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Should Christians Learn Hebrew and Greek? Part 1 of 7
I have composed a work explaining why Christians, and, specifically, Bible-believing, separatist King James Only Baptists should and can learn Hebrew and Greek, the Biblical languages. View the complete work here. While my first purpose in writing was to encourage my current crop of students, I believe that this work will be edifying to a broader readership, including those who never learn the Biblical languages. First, it exposits Biblical principles that relate to this topic, and, as an exposition and application of Scripture, has value. Second, it exposits a number of specific passages where controversy currently exists, enabling Christians to have Biblical answers in these inspired texts. Third, it explains the relationship between the original language text dictated by the Holy Spirit through holy men of old and translations. Can one call translations “inspired,” and if so, in what sense? Fourth, it answers the unbiblical extremism of Ruckman and Riplinger that is a stain to the advocates of the Textus Receptus and King James Bible. When peole want to find out what a Biblical word means, it is fine if they want to look at Webster’s English dictionary, but they should definitely be looking at a Hebrew or Greek lexicon, contrary to the advice of false teachers like Mrs. Gail Riplinger. Fifth, it can encourage Christians to see that learning the Biblical languages is not only desirable, but is an eminently attainable goal.
I am not planning to introduce the entire text of my study on these topics into the blog. I intend to summarize its arguments in several posts. Please read the actual work itself for more information. Learning Hebrew and Greek are desirable and attainable goals for Christians.
Please feel free to comment on this post or the rest of the posts in this series, but kindly read the work I am referencing first. Thank you.
–TDR
Sing the Psalms–A Free App for your Apple or Android Phone
Scripture commands: “[S]ing Psalms” (James 5:13). The Spirit-filled saint is singing “psalms” as well as hymns and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:18-21). If you are a believer, you have the obligation to sing God’s inspired psalms. You have the blessed privilege to sing the inspired psalms. You have the glorious blessing to sing to the Father the same words that the Lord Jesus sang to His Father on earth. What a blessing this is!
I am very thankful that recently Bro David Cloud wrote a valuable article commending psalm singing. Our church has sung from the 1650 Scottish Psalter, a literal psalter, for many years. My wife and I have sung through the 1650 Psalter numbers of times in our family devotions–we sing the same psalm every day for a week, and then the next week go on to the next psalm. (We also sing hymns from the Trinity hymnal, Baptist edition–as does our church–and from the Metropolitan Tabernacle’s hymnbook.)
Unfortunately, the edition of the 1650 Psalter that our church and our family worships with–a version which includes conservative tunes, rather than being words-only, called the Comprehensive Psalter–is not in print. The people who have the copyright are planning to reprint it, I have heard, so feel free to reach out to them if you would like physical copies for your church and home. However, if you are not able to get a physical copy, I am delighted to let you know that a quality app has been designed which includes the text and tunes of the 1650 Scottish Psalter. The app also plays the tunes so people who do not know how to read music can easily learn to sing the entire psalter. I would definitely recommend that you download the app, add it to your electronic devices, and joyfully obeying God’s command to sing the songs Christ sung in worship, the inspired, infallible, inerrant Psalms.
There are other metrical psalters (versions of the psalms that can be sung), but, in my view, the 1650 Psalter is the best, because it is one of the most literal of the singable psalters. Probably, in my experience, The Book of Psalms for Singing is my second choice.
I added links to both the Apple and Android version of the 1650 Psalter app on my website here in the ecclesiology section, where you can also find other useful helps for psalm-singing. Here are direct links to the apps:
1650 Psalter App for Apple devices
1650 Psalter App for Android devices
The price is right for the apps–100% free. That also makes it a great price for people who wish to obey God’s command to sing the psalms in foreign lands. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can download the app and sing the psalms using his electronic device. Churches who want to get physical copies of the 1650 Psalter can have everyone sing from his phone until physical copies are in print again.
God commands you to sing the psalms. Why not start today?
If you do sing the psalms, how has it been a blessing in your life, in addition to glorifying the Lord? Feel free to explain in the comment section.
–TDR
35th Anniversary of the Church I Planted in California, pt. 2
Every true church starts by the grace of God and under the headship of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote and I echo his belief in 1 Corinthians 15:10:
But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
He described in part his planting of the church at Corinth, a New Testament church under the authority of Jesus Christ.
My first church was a Baptist church, First Baptist Church of Covington, Indiana. As a 12 year old, I joined Maranatha Baptist Church in Covington. Later that year, I gave a public testimony of salvation to become a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Watertown, Wisconsin. For three months after my last year of graduate school, I became a part of Lehigh Valley Baptist Church in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. I came back to Calvary in Watertown for two years before joining Emmanuel Baptist Church in Elkhorn, WI.
One of my college professors, the late Richard Weeks, allegedly had the largest personal Baptist history library in the world. He accumulated a huge collection of old, out-of-print Baptist books available for his students to read. The bookstore sold Baptist books, required for outside reading. My college reprinted the two volume A History of Baptists by Thomas Armitage. The textbook for Baptist History was John T. Christian‘s, A History of Baptists. We read books by Roy Mason, S. E. Anderson, Chester Tulga, J. M. Carroll, and B. H. Carroll.
I was and am a Baptist. I believe that there have been true churches in perpetuity since the first church in Jerusalem, known by different names. They began calling those churches, Baptist churches. Certain distinctives characterize those churches, the first of which is the Bible is their sole authority for faith and practice. They are also separatist, separated personally and ecclesiastically. True Baptist churches are the Lord’s churches.
