Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy approaches Bible teaching with a passion for getting the basic doctrines explained so that the individual can understand them and then apply them to circumstances in their life. These basic and important lessons are nestled in a framework of history and progression of revelation from the Bible so the whole of Scripture can be applied to your physical and spiritual life.
Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas
NT Framework - This or Nothing
Eliminate this one thing and you eliminate the basis and truth of Christianity.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01:Now, this is a quote from Richard Nieber. He had a brother named Reinhold Nieber. These guys in the 1950s and 60s, if you were in uh most seminaries, you would have to read these two guys. There's probably, they were probably the top in the top five most influential people, these two brothers, during that time period. And so if you went to seminary, you were going to be reading these guys. And the guys that you're in that are in seminary are going to be pastors. And so they're going to go out and they're going to fill every pew across America and across the world, right? Wherever they may go. Here's what he said. He said, the intense analysis of the New Testament produced by the great age of historical investigation has emphasized, among other things, this fact that belief in Jesus as the risen Lord informs every part of the early church's thought. Now, in other words, the early church, did they believe in the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus? Yes, you go through the early church fathers, you go through the earliest writings, of course, and you discover that in fact they held to the risen Lord Jesus Christ. He says, but, now anytime you see that, you're like, oh, well, something's about to change. All right? But the rise of historical criticism has also made it increasingly difficult for theologians and biblical scholars to accept the New Testament order of thought. Now, I just really don't like the way these guys write, but it's it's meant to be written this way, so you just kind of read past it. What does he mean, though, the New Testament order of thought? What does he mean that this has become more and more difficult for scholars and theologians to accept the New Testament order of thought? Well, he's talking about the biblical framework of events that are described in the New Testament. You know, things like the virgin birth, the sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ, right, his restitutionary death on the cross, his ascension and the resurrection, all these things. Okay, we there he's saying this this historical criticism has made it increasingly difficult to accept these events. In other words, we don't believe them. Now, why? What is it about historical criticism? What is he talking about here? Well, he's talking about the fact that what we discovered during the period of historical investigation is mostly the rise of scientism. The idea that science is truth. And so we have biological truth, chemical truth, physics truth, right? We have all these anthropological truth, these and these all form the standard by which we judge whether something can happen or not. Now, how many people have you seen virgin born? How many people have you seen rise from the dead? Well, science says these things can't happen, therefore, these things can't happen, and therefore the Bible, which describes these things as happening, can't be correct. So what they've done is they've made a new standard for what is truth. And basically it's scientism, the worship of science. And the Bible has to be judged or measured against these standards. So, in other words, the Bible is no longer the truth. We subject the Bible to these other historically now discovered truths and discover that the Bible is in fact in error. And so it's making it very difficult, he says, for us to accept the New Testament order of thought. The things that Jesus did, his birth, his life, his death, all these things, and the resurrection, of course. Here's another one by Richard. They, the liberals, have felt obligated to remove the resurrection of Jesus from its central position and to place it on the periphery of Christian teaching and proclamation, because the primitive resurrection faith conflicts disastrously with modern canons of historicity. Again, a canon is a standard, right? We talk about the canon of scripture, meaning what what books are actually inspired by God, right? But there's other canons, canons of law, and he's talking here of canons of historicity. It's a measurement, a gauge by which you judge or evaluate whether something is true or not. And the and notice how he deprecates that primitive resurrection faith. You hear the the they're talking down at you if you believe in it, right? That's a primitive belief. That's that's for people who are ignorant and soup, you know, superstitious. You know, that's that was the primitive ideas. We've moved past that now. See, we're in the age of the modern modernism, and we know better. We know more. We know, in fact, we know more than Jesus and the apostles. We're so smart. Um so you can see how it's it's a deprecate, they're deprecating you if you still hold to this primitive resurrection faith. Um, which again they say disastrously conflicts with modern canons of historicity, by which they mean scientism, you know, biology, physics, and so forth. Um so what they've done then, of course, is they've felt obligated to remove the resurrection from its central position. I mean, is is the resurrection central to Christianity? I mean, you know, we're gonna look at some texts that basically say if we don't have this, we don't have nothing. This is kind of the center of the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spoke and Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with Him. If you found this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.