Emulation #4

Saturday, November 4, 2023

“If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them” (Romans 11:14 KJV).

What is “emulation?”

Romans chapter 11 once again, today’s Scripture in context: “[11] I say then, Have they [Israel] stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. [12] Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? [13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: [14] If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.”

“Provoke them to jealousy” (verse 11) is actually the same Greek word as “provoke to emulation” (verse 14). “Paradzeloo” is from “para–” (“with”) and “dzeloo” (“zeal, envy”). Paul magnifying his apostolic office (verse 13)—which included miracle-working (see Romans 15:15-19; 2 Corinthians 12:12)—was aimed at attracting lost Israelites to come to the God of the Bible via Paul’s ministry and message. They would see non-Jews or Gentiles fellowshipping with Israel’s God through Paul’s Gospel, and they would notice the Gentiles exercising their spiritual gifts, but they (the lost Jews) were without that God.

To “emulate” means “to attempt to match or tie.” If the Gentiles were believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour (Paul’s Gospel of 1 Corinthians 15:3,4), then Paul in any way drawing attention to his apostolic office would entice unsaved Jews (“them which are my flesh;” see Romans 11:14 and Romans 9:3,4) to believe the same message. That is, “Lost Israel, become like the Gentiles in faith, for in doing so you will deliver yourselves from the darkness and blindness of your Christ-rejecting nation.” This was the basic message to Israel in Romans 10:9-13, with emphasis on verse 12 (no difference between Jew and Greek/Gentile). As in time past, Paul knew only a Jewish remnant would believe (“[that I] might save some [not ‘many,’ ‘most,’ or ‘all’] of them;” Romans 11:14; cf. 1 Corinthians 9:22).

This was Paul’s ministry during Acts….

Emulation #3

Friday, November 3, 2023

“If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them” (Romans 11:14 KJV).

What is “emulation?”

The primary role of the Apostle Paul was to preach the Gospel of the Grace of God to the whole world: “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). His secondary purpose was a provoking ministry to Israel during the Acts period (see Romans 11:11-14, the context of today’s Scripture). With national Israel temporarily losing her status before God in Acts chapter 7, lost Jews needed to hear updated information concerning what the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was doing.

Therefore, as Paul traveled around the Roman Empire, he visited synagogues (Jewish places of worship) or preached to any lost Jews to announce the change in program (Acts 9:20-22; 13:5,14-52; 14:1-3; 17:1-4,10-11; 18:4-8,19-21; 19:8-9; 28:17-31). “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you [Israel]: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). “And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles” (Acts 18:6). “Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it” (Acts 28:28).

In speaking these words, Paul was indicting Israel for unbelief, for if they refused to trust his Gospel, then they were just as rebellious as their brethren in the land of Palestine who had rejected the Gospel of the Kingdom under Jesus’ earthly ministry and Peter’s ministry in early Acts. If they were to have a relationship with the God of the Bible, they must approach God the way Gentiles are coming, and this is most unflattering to these Jewish people….

Emulation #2

Thursday, November 2, 2023

“If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them” (Romans 11:14 KJV).

What is “emulation?”

Consider Romans 15:8-12: “[8] Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: [9] And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written [Psalm 18:49], For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. [10] And again he saith [Deuteronomy 32:43], Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. [11] And again [Psalm 117:1], Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. [12] And again, Esaias saith [Isaiah 11:10], There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.”

In the above passage, Paul quoted assorted Old Testament verses which you would do well to read (Psalm 18:49; Deuteronomy 32:43; Psalm 117:1; Isaiah 11:10). Regarding each verse, Israel has risen to kingdom glory, and the nations or Gentiles are attracted to God’s light in Israel. You may also see Isaiah 60:1-3, Zechariah 8:20-23, and Matthew 5:13-16. God would use converted Israel to minister to the world. Christ’s earthly ministry was thus to Israel, as Romans 15:8 already stated: “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises [covenants] made unto the fathers:….” Gentile salvation—the salvation of the nations—was no secret in time past.

What was a secret in prophecy was God’s salvation and blessing going to the world without converted Israel. This is mystery, Paul’s ministry and message, as found in today’s Scripture and its context: “[11] I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. [12] Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? [13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:….” It is in this setting that “emulation” is used….

ARCHIVED: “Should Christians observe All Souls’ Day?”

Emulation #1

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

“If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them” (Romans 11:14 KJV).

What is “emulation?”

Read today’s Scripture in context: “[11] I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. [12] Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? [13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: [14] If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.”