Three different summers I traveled to 70-80 churches out West. I witnessed firsthand the dearth of true, biblical churches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Both the teaching of Romans 15:20 and the obvious need to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15) worked on me toward the idea of starting a church in the San Francisco Bay Area, Romans 15:20 reading:
Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation.
It was not my desire to go somewhere where I believed the gospel was already being preached. With 40 million people in California and 7.75 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area, in my lifetime I would not run out of the opportunity to preach to people who had not heard, no matter how hard I worked. The Bay Area is also a transient society with a huge turnover. Every 5-10 years, new people or families occupy the same apartments or houses. Even if most didn’t listen or were hostile to the gospel, some would.
From my own observation, professing Christians were not bumping into each other and scrambling all over the Bay Area, like ants on an anthill, to preach the gospel to those who haven’t heard. I didn’t know how they would react, but I was optimistic. I theorized that the Bay Area was so bad, as bad as people think or worse, because not much preaching occurred there. Before fire fell like Sodom and Gomorrah, someone should make a greater attempt at preaching to it.
As I went to college in the early eighties, I heard very little exposition of scripture, except on the radio. I became convinced of exposition as superior or even God’s will for preaching and dedicated myself to its practice. Exposition became my belief for or philosophy of preaching. It was not until graduate school that I planned in the sense of preparing to preach exposition. Zooming forward to right now, I preached or taught through every word of the Bible over the thirty three years. Nothing had a greater impact toward success than the Word of God in its context.
I had decided that I would start the church with raising only limited support. I determined not to spend any extra time doing so. Instead, I would receive some money from churches and work a job. I had not heard the term, bivocational, but I did know the word, tentmaking. Rather than spend months waiting, I wanted to get going right away.
In May 1987, I knew the San Francisco Bay Area, but I wasn’t sure the exact location where I would begin. I drove out to California in a Dodge Omni my parents gave me, stopping in churches on the way. Once I arrived, I started scouting. I did that for one week. There was no internet. I couldn’t go online to find out about cities, towns, and other churches. Using paper maps, I went from one town to another, stopping at a phone booth to look for what churches were there in the yellow pages of phone books and took notes at each stop. I called churches at pay phones and talked to their leaders. I had a goal of finding towns with no Baptist church at all.
To Be Continued
Mark 7:4 and the Baptism of Tables–Video
Mark 7:4 reads:
And when they come from the market, except they wash [baptidzo], they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing [baptismos] of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.
This passage is the best attempt in Scripture if one wishes to argue against dipping or immersion for baptism. “Surely the Jews did not immerse their tables in water!” many pro-pouring or pro-sprinkling Protestants and Catholics have argued.
This issue was discussed in the past on the blog; see part 1 here and part 2 here.
People have also attacked the King James Version for rendering the Greek word baptidzo as “baptize” instead of as “immerse.” Is that a valid criticism? Did King James or the KJV translators have an evil motive, and were they trying to hide the fact that baptism is immersion?
If you would like to watch a video that answers these questions, please check the discussion in my first year Greek class #23 here on YouTube, or see the same video on Rumble, or go to 5:23 into the video embedded below:
The discussion of baptidzo continues through 22:55 on the video.
This passage does not prove sprinkling or pouring for baptism because the evidence is actually clear that the Jews did indeed immerse their dining couches or tables. Also, there was no conspiracy to hide the fact that baptism is properly by immersion, as King James himself was immersed (as an infant), as were the English monarchs before him. A strong anti-immersion push actually developed only several decades later at the Westminster Assembly, where requiring immersion for baptism lost by the narrowest of margins–one vote.
–TDR
Charles Spurgeon: My Conversion Testimony
Have you ever read the conversion testimony of the famous Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon?
It is a blessing to read. Here it is:
I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fifteen people. I had heard of the Primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people’s heads ache; but that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache. The minister did not come that morning; he was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, of tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach. Now, it is well that preachers should be instructed; but this man was really stupid. He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was,—
“Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” [Isaiah 45:22]
He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus:—“My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look’. Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pains. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look. But then the text says, ‘Look unto Me.’ Ay!” said he, in broad Essex, “many on ye are lookin’ to yourselves, but it’s no use lookin’ there. You’ll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by-and-by. Jesus Christ says, ‘Look unto Me’. Some on ye say, ‘We must wait for the Spirit’s workin’.’ You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ. The text says. ‘Look unto Me.’ ”
Then the good man followed up his text in this way:—“Look unto Me; I am sweatin’ great drops of blood. Look unto Me; I am hangin’ on the cross. Look unto Me; I am dead and buried. Look unto Me; I rise again. Look unto Me; I ascend to Heaven. Look unto Me; I am sittin’ at the Father’s right hand. O poor sinner, look unto Me! look unto Me!”
When he had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew all my heart, he said, “Young man, you look very miserable.” Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, “and you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death,—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then, lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.” I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said,—I did not take much notice of it,—I was so possessed with that one thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, “Look!” what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant, and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ, and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, “Trust Christ, and you shall be saved.” Yet it was, no doubt, all wisely ordered, and now I can say,—
“E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.”
