strategy to ground our conception in Scripture alone. In order to investigate divine sonship, I will first look at the two predominant prototypes—Adam and David—before moving on to think about how Jesus combines both layers of meaning. First, we begin in the beginning.