Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

About the Messiah

What did the First Christians believe about Jesus? He was the Messiah, of course, but more than that. Jesus himself laid out the question before the Pharisees one day.While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think you of Christ? whose son is he? […]Matthew 22:41–42Now, I think everyone knows that the term Christ basically means the Messiah—the Anointed One. This question is really loaded in this environment, at this time, because messianic expectations had been running fever-high for some time now. There was a clear belief that the Messiah was coming soon.[…] They said unto him, The son of David. He said unto them, How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool? If David then called him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither dared any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.Matthew 22:42–46Matthew tells us of this encounter in the midst of quite a series of challenges that had been presented by the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and sages. They were popping Jesus with what they thought was a zinger every time he turned around. This one was a show stopper, because the Jewish theologians understood this psalm of David to be messianic—which is also the way the First Christians, all of them Jewish, understood it. But while the Pharisees and Sadducees expected the Messiah, they expected him to be merely a man—born normally of the union of a man and a woman—and who, as a descendant of David, would be lower in the chain of expectations than David himself. It is hard to imagine that none of the men who questioned Jesus on this day had never struggled with this Psalm. Of course they had. So let's take a closer look at the Psalm in question: number 110.

The Gospel of Matthew #36

If the world was going to blow up at noon tomorrow, would you want to know? I don’t just mean having an asteroid hit us, spread some dust and dirt around, and create a new ice age. I mean blow up—it’s just gone. One moment we are here, and the next we are scattered throughout the solar system like so much debris. Would you want to know? Why? What would you do about it? Would you visit your family one last time, read your Bible one last time, or maybe pray—hard—trying to get right with god one last time. Or maybe you’d like to get your affairs in order, but why? Surely tonight is one night you don’t even need to brush your teeth. You can forget about all the mess you left on your desk. If fact, if you are in the mood for it, you can start a bonfire with your tax records. You don’t have to worry about it any more. You’re going to die owing the IRS money—which is a good way to go.Jesus’ disciples wanted to know when Jesus was coming back and what would be the signs of the end of the world. And from that time until this, men have studied the Bible consumed with these questions. They don’t just study the Bible, they look into Nostradamus and all sorts of prophets and seers and psychics, because everybody wants to know what and they want to know when.But why should God tell us anything about the future, at all? The truth is that merely knowing what is coming is of no value at all unless there is something you can do about it. In that short statement lies what may be the most important truth of all about Biblical prophecy. So when Jesus’ disciples asked him, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the world? Jesus gave them knowledge they could use. You may find it of some value yourself. One of the most important things he said was:And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.Matthew 24:11–13 KJ2000Now, on the principal that there is no value in knowing the future unless there is something to do about it, what are we to make of this passage?

The Gospel of Matthew #35

If you could ask Jesus, Lord, what are the signs of your second coming and of the end of the world? would you want to know the answer? It’s a teasing question, isn’t it? And yet, I think, most people do. And all your life, if you’ve paid attention to the world of religion at all, this idea of the end of the world has hung around in the background of your consciousness somewhere. I heard that expression when I was just a boy—maybe six or seven. Everyone in my family began to look at the Bible with the start of World War II. It didn’t look good at all in those early days, and we started thinking about the end of the world. I can remember sitting out on the little concrete porch in the summertime, listening to the adults talk about the signs of the end of the world. I was just a young boy with my dog and a countryside to explore, and I didn’t like the sound of this end of the world stuff even a little bit.Well, I had to grow up a bit before I came to understand what it was all about and what Jesus really meant by the end of the world. This arose out of a discussion with Jesus on a day when were visiting the Temple. And as they were coming down, the disciples (like the country boys they were) were gawking and pointing—admiring the impressive buildings of the Temple. And Jesus said: Do you see all these things? Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.That had to be like a dash of cold water in the face of the disciples, and it’s hard to over-estimate the importance of the Temple to a Jew of any generation—it was the center of their religious life, it was the place of the presence of God, it was a massive structure built with great stones and infinite care. Jesus’ disciples (like every other Jew of their day) were smitten with the temple—its beauty, its massiveness, and, mainly, its permanence. Nothing could ever happen to God’s temple, could it? And yet Jesus said that it was all coming down. And the idea wasn’t entirely new. Let’s begin by looking at a passage in Jeremiah 7, from the age of the First Temple…

Unleavened Bread: The Basics

Easter or Passover?