I do from my soul confess that I never was satisfied till I came to Christ; when I was yet a child, I had far more wretchedness than ever I have now; I will even add, more weariness, more care, more heart-ache, than I know at this day. I may be singular in this confession, but I make it, and know it to be the truth. Since that dear hour when my soul cast itself on Jesus, I have found solid joy and peace; but before that, all those supposed gaieties of early youth, all the imagined ease and joy of boyhood, were but vanity and vexation of spirit to me. That happy day, when I found the Saviour, and learned to cling to His dear feet, was a day never to be forgotten by me. An obscure child, unknown, unheard of, I listened to the Word of God; and that precious text led me to the cross of Christ. I can testify that the joy of that day was utterly indescribable. I could have leaped, I could have danced; there was no expression, however fanatical, which would have been out of keeping with the joy of my spirit at that hour. Many days of Christian experience have passed since then, but there has never been one which has had the full exhilaration, the sparkling delight which that first day had. I thought I could have sprung from the seat on which I sat, and have called out with the wildest of those Methodist brethren who were present, “I am forgiven! I am forgiven! A monument of grace! A sinner saved by blood!” My spirit saw its chains broken to pieces, I felt that I was an emancipated soul, an heir of Heaven, a forgiven one, accepted in Christ Jesus, plucked out of the miry clay and out of the horrible pit, with my feet set upon a rock, and my goings established. I thought I could dance all the way home. I could understand what John Bunyan meant, when he declared he wanted to tell the crows on the ploughed land all about his conversion. He was too full to hold, he felt he must tell somebody. (C. H. Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Compiled from His Diary, Letters, and Records, by His Wife and His Private Secretary, 1834–1854, vol. 1 [Cincinatti; Chicago; St. Louis: Curts & Jennings, 1898], 105–108.
Note that Spurgeon was not told to come to the front of a church building and repeat a sinner’s prayer, or told to ask Christ to come into his heart–those methodologies did not yet exist, as Dr. Paul Chitwood demonstrates in his history of the sinner’s prayer. Spurgeon was directed to embrace Christ directly by repentant faith–the right thing sinners should be counseled to do today, and which, enabled by the Holy Spirit through the power of Scripture, will lead to multitudes of true conversions.
Note as well that in Isaiah 45:22 the word translated “Look” commonly means “turn.” One turns from his sin to look to Christ alone for salvation–repentance is implicit in saving faith.
Spurgeon directed people to embrace Christ directly by faith, rather than telling them that if they sincerely repeated the words of a prayer they would be saved, throughout his ministry. Here are some examples of the evangelistic counsel he gave to seeking sinners, from his book Around the Wicket Gate (cited from here):
When the Lord lifts His dear Son before a sinner, that sinner should take Him without hesitation. If you take Him, you have Him, and none can take Him from you. Out with your hand, man, and take Him at once! When inquirers accept the Bible as literally true and see that Jesus is really given to all who trust Him, all the difficulty about understanding the way of salvation vanishes like the morning’s frost at the rising of the sun.
Two inquiring ones came to me in my vestry. They had been hearing the Gospel from me for only a short time, but they had been deeply impressed by it. They expressed their regret that they were about to move far away, but they added their gratitude that they had heard me at all. I was cheered by their kind thanks, but felt anxious that a more effectual work should be brought about in them. Therefore I asked them, “Have you indeed believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you saved?” One of them replied, “I have been trying hard to believe.” This statement I have often heard, but I will never let it go by me unchallenged. “No,” I said, “that will not do. Did you ever tell your father that you tried to believe him?” After I had dwelt a while upon the matter, they admitted that such language would have been an insult to their father.
I then set the Gospel very plainly before them in as simple language as I could, and begged them to believe Jesus, who is more worthy of faith than the best of fathers. One of them replied, “I cannot realize it: I cannot realize that I am saved.” Then I went on to say, “God bears testimony to His Son, that whosoever trusts in His Son is saved. Will you make Him a liar now, or will you believe His Word?” While I thus spoke, one of them started as if astonished. She startled us all as she cried, “O sir, I see it all; I am saved! Bless Jesus. He has shown me the way, and He has saved me! I see it all.” The esteemed sister who had brought these young friends to me knelt down with them while, with all our hearts, we blessed and magnified the Lord for a soul brought into light. One of the two sisters, however, could not see the Gospel as the other had, though I feel sure she will do so soon.
Did it not seem strange that, both hearing the same words, one should remain in the gloom? The change which comes over the heart when the understanding grasps the Gospel is often reflected in the face and shines like the light of heaven. Such newly enlightened souls often exclaim, “It is so plain; why is it I have not seen it before this? I understand all I have read in the Bible now, though I could not make it out before. It has all come in a minute, and now I see what I never understood before.”
The fact is, the truth was always plain, but they were looking for signs and wonders, and therefore did not see what was there for them. Old men often look for their spectacles when they are on their foreheads. It is commonly observed that we fail to see that which is straight before us. Christ Jesus is before our faces. We have only to look to Him and live, but we make all manner of bewilderment of it, and so manufacture a maze out of that which is straight as an arrow.
