The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas Clayton Booher 2 Pet 1:3 A s His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue . Salvation is from sin. Since man fell, all of God’s work in relation to him has centered around the saving of the soul from sin. A. W. Pink may have been the one who popularized the tri-faceted nature of our salvation by describing it as deliverance from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. His observation serves to keep the whole matter of salvation in perspective. Often as a child, the preaching that I heard stressed only how God saves us from hell. Not from my pastor, Clayton Howard Gray, who was the greatest pulpit preacher I’ve ever heard. Such preaching did not come from him, but others. I remember one speaker at a youth camp located in Erie , Pennsylvania . He preached this way. Granted, there were several in our midst who were interns of George Junior Republic (we...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher 1 Peter 3:9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called. In part 7 (1 Peter 2:9) of this series, some introductory remarks were made as to who the recipients of Peter’s letter were. Suffice it to say that they were probably as much Gentile as they were Jew. At the end of the preceding chapter (3:13ff), Peter begins to write about submission to authority. This included the requirement to subject one’s self to institutions (governmental agencies and leaders) that have no root in a biblical world-view even to the point of openly honoring the pagan emperor. This would likely have been easier for Gentile Christians than for Jewish. The Gentile would have grown up living self-consciously as a citizen of the Roman Empire . The Emperor in Rome would have been his emperor, much like one born and raised in the United States honors the President as his President. A Jew may have recogniz...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher 1 Peter 2:9   that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light Peter begins his first epistle by identifying the recipients as the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia  (1:1) .  Exactly  what the Dispersion refers to is not entirely agreed upon by Bible scholars and commentators.   One commentator  correlates the word, dispersion (Greek  diaspora ), with the LXX  translation of Deuteronomy 28:25,  [Thou] shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth  (KJV). The translators used the same word. He considers it the first use as a technical designation of Jews who lived outside of Palestine. On that basis, he believes Peter is writing to Jews who, by their own choice, are living in the regions listed in verse one. There is merit to that idea as there was a general division of labor between Paul and Peter, ...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher Hebrews 3:1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus. The author of the letter to the Hebrews is unknown. The writer does not identify himself, and the clues are sufficiently weak as to make it impossible to offer a suggestion with any certainty. The Scofield Reference Bible ascribes the letter to Paul. Most all other such Bibles refrain. It is very unlikely that Paul was the author. The writer places himself among those who had not received any direct revelation from Christ, but heard only those who had (Heb 2:3). Paul insists that he had received his Gospel from Christ himself (Gal 1:11, 12; Cf Eph 1:3). The occasion of the letter is an apparent danger of some Jewish converts to turn back to the Old Testament system of worship in some fashion. The temptation to succumb is easier because the temple and priestly offices were still in tact, as the letter seem...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher 1 Thessalonians 4:7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. In our call to be saints, we are called to be holy. This is undeniably fundamental to the concept of being a saint, but how many of us can say precisely what ‘holy’ means. Take a moment to ponder that question. What does it mean to be holy, for as our text states, God has called us in holiness. Holiness is the sphere into which we have been called. It is the realm in which God has placed us. While living physically in this present evil world (Gal 1:4), we have been transferred into the holy (cf Col 1:13 ). The Old Testament high priest went into the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement. Once a year, a mortal, sinful human being entered the holiest place on the planet, the place where God was present in all of his fullness, though not fully visible as he is within the intra-Trinitarian fellowship. In that finite cubicle chamber, there was the theophanic...

By: Thomas Clayton Booher Part 1:  read here Part 2:  read here Part 3:  read here Ephesians 1:18 ....that you may know what is the hope of his calling.... Paul’s first encounter with city of Ephesus is recorded in Acts 18. The events that occurred early in the chapter have a direct bearing on that first visit and more prominently with the letter he later wrote to the Ephesians some time between A.D. 61-63 while a prisoner at Rome under house arrest (Acts 28:16-31:Eph 3:1; 4:1; 6:20). Paul had met a Jew named Aquila in Corinth . Both were tentmakers so Paul stayed with him and his wife (Priscilla) and worked. As was Paul’s custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and using the scriptures, he explained in a cogent, clear, and coherent manner the person and work of Christ. It was effective because he persuaded both Jews and Greeks (Acts 18:1-5). However, there was opposition, in particular from Jews who ‘blasphemed.’ The nature o...