There is a fascinating story that links Easter and Passover, and most of the world goes on blissfully unaware of it. Most know that Easter and Passover are in the same general season of the year, sometimes on the same weekend, sometimes diverging. But what most don’t realize is that the Christian observance of Easter actually arose directly from the Passover. No, I don’t mean from the resurrection. I mean from the Passover itself.Part of the confusion arises from a curious use of terms. The Hebrew word for Passover is Pesach. It is translated into Greek and Latin as Pascha. Everywhere in the Bible where the Passover is mentioned, in Greek and Latin versions, it is Pascha.Now follow me carefully through this. Throughout the Latin and Greek churches, the day of the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus is called, in their own languages, Pascha. But when the discussions of Pascha are translated into English, they become Easter. Always.How on earth did this happen? And on a related question, how on earth did colored eggs and Easter Bunnies become connected somehow to the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus?

Christian Holidays #1

Are you ready for a quiz? Grab pencil and pad and write down the names of the two most important Christian Holidays. It should only take you a few seconds. No consulting your calendar allowed; just write down two holidays. Got it? And the days are: Christmas and Easter—and I’ll bet you got it right.But let me tell you something curious. Neither one of these days is found observed anywhere in the Bible. And if they had the importance in the early church that they do today, you would think they would have mentioned them. You would think Luke would have recorded somewhere in Acts that we stayed over at Troas through Christmas and then sailed across to Philippi. Or maybe: We hastened in order to be in Jerusalem at Easter. But no, nothing like that is found in the Bible at all.Luke, though, does reference holidays in his travelogue. Acts 20:6 says: And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days. In Acts 20:16, he records this: For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost. What if I told you that these holidays of the Bible, while they have a Jewish/historical significance, are actually Christian in their meaning and application? Would that change the way you look at them?

An Appointment with God

Behold the Lamb of God

Why do you suppose God leaves us with so many unanswered questions? And why are some of the truths of the Bible so, well, obscure? If God wants us to know something, why doesn't He come right out and say so? The fact is, that on the really important things, God does come right out and say so, but there's a whole lot more to be known and God has placed in the heart of man the desire to know everything. We are not just content with a little bit of knowledge. We want to know the whys and the wherefores and we get those answers, and we still have more questions. Everything of course, is a little more than our small brains can hold, but there is a lot more that we can know.As Paul said, "Now we know in part" (1 Corinthians 13:9). We call the Bible "the Word of God", and indeed it is, but that word comes to us in the form of the testimony of a cloud of witnesses. And just as a good investigator can take the testimony of one witness, combine it with the testimony of another witness, he can then come to know something that actually isn't in the testimony of either one of them, and it is only by knowing what both of them said, that you can discern what really happened.So we can sometimes find insights into things that are not actually said by any of the witnesses in the Bible, we do it by taking a little bit here and a little bit there and we say, "Wait a minute, why did he say that?" It is like a great puzzle of life where we struggle to put together all the pieces and discover pictures previously unknown and unseen.

Passover Service 2001

Who Killed Christ?

When the Pope viewed Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, he is said to have remarked, It is as it was. The Vatican later tried to spin that remark to bring it back in bounds, but I have little doubt the Pope said exactly that—because that is the avowed object of the movie, to tell the story of the suffering of Jesus as it was.But that seems to be a real problem. And if the Pope is right, then it is not Mel Gibson’s movie that is the problem; it is the Bible. Few things I have read bring this into focus like an article in the February 15th Newsweek by Jon Meacham. In his article titled, Who Killed Jesus? he asks:Does the death, the execution of Jesus lie at the feet of the Jewish people?No. It does not.But making that simple denial does not tell the whole story.