The little incident about the two sisters reminds me of another. A much-esteemed friend came to me one Sunday morning after service to shake hands with me. She said, “I was fifty years old on the same day as yourself. I am like you in that one thing, sir, but I am the very reverse of you in better things.” I remarked, “Then you must be a very good woman, for in many things I wish I also could be the reverse of what I am.” “No, no,” she said, “I did not mean anything of that sort. I am not right at all.” “What!” I cried, “Are you not a believer in the Lord Jesus?” “Well,” she said, with much emotion, “I, I will try to be.” I laid hold of her hand and said, “My dear soul, you are not going to tell me that you will try to believe my Lord Jesus! I cannot have such talk from you. It means blank unbelief. What has He done that you should talk of Him in that way? Would you tell me that you would try to believe me? I know that you would not treat me so rudely. You think me a true man, and so you believe me at once. Surely you cannot do less with my Lord Jesus.”
Then with tears she exclaimed, “Oh, sir, do pray for me!” To this I replied, “I do not feel that I can do anything of the kind. What can I ask the Lord Jesus to do for one who will not trust Him? I see nothing to pray about. If you will believe Him, you shall be saved. If you will not believe Him, I cannot ask Him to invent a new way to gratify your unbelief.” Then she said again, “I will try to believe.” But I told her solemnly I would have none of her trying; for the message from the Lord did not mention trying, but said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). I pressed upon her the great truth, that “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:36); and its terrible reverse: “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
I urged her to full faith in the once crucified but now ascended Lord, and the Holy Spirit there and then enabled her to trust. She most tenderly said, “Oh sir, I have been looking to my feelings, and this has been my mistake! Now I trust my soul with Jesus, and I am saved.” She found immediate peace through believing. There is no other way.
There are numbers of resources that can help churches follow the Biblical evangelistic methodology of Spurgeon today, rather than the corrupt “1-2-3, pray after me, 4-5-6, hope it sticks” salesmanship of people like Jack Hyles. May the number of Baptist churches who counsel the lost Biblically increase greatly for God’s glory and for the multiplication of true conversions.
–TDR
Peter Ruckman’s Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy, part 2 of 2
In part one of this study of Peter Ruckman’s heresy about different ways of salvation in different periods of time, four questions were given for disciples of Ruckman to consider. This part provides several more questions for those who have adopted or been influenced by Ruckman’s heresy on this issue.
5.) Does the idea that anyone at any time can be saved partially by works deny the depths of the sinfulness of the human heart? Isaiah, confessing what Israel will pray at the end of the Tribulation, affirms: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6). If even the “best” we can do is a filthy rag—is itself sinful—how can it help one to be saved? We deserve to go to hell for the “best” thing we have ever done, because of how our indwelling sin leads even our “best” actions to be tainted by sin. Does that not obliterate salvation by works at any time? If not, doesn’t it strongly impact how we preach the gospel even now? If Ruckman is right (God forbid), then we can’t tell sinners: “Salvation by works is hopeless and impossible!” but only can say, “Right now God has decided salvation is by faith in this time period, but salvation by works really is possible—the Catholic church is right when it teaches salvation by faith and works; it just puts that way of salvation in the wrong time period.” Isn’t that an attack on the gospel even now? Is it OK to make salvation by works possible, and salvation by faith alone to be a mere dispensational distinction like whether or not it is OK to eat bacon or lobster?
6.) Why are verses that allegedly teach different ways of salvation in different time periods taken out of context in a major way? For example, the Ruckmanite pamphlet referenced in part one claims that Revelation 14:12 proves salvation by faith and works in the Tribulation, but it does no such thing—it just proves that true faith will manifest itself in one’s life, a fact that is all over the Pauline epistles (Romans 2:6-7; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, etc.), all over 1 John, and all over the whole Old and New Testament. Why is there so much misinterpretation going on?
7.) Would salvation be by faith alone in the Messiah from the Fall until the Tribulation and then suddenly change? Wouldn’t we need very, very clear Biblical evidence for this—evidence that does not exist?
8.) If we accept Ruckman’s claim here:
This means that in the Tribulation, you can lose it! … the truth that I’m talking about right now—taught first in 1954—is unknown to Pre-Millennial scholars. (Ruckman, Peter. The Book of Revelation. Pensacola, 1982, p. 413)
Wouldn’t the gates of hell have prevailed against the church, contrary to Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 3:21? Was the church teaching lies about the gospel until 1954 when Ruckman came along to explain the truth?
9.) Shouldn’t anyone who teaches multiple ways of salvation stop calling himself a Baptist, since there are no Baptist confessions of faith from the first century until modern times that teach this idea? One thing that John Davis in his “Why have millions of people suddenly disappeared?” pamphlet and “Time for Truth!” website deserve commendation for is not having the name “Baptist” on his religious organization, but just “The Oaks Church.” That is honest. Someone who teaches ideas about salvation that have never been in any Baptist confession should not call himself or his religious organization a Baptist church. When will you stop confusing people by dishonestly claiming to be a Baptist, when you reject what Baptists believe?
10.) Ruckman makes many other incredible claims on things like aliens and the color of their blood to secret CIA alien breeding facilities that perhaps he is not credible. Furthermore, he says: “There are SIX ‘plans of salvation’ in the book of Acts” (Bible Believers’ Bulletin Jan. 2007, p. 16.” Does such an idea make Acts astonishingly confusing, instead of helping people understand God’s truth?
11.) Ruckman also wrote: “Paul does not hesitate to misapply Habbakuk 1:5-6, in the Church Age” (Ruckman, Peter. How to Teach Dispensational Truth. Pensacola: Bible Believers Press, 1992, 1996, p. 37), claiming that Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, misapplies Scripture. Such outlandish ideas permeate Ruckman’s teachings. If we follow Ruckman, are we not leading ourselves into incredible confusion, even apart from the fact that Ruckman’s life indicated that he was not qualified to pastor, based on 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1? (See, e. g., What About Ruckman? by David Cloud).
