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MINISTRY UPDATE

Respect Time

Anachronism ~def. An error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one.

Moses never drove a dune buggy, Noah could never use Craftsman tools, and Daniel never sent a resume to Barnum and Bailey.

These are examples of anachronisms. Those men would know nothing about cars or modern power tools.

The problem with anachronism is that it cannot describe true history because it does not respect the order of times. Since it is historically impossible, anachronisms are a sign that an account is fictional (i.e. made up, fake, not real).

Yet, when it comes to inspired revelation, Christians forget the meaning of anachronism and shoot themselves in the doctrinal foot.

Later revelations are assigned to earlier historical contexts and instead of being laughed out of the pulpit, this is seen as theological cleverness.

Saying Abraham was looking forward to the cross, even though the cross had not yet been revealed, is anachronistic.

Jesus never preached his finished work on the cross for salvation a day in his earthly life because the work had yet to be finished while he was still alive. To think so is to create a fiction.

It would be anachronistic for Peter to minister the Body of Christ in Matthew or early Acts since the mystery of Christ was not revealed until later to the apostle Paul.

These historical facts do not stop Christians from applying scripture in a slipshod fashion and turning the Bible into an anachronistic fiction factory.

Every failure to rightly divide is an anachronism. It communicates a doctrine or operation of God occurring at the wrong time.

To let God’s word be true, progressive revelation must be acknowledged, which means time must be respected.

For truth,

Justin “time” Johnson