Persecution And Cosmic Conflict

"But just as then the child born as a result of the flesh persecuted the one born as a result of the Spirit, so also now" (Gal 4:29 CSB). Why do God's people suffer? In Galatians, Paul makes an argument from persecution for the authenticity of his gospel. Persecution demonstrates that Paul and the Galatians belong to God and have believed in the divinely revealed gospel. While Paul does not offer an explicit theodicy in Galatians, his argument from persecution requires an implicit one. Paul's theodicy can primarily be understood through his interpretation of earlier Scripture, especially the story of Isaac and Ishmael in Genesis. In Persecution and Cosmic Conflict, Joshua Caleb Hutchens examines the theme of persecution in Galatians and Paul's theological context in earlier Scriptures and early Judaism. Hutchens argues that Paul sees persecution as a manifestation of the cosmic conflict between God in Christ and the present evil age. Paul argues for this by appealing to earlier Scripture in Genesis. Hutchens offers a biblical-theological reading of Genesis that makes sense of Paul's usage of the book in Galatians.

Part of the biblical theology of Satan and the demonic realm includes a depiction of cosmic conflict, wherein earthly events and conflicts are portrayed as a reflection of heavenly ones, and vice versa. While this portrayal has been explored from various angles, it has not been applied to an examination of the letter of 1 Peter. This dissertation argues that the depiction of cosmic conflict does inform Peter's paraenesis and depiction of suffering to a significant degree. Chapter 1 contains a survey of revelant research and presents the thesis: that the portrayal of cosmic conflict informs Peter's dipiction of suffering in that Peter pictures the current persecution of the readers as a necessary and inevitable part of the cosmic struggle against Satan and the demonic realm. Chapter 2 presents an examination of the paraenesis of 1 Peter, arguing that the letter reflects the paradigm of conflict, whereby the author seeks to subvert the perceived social values and structures. This chapter shows how cosmic conflict reflects this paradigm, as the world is depicted as an arena for opposing cosmic and human forces. Chapters 3 through 5 contain a detailed survey of biblical and Second Temple Jewish literature as it portrays the figures of Satan and the demonic realm, as well as the conflict that exists between Yahweh and the forces of darkness. These chapters also make note of the connections drawn by the biblical authors between the earthly and heavenly realms. Chapter 6 contains an examination of the suffering and persecution envisaged in 1 Peter, and argues for a portrayal of suggering that includes verbal, social, economic and legal components. This chapter also emphasizes how early Christian writers could speak of their struggles as having imperial and cosmic dimensions. Chapter 7 offers a succinct reading of 1 Peter as a whole, with particular attention to how the depiction of cosmic conflict detailed thus far influences Peter's teaching and exhortation throughout the epistle. Chapter 8 contains a conclusion of major arguments and suggests possible implications for broader study of the New Testament and application to the church at large today.

Several view of martyrdom co-existed in the early Church. The 'orthodox' position, generally accepted by scholars, was that a Christian should choose martyrdom rather than deny the Faith, but should not, on any account, court death. Although it has been recognised that some in the early Church did seek a glorified death, by giving themselves over to arrest, most scholars have dismissed such acts as differing from 'the accepted attitude to martyrdom' in the early Church. Therefore, instances of volitional, or radical martyrdom, have been largely overlooked or sidelined in scholarly investigations into the theology and origins of Christian martyrdom. Paul Middleton argues that, far from being a deviant strand of early Christianity, 'radical martyrdom' was a significant, and widely held idealised form of devotion in the late first to early third centuries. Christian martyrdom is placed within the heritage of Jewish War tradition, with each martyr making an important contribution to the cosmic conflict between Satan and God. Radical Martyrdom re-examines the presentation, theology, and origins of Christian martyrdom up to the beginning of the Decian persecutions in the light of new perspectives on the subject.

In this four-session study guide to the film "Wesley: A Heart Transformed Can Change the World" written by expert Dr. Kenneth C. Kinghorn, see how John Wesley changed the world and became the spiritual leader for millions. With a screenplay adapted directly from the journals of John Wesley, the film faithfully portrays the formative years of Wesley’s ministry, from the Epworth rectory fire in his childhood, to his disastrous mission and romance in colonial Georgia, and to his pivotal “heart-warming” experience in London. Perfect for small groups or individual study, each session includes prayers, study questions, and background information about Wesley's life and times.

Cosmic Conflict is a series of four plays that examine the complex union between the physical and the spiritual world. It gives a face to the metaphysical conflicts that people face every day. This is spiritual warfare in the most literal sense of the word, and Cosmic Conflict offers the Holy Bible as the answer. We often speak of evil spirits or Satan, but it is hard to get a clear picture of what those apparitions look like, many images that have been fed to us through out our lives. For example, the devil is red with horns and a tail, and demons are monstrous creatures with ill intent. But what if Satan is the man sitting next to you reading a book? What if a demon looks like your wife, husband, or even your child? Cosmic Conflict tackles these dilemmas full force, using scripture, prayers, and evangelical pastors. It uses the unyielding power of Jesus Christ to go to the source of negative and destructive world behavior - the spirits working behind the scene to do us harm. No human being on this earth will ever survive or overcome the manipulation of Satan on his or her own power neither is any human free from this conflict. It is all around us effecting our lives in different ways. Cosmic conflict is responsible for that child of yours who is involved in one problem to another, that your shattered marriage, your inability to succeed in anything, your inability to set any goal for yourself and achieve it. Cosmic Conflict is behind the high rate of corruptions in public service, trade union unrest, accidents in our roads, plane crash, train derailment etc. While in the world stage cosmic conflict is responsible for civil unrest, wars in many nations and rumors of wars, natural disasters like earthquakes, flood, hurricanes, typhoon just to mention but few. I will not also fail to mention others like plane, hijack, terrorist attacks, and many others.

In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors. According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that the "Age of Martyrs" is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.

This volume, which appears on the occasion of Marinus de Jonge's retirement as Professor of New Testament at Leiden University, brings together twenty essays which he wrote recently for various periodicals and collective works. A number of articles deal with the expectation of the future in Jewish sources, like Ps. Sol., the Qumran Scrolls and Josephus. Closely connected with these are some essays on the question of how such titles as 'Christ', and 'Son of David' came to be applied to Jesus. Eleven essays delve into various important aspects of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: eschatology, ethics, paraenesis, but also their use of Jewish source material and their view of the history of God's dealing with man, a view related to that held by Justin and Hippolytus. This book throws light on the Jewish origins of early Christian theology and on its relationship with the Hellenistic culture in which it developed. The book also includes Marinus de Jonge's bibliography.