12.) Why do Ruckman’s writings have such a carnal, ungodly spirit, so that one feels defiled by just reading a few pages of them? I have never been able to read through any of his books cover to cover; when I tried I could not get past what seemed like regrettably carnal name-calling. What if Ruckman wrote in such a carnal way because he was himself a carnal man, not one who Christians should follow?
13.) Why do you use Romans 10:9-13 in gospel tracts, when Romans 10:9-10 is quoting Deuteronomy 30:14, and Romans 10:13 is quoting Joel 2:32? If Romans 10:9-13 proves salvation by grace through faith in this period of time, but not in other time periods, why does Paul quote Deuteronomy 30, from the Mosaic dispensation, and Joel 2:32, which is about the salvation of people in the Tribulation period? Is Paul misinterpreting the Old Testament, or is Ruckman misinterpreting the Bible?
14.) Romans 4:1-8 is one of the classic New Testament texts on justification by faith alone apart from works:s
Rom. 4:1 What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?
Rom. 4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.
Rom. 4:3 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Rom. 4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
Rom. 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Rom. 4:6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
Rom. 4:7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
Rom. 4:8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Paul proves the glorious truth that God justifies the ungodly apart from works by quoting Genesis 15:6 and Psalm 32:1-2, the experiences of Abraham and of David. If salvation were by works in Abraham’s day or in King David’s day, how could Paul quote Genesis 15 and Psalm 32 to prove exactly the opposite doctrine, and if there are different ways of salvation in different dispensations, why does Paul prove his doctrine of unmerited salvation from the way people in the patriarchal and legal dispensations were saved?
15.) If you cannot answer the questions above, are you willing to reject Ruckman and his false teaching about the existence of multiple ways of salvation?
Read part one on Peter Ruckman’s Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy by clicking here.
–TDR
Peter Ruckman: Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy part 1 of 2
You are out of town and are looking for a good church. After doing online research, you find one and visit. The church says “Baptist,” “independent.” They go soulwinning, telling people to repent and be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. They all have King James Bibles. They say nothing about Ruckman. They reject Jack Hyles’s anti-repentance heresies. They reject CCM, Contemporary “Christian” Music. They believe in eternal security but are not Calvinist. They dress modestly and believe in gender distinction. They reject the charismatic movement. They reject covenant theology and are dispensational, premillennial, and pretribulational. Truths such as the resurrection of Christ, the Trinity, etc. are, of course, all believed. The people are friendly and the pastor preaches with conviction and makes application. Everything looks great!
You go to the tract area to pick up some gospel tracts. The content seems fine for most of them. Then you find a pamphlet about the future. On one side it says: “Very soon millions of people shall suddenly disappear!” Everything that it says in that part sounds fine. But on the other side it says “Why have millions of people suddenly disappeared?” and in that section you are shocked when you discover statements that deny the gospel! In this section, which is addressed to people who miss the Rapture, appear statements such as: “Remember, to be saved you must put all your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and keep the commandments of God,” and “You can only enter [God’s] Kingdom if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and … by … keeping the commandments.” What is going on here?
You look at the pamphlet a bit more carefully. You notice within it a drawing of people going up in the Rapture; one of the graves with a person going up says “Peter Ruckman.” Hmm.
Then you see that it is published by one “John Davis” who runs a “Time for Truth!” website and helps lead “The Oaks Church.” You discover that these sectaries are significant publishers of Ruckmanite literature.
The church you thought was fine turned out to be one where Peter Ruckman’s heresy that there are different ways of salvation in different time periods is being believed and practiced, although they did not openly proclaim their Ruckmanism. That is bad. It is really bad. Such a church is not one to go back to unless they repent and renounce their heresy on the gospel. Multiple (alleged) ways of salvation is a false teaching to tolerate “not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you” (Galatians 2:5). Ecclesiastical separation is commanded by God (Romans 16:17; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; Ephesians 5:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14).
Ruckman believed an eternally secure salvation by grace alone through faith alone is only for the church age; supposedly in past times for Israel and in future times such as the Tribulation period salvation is not by repentant faith alone, but by faith and works. What are some questions you can ask someone who believes or is being influenced by this heresy? Here are a few.
1.) Does the fact that Genesis 15:6 is referenced in Habakkuk 2:4, and these two verses are themselves referenced in James 2; Romans 4; Galatians 3; and Hebrews 10-11 show that justification has always been by faith alone, rather than by works? (The extremely powerful nature of this development of salvation by faith alone from the patriarchal times of Abraham, through the Mosaic dispensation, into the New Testament is developed in the study “The Just Shall Live by Faith”). Why does Paul prove his teaching of justification by faith alone with these kinds of Old Testament texts? Don’t these passages show that Abraham, Moses, Habakkuk, James, and Paul all taught the same human response was required to be saved—faith, and faith alone?
2.) For century after century the Jews were singing Psalms with many verses such as: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him” (Psalm 2:12). If salvation was ever by works in the Old Testament, why would God command them to sing that ALL who trust in God’s Son are blessed (not “some” are blessed, those who trust and also do enough works to be saved?) Is the Psalter deceiving Israel when it regularly teaches salvation by faith alone?
