Radey

Someone (i.e., me) once wrote:

In Hebrews 2:12 it records this of Jesus:

He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.”

Here it talks as if Jesus is currently doing this — he is currently saying something (‘He says’, not ‘said’). And the thing Jesus is saying is that he will declare God’s name to his spiritual family. He talks about his family being assembled together as a congregation, and he says he will sing God’s praises in front of that congregation.

What do you reckon: is this a true reading? Does the grammar work?

I agree with everything everyone has said here, BUT.

Jesus proved the resurrection by quoting the words of God to Moses 'I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' saying 'God is not a God of the dead, but of the living'. This is using present tense to prove a point, in this case the resurrection from the dead. This was not the intention of the words when they were spoken, this is an example of Jesus using the way something has been recorded to prove a secondary point, isn't it? Is it okay for us to do the same thing? Use an application to prove a point for which it was not necessarily intended?

How that applies to Luke's 'present tense' argument is questionable, however.

Joseph was envied by his brothers, but was this because of Jacob's preferential treatment, or because of his claims with the dreams and his upright character?

Christ was also delivered up to the rulers 'because of envy' by his brothers, but this was because of his claim to be Son of God, and his upright character.

I just see it as a statement of fact. I guess I can think of families where children accept Christ, and others don't. It's hard not to have more in common with the ones who do.

But no, it wasn't right. The ideal would be to treat all children the same, regardless of the choices they made in life.

I liked the 'declarative' versus 'persuasive' bit.

Shame he missed the bit about the Kingdom of God, although saying 'Jesus is Messiah' accounts for a fair bit of historical Jewish understanding.

Thanks for posting this, I'm enjoying it but it's taking a few days to digest. I also like the links to Steven Cox's Tidings articles, thanks for posting those as well.

2 Peter 1:1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
Jude 1:1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:

Peter uses the word “granted” which carries the essence of “received by lot”. The implication is not hard to miss, true Christians have won the lottery (rather than earning it).

Peter's authority comes from him being an apostle. Jude's authority comes from being a brother to James (James the Just). James was the head of the Jerusalem church but had already been martyred by this time. We think of Paul as the big dog of the time, but James is who Paul went to for help. James and Jude were both (half) brothers to Jesus and both initially rejected Jesus at Nazareth (Matthew 4, Mark 6, Luke 6) but apparently they got over it (Acts 1:14).

This is interesting, I never considered that James was the one Paul went to, Galatians 1:19 is an interesting reference to James/Paul relationship.

I'm not sure about the lottery analogy though, I know we haven't earned it, but is winning the lottery an accurate analogy? We also have a part to play, and it's not filling in Bingo squares.

* What about those who never heard the gospel? What about those in other nations before Christ was born? What about those living pre-Adam?

In answer to my own point, how about this?

Acts 17:26-31

What does this quote mean? It seems to imply all nations are from one man, Adam?