Nathan E. Lewis

(A sermon series, Advent 2010: Nathan Lewis preaching at Evergreen Presbyterian Church in Beaverton, Oregon)

First Sunday of Advent
Angels & Demons from Eden to Sinai
In 1998 Frank Peretti’s best-seller, “This Present Darkness,” offered the world a supernatural thriller of angels & demons at war in the fictitious town of Ashton, which every Oregonian quickly recognizes as Ashland. Do angels and demons exist? Is there actually a spiritual war raging? In 2000 Dan Brown’s best-seller, “Angels & Demons,” a mystery thriller reached an even wider audience with its story of the illuminati waging war against the Vatican, presenting angels & demons as mere human beings. Needless to say, our world is full of interesting ideas and beliefs when it comes to angels & demons. Even among Christians who study their Bibles, there is a variance in view concerning angels & demons.
The English Puritan, John Owen in his commentary on Hebrews described the height of human ingratitude as our disinterest in angels who help us to worship God. He writes: “Great is the privilege, manifold are the blessings and benefits that we are made partakers of, by this ministry of angels. What shall we render for them, and to them? Shall we go and bow ourselves down to angels themselves, and pay our homage of obedience to them? They all cry with one accord, “See you do it not; we are you fellow servants.” What shall we then do? “Why!” they say, “worship God!” Glorify and praise Him, who is the God of all angels; who sends them unto whom they minister in all that they do for us. Let us bless God, I say, for the ministry of angels.” Continue reading »

(A condensed course describing the church , our identity in Christ & mission in the kingdom of God. The following are the content of Nathan’s PP slides for discussion.)

The “Double Helix” of Our Church
Worship
The Gospel Centered Life
Prayer Training
Mission & Fellowship
Virtue
Continue reading »

Introduction:
The title, “The Minor Prophets,” has been used in the western Church since the days of Augustine. These prophets are “minor” in the sense that their writings are shorter compared to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. In the Hebrew Scriptures, all of the prophets are grouped in the 24 book section titled: “The Law and the Prophets.” The Minor Prophets cover a span of 300 years beginning in the 750’s B.C. through the mid-400 B.C.
This Hebraic grouping captures the covenantal structure of biblical texts. God gave the law to govern the covenant, that central and pervasive communion between God and his people. God attached blessing and curses to his law: blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. The prophets, in one sense, are God’s prosecuting attorneys, delivering God’s case against a disobedient covenant people. To the extent that his covenant reaches the entire world, the prophets bring cases against all rebellious nations. One of God’s central covenant promises is that through Abraham, all the nations of the world shall be blessed.
Moses is the prophet of God who delivered the law of God to his people at Mt. Sinai and then, at the end of his life, delivered it again in the form preserved in Deuteronomy, “the second law.” For us to understand and apply The Minor Prophets, we must have a fair understanding of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses.
As Christians, we also study Jesus and the apostles as they interpret the law and the prophets. The bold claim of Jesus is that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. The apostles present Jesus as the great prophet, greater than Moses and the suffering servant, who represents the human party of the covenant, “he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.” As John Calvin wrote in his introduction to Hosea, “As there is no hope of reconciliation with God except through a Mediator, they ever set forth the Messiah, whom the Lord had long before promised.” Continue reading »

Presented by Nathan Lewis to the Faculty and Staff of St. Stephen’s Academy, August 2010

One of the contributions of the Wisdom literature of the Bible is its distinguishing between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is the acquisition of God’s truth, not only facts but also insight and perspective. Wisdom is the right application of knowledge. Dr. Bruce Waltke, who has taught over the past 50 years at nearly every Evangelical and Reformed Seminary in North America, is the finest presenter of this distinction in our day. Building on Dr. Robert Alter’s knowledge of Hebrew poetry, especially it strongest feature, couplet parallelism, Waltke has not only distinguished wisdom from knowledge but he has also displayed their inseparable relationship. Hebrew parallel couplets most usually follow the form “A line what’s more B line.” In (8:1) not only does wisdom beckon us, but what’s more, knowledge beckons us. A Hebrew reader would expect the reverse order: Not only does knowledge beckon us but ever more so wisdom, the true mastery of knowledge beckons us. But the author desires us to see that at every level, even the rudimentary levels of our acquisition of revealed truth, we are beckoned.
In the classical method of learning we might easily apply this realizing that at our lowest levels of learning in the Grammar school, where we focus on the acquisition of facts, we are beckoned to follow God. This is one of the amazing gospel themes of the whole of Scripture: we do not have to achieve a certain level of learning, discipleship or mastery of virtue to hear the divine voice. Continue reading »