3.) Why does Peter testify that ALL God’s OT prophets witnessed to justification by faith alone in the Messiah? “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).
4.) Why is the Old Testament full of the truth of salvation by grace alone? (For example, the Sabbath teaches salvation by faith and resting from works, according to Paul in Hebrews 3-4, so from the very seventh day of creation God’s resting taught man: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:9-10). One major reason working on the Sabbath deserved the death penalty was to teach Israel what a grave sin it was to seek to enter God’s salvation rest by effort instead of resting in Jehovah and His provided atonement alone. Likewise, Moses told Israel that their being chosen was sheer and totally undeserved grace (Deut 7:6-8); the very preface to the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-2) indicates that Israel was to obey because they were already a redeemed people, not in order to merit salvation, just as believers today obey because they are already a redeemed people, not to merit salvation. There are many texts such as: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1-2); how? Through the Messiah, in the immediate context—Isaiah 52:13-53:12; 55:4.
Read part two on Peter Ruckman’s Multiple Ways of Salvation Heresy by clicking here.
–TDR
Christ’s Human Nature From His Mother Mary: Menno Simons was wrong
Christ received His human nature from His human mother, Mary (contrary to the teaching of Menno Simons).
God did not create a new human nature in Mary’s womb that was unconnected with Mary’s humanity, so that she was simply a pipe or conduit through which an unrelated human nature came into existence. Luke 1:35 states:
And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
The Son was conceived through the working of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35) in the womb of a virgin named Mary, who was engaged to a man named Joseph.
Similarly, Galatians 4:4 reads:
Gal. 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman [γενόμενον ἐκ γυναικός], made under the law,
Christ’s human nature became or came into existence, was made, from, of, or out of His human mother, Mary.
The Lord Jesus was the “fruit” of Mary’s “womb”:
Luke 1:42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
And her actual Son:
Luke 2:7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
He was a literal descendent of David, both through His adopted human father Joseph and through His literal mother, Mary:
Romans 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
If you have taught (likely without thinking it through and with no bad intentions) that Christ’s human nature was not connected to Mary’s humanity through a miraculous work that resulted in Christ’s sinless humanity, despite Mary’s being a sinner, and instead taught that God just created a human nature in the womb of Mary, based on the verses above, you need to change. Stop teaching that. Such a teaching undermines Christ’s true human nature and thus attacks the salvation He wrought for us as the God-Man.
I am thankful for the history of Anabaptist martyrs in the book The Martyr’s Mirror, it is definitely worth reading, and as a history of martyrs in immersions assemblies, has a great deal to commend it above Foxe’s much more well known book of martyrs.
However, Menno Simons, the Reformation Anabaptist leader, denied the Scriptural and traditional Christian view that Christ took His human nature from Mary for the heretical position that His human nature was created in the womb of Mary. Unfortunately, some of the later individuals mentioned in The Martyr’s Mirror follow Menno’s false doctrine in this matter. Thankfully, Menno’s error did not make it into any Baptist confessions; it is more of an idiosyncratic view that he held personally. One may think of Jack Hyles’ similar idiosyncratic heresy that Jesus Christ was human even before His incarnation. Nor does Menno’s heretical view on Christ’s incarnation appear in J. Newton Brown’s edifying book Memorial of Baptist Martyrs.
The Divine Person of Christ was “sent forth” from the Father, but His human nature was “made of a woman” in the virgin conception and birth (Galatians 4:4). Mary was not a surrogate mother, which Christ’s humanity simply passing through her in a manner comparable to the position of the ancient Gnostic heretic Valentinus:
Menno’s own view of the incarnation, however, became a source of controversy among the Anabaptists. It was never accepted by the Swiss Brethren. His view was similar to that of Hofmann. The crux of the problem to him was the origin of Christ’s physical nature. He held that it was a new creation of the Holy Spirit within the body of Mary. Menno’s position differed from the historic view in denying that Christ received his human body from Mary. He replaced the orthodox view, “per Spiritum Sanctum ex Maria virginenatus,” with “per Spiritum Sanctum in Maria virgine conceptus, factus et natus.”[1]
There is some historical evidence that Anabaptists who practiced believer’s immersion rejected Menno’s heretical view on Christ’s humanity with greater consistency than did those who were open to believer’s pouring for “baptism.” This may account for why, as already indicated, no evidence for Menno’s view appears in Brown’s book Memorial of Baptist Martyrs.
I am thankful for Menno Simon’s many stands for truth in a very hostile environment, and look forward to meeting those who trusted in Christ alone and submitted to believer’s immersion in heaven, including those who did not think through the implications of Menno’s view on Christ’s incarnation but adopted Menno’s error from him. I am also thankful for The Martyr’s Mirror and the edifying narratives of Christian martyrs it contains. But on the subject of the incarnation Menno was wrong, and the Baptists and other Anabaptist churches that rejected his heresy were correct, following the teaching of Scripture.
–TDR
[1] William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism, 3rd ed., rev. and enl. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 172.
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My Dad Is In Heaven
On December 3, 1939 at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Danville, IL, the same hospital as me, my father, Terrence Carlton Brandenburg, was born to Charles and Nila Brandenburg. He grew up on a little farm in Indiana in the unincorporated, border town of Foster, Indiana with his younger sister and brother. His family and everyone else called him Terry, which alliterated well with the mascot of Covington, IN schools, the Trojans, where he received all twelve years of elementary and secondary education. Covington, the county seat of Fountain County, was a small town of 2,600.
