Pride Goes Before a Fall?

Ken Brown | September 12, 2009

“Pride goes before a fall” has been a devastating expression for many Christian believers. They don’t understand it, and they get it used against them. Often there has been some wonderful believer faced with adversity who has made up his mind to go for it, to trust God, to choose to believe that his efforts with God’s help will bring to fruition his dream. Upon sharing his optimism with some other supposedly more seasoned “believer.” The latter feels compelled to deflate his tires and does so with, “Watch out. Pride goes before a fall.” Forgive me. I have an emotional response to this one, having seen it used by God’s people to hurt others of His people and dissuade His purposes.

Belief and Logic

Ken Brown | July 4, 2009

In our introduction to Biblical research, the first two principles given for approaching God’s Word were: (1) Believe what you read and (2) think and be reasonable: you can’t throw logic out the window just because you are reading the Bible. Those who can stare a clear scripture in the face and deny what it obviously says because it disagrees with a previously held belief have ceased learning. Likewise, those who can accept two or more contradictory views at the same time will never come to an accurate understanding of God’s Word (or of much of anything else for that matter). On the surface, this seems so obvious to most of you (I hope) that you are probably scratching your heads, wondering why I am making an issue of it. As it plays out in practical application, however, relatively few people are completely consistent about this as it pertains to Biblical exegesis.

As one example, let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:20, a familiar verse for many of us, but have you ever considered the fundamental problem with how the King James and a number of other versions translate this verse?

No More Conscience of Sins

Ken Brown | April 25, 2009

The Israelites could get forgiven of their sins, but they had to keep coming back to the temple year by year to get forgiven again. If they had had a sacrifice that made them perfect (teleios: lacking nothing necessary to completeness), the Children of Israel would not have needed to offer any more sacrifices; and having been “purged” (cleansed), they should therefore have had no more conscience of sins. The record goes on to say that we DO have such a sacrifice, a one-time sacrifice that perfects us forever.

Who is the Old Man and What is He Doing?

Ken Brown | April 20, 2009

There have been at least two problems with some past common teachings regarding the “old man” referenced in the Scriptures. One has been teachings that have been contradictory: teaching from Romans that the old man is dead, and teaching from Ephesians that we must continually and vigilantly put off the old man. Both cannot be true. The other problem has been a misunderstanding of who or what the “old man” is or was. A common teaching has been that the “old man” is your old sin nature, and the “new man” is your new spirit nature. The Scriptures, however, don’t say that. The purpose of this article is to provide Biblical documentation as to what the story is with the “old man.”

Two Natures? (Part One)

Ken Brown | April 20, 2009

Are there two “natures” alive and well in each child of God, an old sin “nature” and a new Godly “nature”, each actively pulling the believer one direction or the other? E. W. Bullinger (1837-1913) thought so, though the other great “E. W.,” E. W. Kenyon (1867-1948) disagreed. (See pages 153 and following of The Father and His Family.)

Two Natures? (Part Two)

Ken Brown | April 10, 2009

In part one, we examined the two scriptures most often used to endeavor to show the “two natures” in the child of God (Galatians 5:17 and Romans 7:15-21). In this posting, we will examine other Scriptures so used and the terminology used to identify the “two natures” doctrine.

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