Kingdom Ready

I ran across this paper on Adam Pastor’s web site “Adoni Messiah“.  And it has a connection back to kingdomready in that the author of the paper was a presenter at the 2005 & 2006 One God Conferences that our own Sean Finnegan also attended.  Small world indeed. Speaking of which, Sean has the audio of the author presenting this very paper on the Christian Monotheism site at this link.

Last month on both Saturday 6/13 and Sunday 6/14, I attended the 2009 One God Seminars put on by the ACD (Association for Christian Development).  This was the first such conference I went to in person though I’ve read a lot about previous years conferences from this site (Sean has attended many), Anthony Buzzard’s Restoration Fellowship website & monthly newsletter (Focus on the Kingdom), and even the ACD Seminar organizer – Ken Westby’s website: http://www.godward.org/. I’ve always wanted to attend one, but for one reason or another never was never able to make the journey to the host location.  However this year’s chosen location happened to be in my home turf of Dallas-Ft. Worth.  And even more convenient was that the actual meeting location was a whole 15-20 minute drive from my house. What could be more perfect?  I was very ecstatic about it and even more so when I learned that Sir Anthony Buzzard was going to be a presenter. I had always wanted to hear him speak in person and to have the chance to meet him and possibly have a discussion or two on our mutual biblical interests.

A new player on the biblical unitarian field is a man who calls himself “Servetus the Evangelical.” Michael Servetus, was the incredibly brilliant medical doctor who discovered pulmonary circulation and the remarkably talented theologian who wrote De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Errors of the Trinity) in 1531 and Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity) in 1553. He was immediately banished from Spain after his first book was published and he changed his name from Miguel Serveto to Michel de Villeneuve. After a time he began correspondence with the famous French reformer John Calvin who was running Geneva, Switzerland as his own utopian project. Calvin sent Servetus his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion, which Servetus promptly read and filled its margins with annotations and corrections before sending it back to Calvin. Naturally, Calvin was enraged and actually cooperated with the Catholic authorities (whom he despised) to get Servetus arrested. Fortunately, Servetus successfully escaped but then found himself on the run.

I recently received this email from a pastor in Malaysia:

I m Pastor Ng from the Christian Disciples Church, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We are a small independent evengelical church which had recently ( a year ago) changed our stand from trinitarianism to biblical monotheism just as you have stated in your statement of faith.

I started questioning trinity despite having taught it for close to 15 years, when my teacher and the founder of our church Pastor Eric Chang received this new revelation about the truth on the only true God and taught it to us about a year ago. Right now I have no doubts that there is only one God Yahweh and one Lord Jesus Christ.

by Dr. Joe Martin, Academic Dean of Atlanta Bible College

I confess. I had to look up “ineluctable” when I first read it in an article about Yahweh. It means “not to be avoided, resisted or changed.” Well, if that’s the case, I’m a little “ticked,” perturbed, bothered. We’re losing God’s identity, my Abba, my Father by hiding him with another tradition. In a letter from the “Congregation for Divine Worship,” dated June 29, 2008 and signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze and Archbishop Malcom Ranjith, the Vatican no longer wants the name of God, Yahweh used in liturgy, that is songs, preaching, or other parts of formal service. As Charlie Brown would say, “Good grief, whose idea was that!”

Here’s the second part of the four part booklet (technically the second half of Part I – with the two halves of Part II to come) – The Two Adams, by Homer D. Baxter.

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“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen. 2:8).

This garden eastward in Eden signifies the first usages of the word Eden referred to the earth. The garden was but a small portion of Eden, into which God placed Adam to begin his duties and responsibilities, which consisted mostly of “to dress and keep” it.

A thorough consideration and refutation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Originally released as 12 tapes but now available on mp3, this series examines the doctrine of the Trinity proposition by proposition. Not only is this series approached from a biblical perspective, Don Snedeker also taps into the rich biblical unitarian resources of several authors from the 19th century. Furthermore, Don works through a number of texts typically used to support the Trinity and he demonstrates their true meaning based on their context. Click on the audio icon above to see the titles for each of the 12 mp3s in this comprehensive examination.

1. Introductions A and B; Biblical Unitarianism Explained

A Biblical View of God the Father
by Joel W. Hemphill

from the back of the CD set
Joel and LaBreeska Hemphill have been married for over 50 years. They have three children and six grandchildren. They have been preaching and singing gospel songs for over 45 years. Joel pastored Pentecostal Temple in Bastrop, LA for 10 years and also pastored Peytonsville Baptist Church in Thompson Station, TN for 13 months. They have traveled around the world, and along with their family, have written and recorded over 300 gospel songs. They have received six Dove Awards and had numerous number one songs.

Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Carlos Jimenez of Sydney, Australia, a student at MacQuarie University. He shared his amazing journey to faith from agnosticism to Christianity. Along the way he began studying about the doctrine of the Trinity and its effects on our Christian history. At one point he asked his pastor if the church confessed belief in the Trinity and found out that they did not believe that Jesus was God. This pleased Carlos because through his own studies he had already come to this sound doctrine.