My dad was born before the United States entered World War 2 and as a child, he saw bombers and fighters flying overhead from a nearby air force base. He grew up in a different era and country than what we have today. He worked the graveyard shift at a factory for over a decade. We children tip toed past his bedroom and never played on the side of the house where he was sleeping. We sat late at night with him before he left for work, watching our black and white TV together as Neil Armstrong took his one small step and one giant leap for mankind.
Until he left his childhood home, his house was without gas, electricity, or indoor plumbing. North Fork Spring Creek ran through his farm, where daily chores might include milking cows, slopping hogs, and bailing hay. He often told the story of outrunning the bull, helped by his collie, Laddie, and hopping over a 6 foot barbed wire fence. Perhaps this helped increase his speed and jumping to set a Covington high record for the 100 and 220 yard dash and long jump. His senior high school football team won a mythical six man state championship, going undefeated with him at halfback and safety.
As my father grew up, his family attended a local chapel of a now long defunct Plymouth Brethren congregation, where he heard the gospel from a visiting “evangelist” and professed salvation in Jesus Christ. He progressed some as a Christian but was never discipled. After graduating from high school, at the age of eighteen, he married his high school sweetheart, Karen. Glenn Ray, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Covington, came to their newlywed apartment and lead her to Christ. They were both baptized into that church and began to grow.
Terry and Karen bore three children, first daughter Kim, then Kent (me), and the youngest son, Kris. They all began attending church and then faithfully to every service. My dad learned to preach the gospel and our family became known for standing for Christ. He took Old and New Testament survey classes at a Bible Institute at a Baptist church in Danville.
My dad had worked on his farm, briefly as a fireman on the railroad, and then for seventeen years for Olin Corporation, a factory between Covington and Danville across the Wabash River. He was never late to a day of work with one exception as his car broke down and he couldn’t thumb a ride. His love for Christ flourished and he wanted more of the Bible. When dad was thirty-five years old, our family sold our house and moved to Watertown, WI for him to attend Bible college. There he worked several jobs while paying tuition for all three children to finish at a Christian high school. He graduated from college, then completed a master’s degree in Bible.
Selling our worldly goods and leaving for Watertown made a big impression on my life. That sacrifice and my dad’s earnest and diligent labor impacted all three of his children in a major way. My brother and I became pastors and my sister married one. Even though he was never a good student growing up and school was difficult for him, my dad was regularly on the honor roll.
For a few years, my dad taught Greek and Bible at the Christian school also to help his children finish college. During my last year of graduate school, my parents moved to Tempe, Arizona, where dad taught upper elementary in a Christian school and coached the basketball team. After I was married and my wife and I traveled to California to start a church, my dad came in 1989 as principal of and teacher in our church school. He continued for over a decade doing that work and trained another man to take his place as his health hindered his continuation.
My dad stayed a faithful member of our church, attending every service, teaching Sunday School, going door to door evangelizing, and serving in almost every way imaginable in our church. He impacted many lives. Four years ago, it was obvious the my mom needed help with dad, so they moved in with my wife and me. They moved with us to Oregon when we started a church there in 2020-21. Then they came with us to Utah this year.
Almost four weeks ago, my dad broke his hip early in the morning. That day they performed surgery to insert screws to repair the hip. He went to a rehab center three weeks ago. He continued physical therapy with hopes of beginning to walk again. I dropped my mom there yesterday morning. They have been married for 63 years. He completed his rehab with the therapists early afternoon, but something seemed different. I arrived in the late afternoon and they had to put him on oxygen because of a sudden difficulty getting air. He breathed his last breath on this earth at around 5pm on July 27, 2022 with my mother, wife, and I at his side. Even though we grieve, we are happy that dad opened his eyes to see Jesus in heaven.
I am so thankful for my father. He did so much for me and many others in this life. I look forward to seeing him in the next.
New Testament Greek for Distance Students Fall 2022
Lord willing, I will be starting a 1st semester introductory Greek class which can be taken by distance students in September 2022. If you are interested, see the post below, the schedule here, and more information here, and then please click here to contact me.
What Will I Learn in Introductory NT Greek?
We will be learning introductory matters such as the Greek alphabet, and then the entire Koine Greek noun system, after which we will get in to verbs in the indicative mood. A second semester to follow should cover the rest of the fundamentals of Greek grammar. At the end of the course, you will be well prepared to begin reading the New Testament on your own. You also will, I trust, have grown closer to the Lord through your growth in understanding and application of His Word, will have grown in your ability to read, understand, teach, and preach the Bible (if you are a man; women are welcome to take the class as well, as they should know God’s Word for themselves and their families and teach other women and children), and will be prepared to learn Greek syntax and dive deeper into exegesis and more advanced Greek study in second year Greek. You will learn the basics of New Testament Greek grammar, syntax and vocabulary, preparing you to translate, interpret and apply Scripture. Recognizing the importance of using the original languages for the interpretation of the New Testament, you will acquire a thorough foundation in biblical Greek. You will learn the essentials of grammar and acquire an adequate vocabulary.