At present, the nation Israel is fallen before God. In other words, the God of the Bible is currently reaching the world without converted Israel. He is not forming the nation Israel today, but rather developing the Church the Body of Christ. This is the Apostle Paul’s ministry and message. Salvation and blessing are being extended to the Gentiles or nations without Israel’s kingdom, without Israel’s covenants, without the prophetic program. Understandably, this was extremely offensive to the Jewish people in Paul’s day and it is still unpopular now—even among “Christian” church members. It is most inconvenient for a Jew to accept the fact that he is no different from a Gentile in God’s eyes. Nonetheless, the Holy Bible is true.

“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:11-13). By proclaiming this truth, Paul was “provoking to emulation” a certain group of people, to the intent he would “save some of them.”

Let us search the Scriptures for more insight into this principle….

ARCHIVED: “Should Christians observe All Saints’ Day?”

Arrayed in Hypocrisy

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Matthew 23:27,28 KJV).

“Looks can be deceiving” is not only true during Halloweentime, but confirmed year-round within Christendom.

Today is Halloween, when children dress up and feign themselves to be creatures they are not. Likewise, many church leaders today wear “Christian” garbs, but their ministries do not bring the Lord Jesus Christ glory and honor. They promote their denomination, and seek to perpetuate it, rather than serve and exalt the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible manifests these who appear to be good, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

In today’s Scripture, Jesus Christ exposed Israel’s corrupt religious leaders who misled the nation in His day. In His Parable of the Tares, Matthew 13:24-30,37-43, Christ explained how just as He had sown good seed (wheat, believing Jews) in Israel, Satan had also sown tares/weeds (unbelieving Jews). Tares resemble wheat; unbelieving Jews resemble believing Jews. The unbelieving Pharisees and scribes, for instance, looked like God’s people (believing Israel). Judas Iscariot was another example of Satan’s tares—the apostles never realized who Judas really was until it was too late!

But Satan’s counterfeit believers are not confined to Israel’s program. Today, within local assemblies of the Body of Christ, there are people feigning themselves to be Christians: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Beloved, beware of the church leaders who are arrayed in hypocrisy, “and avoid them” (Romans 16:17b). If their teaching does not agree with the rightly divided King James Bible, you have no business as a child of God to be listening to them.

*This is excerpted from a larger Bible study with the same name. The Bible study can be read here or watched here.

You may also see our special study, “Should Christians celebrate Halloween?” In addition, “What does the Bible say about ghosts?”

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #8

Monday, October 30, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

It is human nature to strive to be at the center of attention (note well how “sin” and “pride” both share the same middle letter!). We seek to believe and do whatever we want, so we turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to God’s words (the very words that describe what He believes and does). That was unbelieving Israel’s chief problem in today’s Scripture. How hard they tried—how hard they tried!!—to eliminate their “competitor” in “ministry.” It was just an exercise in futility, which they begrudgingly admitted and know well even now 20 centuries later.

“Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.” No matter what those religious leaders attempted to do to silence Him, or how underhanded they were in bringing it to pass, the Lord Jesus was still popular with the common Jewish people. Nevertheless, these “religious teachers” would not and did not submit to Messiah. Instead, they kept pursuing that line of wishful thinking that they could rid themselves and their nation, once and for all, of this “Troublemaker!”

No doubt they murdered Jesus their Messiah or Christ. It was premeditated, carefully planned and carried out. What else could they do to ensure their religious machine—their religious organization controlling the nation—would survive? Even now, the people of our world scheme to accomplish their own words and works. In some way or another, they hope to save themselves without the God of the Bible, without Christianity, without Holy Scripture. May they listen well! “Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Proverbs 19:20,21).

Just as the Lord Jesus Christ came back from the dead totally victorious, He will come back to our fallen world completely triumphant! “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #7

Sunday, October 29, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

In Acts chapter 5, while the Sanhedrin members consider killing Christ’s Apostles, a dissenting or disagreeing voice interjects: “[34] Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; [35] And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. [36] For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. [37] After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. [38] And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: [39] But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

Gamaliel—a well-known rabbi or Jewish teacher even now (2,000 years later!)—was willing to give the Apostles the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really were serving the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was thus open to sparing their lives, and they were delivered from execution (read verses 40-42). If they were following a false “messiah”—who were multiplied during that time, including Theudas and Judas of Galilee (verses 36,37)—the movement would be manmade and thus fizzle. However, Gamaliel might have had some spiritual light from Joseph of Arimathaea or Nicodemus, his Messianic Jewish colleagues of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50,51; John 3:1,2; John 7:45-53). Not necessarily a believer, Gamaliel was nevertheless quite right in warning, “But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

Let us summarize and conclude this devotionals arc….