The course should be taught in such a way that a committed high school student can understand and do well in the content (think of an “AP” or Advanced Placement class), while the material covered is complete enough to qualify for a college or a seminary level class. There is no need to be intimidated by Greek because it is an ancient language. Someone who can learn Spanish can learn NT Greek. Indeed, if you speak English and can read this, you have already learned a language—modern English—that is considerably more difficult than the Greek of the New Testament. Little children in Christ’s day were able to learn Koiné Greek, and little children in Greece today learn modern Greek. If they can learn Greek, you can as well, especially in light of principles such as: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
The immense practical benefits of knowing Greek, along with plenty of edifying teaching, will be included. The class should not be a dry learning of an ancient language, but an interesting, spiritually encouraging, and practical study of the language in which God has given His final revelation. It will help you in everything from preaching and teaching in Christ’s church to answering people’s objections in evangelism house to house to understanding God’s Word better in your personal and family time with the Lord.
Furthermore, you will be learning Greek in such a way that at the end you will actually know it. That is, this course, and successor courses in 2nd year Greek (syntax) and 3rd year Greek (book exegesis of Ephesians and Romans), are designed for you to actually know the language at the end, so that you can draw closer to the Lord, be more effective in preaching and teaching God’s Word, and reap the other tremendous benefits of learning Greek the rest of your life. Greek is not an agonizing drudgery you should barely survive and at the conclusion of which you forget everything you learned. The course sequence will teach you to preach expository messages, or teach Scripture, so that the main points of your sermons or lessons are what the main points of the passage are, powerfully impacting those you are shepherding with the sharp sword of the Word. As, by God’s grace, you learn the language and regularly read the Greek New Testament, God’s final glorious revelation will become familiar to you the way the Bible in French or German or Spanish is familiar to native speakers of those languages, and both you and others will be transformed as you behold the glory of Jesus Christ in the mirror of Scripture by the Spirit in a greater way (2 Corinthians 3:18).
What Textbooks Will I Use in Introductory NT Greek?
Required class textbooks are:
1.) Greek New Testament Textus Receptus (Trinitarian Bible Society), the Greek NT underneath the Authorized, King James Version:
alternatively, the Greek New Testament Textus Receptus and Hebrew Old Testament bound together (Trinitarian Bible Society):
2.) William D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, ed. Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Third Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009) (Later editions of Mounce are also fine, but please do not use the first or second edition.):
4th edition:
3.) William D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek (Workbook), ed. Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Third Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009)
4th edition:
4.) T. Michael W. Halcomb, Speak Koine Greek: A Conversational Phrasebook (Wilmore, KY: GlossaHouse, 2014):
4.) T. Michael W. Halcomb, 800 Words and Images: A New Testament Greek Vocabulary Builder (Wilmore, KY: GlossaHouse, 2013):
Recommended texts include:
5.) Danker, Frederick William (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd. ed. (BDAG), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000. This is the only text that you can buy for Accordance Bible Software or Logos Bible Software and then use as a Bible software module instead of having a physical copy. All other books should be physical.
6.) The Morphology of Biblical Greek, by William D. Mounce. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1994
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We are using Speak Koiné Greek as a supplement to Mounce because studies of how people learn languages indicate that the more senses one uses the better one learns a language. Speaking and thinking in Greek will help you learn to read the NT in Greek. We are using Halcomb’s 800 Words and Images because learning Greek vocabulary with pictures and drawings helps to retain words in your memory (think about how children learn words from picture books). Mounce is a very well-written and user-friendly textbook, and Halcomb’s works will make the material even more user-friendly.
What Qualifications Does the Professor Have to Teach Greek?
I have taught Greek from the introductory through the graduate and post-graduate levels for a significant number of years. I have read the New Testament from cover to cover in Greek five times and continue to read my Greek New Testament through regularly. I can sight-read most of the New Testament. I am currently reading the Septuagint through as well; I am about halfway through the Pentateuch and am also reading Psalms. I have also read cover to cover and taught advanced Greek grammars. While having extensive knowledge of Koine Greek, students of mine have also thought my teaching was accessible and comprehensible. More about my background is online here.
My doctrinal position is that of an independent Baptist separatist, for that is what is taught in Scripture. Because Scripture teaches its own perfect inspiration and preservation, I also believe both doctrines, which necessarily leads to the belief that God has preserved His Word in the Greek Textus Receptus from which we get the English King James Version, rather than in the modern critical Greek text (Nestle-Aland, United Bible Societies).
What Do I Need to Get Started?
Unless you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you will need a computer or other electronic device over which you can communicate. We can help you set up Zoom on your computer in case you need assistance with that.
The class should begin in early September, 2022. The class will count as a 4 credit college course. Taking the class for credit is $185 per credit hour. The class can be audited for $100 per credit hour. Auditors will not take tests or be able to interact with the class. Taking it for credit is, therefore, likely preferable for the large majority of people. When signing up, please include something written from your pastor stating the church of which you are a member and his approval for your taking the class. A church that utilizes the class as part of its seminary, college, or institute curriculum may have alternative pricing arrangements; please direct questions to the leadership at your church for more information. Students with clear needs who live outside of North America and Europe in less well-developed countries in Africa or Asia (for example) may qualify for a discount on the course price. One or two students located in any part of the world who are able and willing to help with video editing also would qualify for a course discount.
For any further questions, please use the contact form here.
I am thinking about starting a 1st year Hebrew class for distance students soon as well. Please also let me know if you are interested in learning the language in which God revealed the majority of His infallible revelation.
–TDR
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