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #6

Saturday, October 28, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

The same religious leaders who had so viciously opposed and killed the Lord Jesus kept violently resisting Him in resurrection as His Little Flock (filled with the Holy Ghost) conducted their ministry during the early Acts period. Sermon after sermon is preached to call Israel to repentance (change in mind) and faith (in Jesus as Christ/Messiah). The response is overwhelmingly negative, with just a believing remnant. By the time of chapter 5, the Apostles, having been imprisoned and subsequently freed by the angel of the Lord, are now recaptured and on trial before the Sanhedrin (Jewish Supreme Court).

We read in chapter 5 of Acts: “[25] Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. [26] Then went the captain with the officers [the Jerusalem Temple police!], and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. [27] And when they had brought them, they set them before the council [Sanhedrin]: and the high priest asked them, [28] Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.

“[29] Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. [30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. [31] Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. [32] And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. [33] When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.”

Let us see if the Apostles will live or die….

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #5

Friday, October 27, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

Read the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in Matthew 21:33-46, Mark 12:1-12, and Luke 20:9-20. Jesus spoke those words to Israel’s apostate religious leaders just two days before they put Him to death. He announced—to their surprise, no doubt!—that He knew very well how they were conniving to murder Him. Like selfish farmers who refused to give the vineyard over to the Owner’s Son, they wanted to keep their positions of power instead of relinquishing the nation’s government to Him (God’s Son)!

Church leaders need to be especially careful they do not turn into such individuals who are “drunk on power.” They can become so irrationally obsessed with controlling people that, eventually, it is no longer the Holy Spirit guiding the assembly but the minister’s flesh (someone’s scholarship, opinions, hunches, speculations). Unless it teaches or endorses something they want to believe or promote, the Holy Bible is set aside. The denominational hierarchy cares more about perpetuating longtime traditions than sound Bible doctrine. This was the Judaism of Christ’s earthly ministry, and it is the Judaism even now. They are more familiar with manmade ideas (“interpretations of verses”) than they are with actual Bible verses. Christendom is just as corrupt, deceived, and immature in Scripture.

Do not think it farfetched, dear friend, that there are people in “Christian ministry” (HA!) right now who would, like ancient Israel’s spiritual leaders, kill Jesus Christ in a heartbeat if it meant saving their false theological system from exposure, ruin, or obliteration. He is not here physically, but we are, and how they shamefully treat us is how they would handle Him if He were here because He is in us by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit (and this they do not like!). Like Him, we are outcasts. The world does not want us. The denominations do not want us. Let them fight us, for they without the rightly divided Scripture will—like ancient Israel’s stubborn religious leaders—prevail nothing in the grand scheme of things….

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #4

Thursday, October 26, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

It was an understatement to say Israel’s apostate religious authorities were disgusted. After their numerous repeated attempts to challenge Him, discredit Him, arrest Him, assassinate Him—the Lord Jesus Christ was still alive and now (horror of horrors!) He was being welcomed into Jerusalem for Palm Sunday (today’s Scripture)! To some extent they would admit failure on their part: “Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing?” That is, they asked each other in annoyance, “Can you not see how you have not defeated Him, stopped Him, done away with Him?! He is still here, bothering us as usual, attracting the crowds who should be watching and listening to us!!!”

Dear friends, how truly pitiful it is when people who have believed a lie for a long time, would rather keep the error they have, than believe the truth when confronted with it. This was the case during Christ’s earthly ministry and it is relevant even now. It was not a lack of evidence that caused their unbelief. It was not faulty evidence that produced their unbelief. It was willful ignorance—a deliberate, intentional disregard—of the overwhelming evidence they saw and heard that caused their unbelief. Countless billions find themselves in the same predicament: refusing to come to the Creator and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, His Word rightly divided, the King James Bible in English, and on and on.

Furthermore, we should remember how we are not the issue in ministry, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the issue. Israel’s apostate religious leaders were irritated because He was receiving more attention than they were. However, they had such high opinions of themselves that they had forgotten how they were mere creatures whereas He was the magnificent Creator. Was it not appropriate that the King be at the center of the merriment? Was it not His nation they were to be taking care of? See, they were self-willed—refusing to hand Christ’s nation over to Him. Like so many church leaders even now, they were not God’s servants at all….