Mercy as the lens for interpreting the Torah

"In both of these passages, Hos 6.6, with its emphasis on mercy, is put forward as a hermeneutical lens through which the Torah is to be interpreted: the Pharisees go astray in their understanding of the Law because they fail to realize that its central aim is mercy. Alongside these passages should be placed the beatitude, ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy’(Matt 5.7), and Jesus’pronouncement that ‘the weightier matters of the Law’are ‘justice and mercy and faith’(Matt 23.23). In such passages the quality of mercy is not set in opposition to the Law; rather, Matthew’s Jesus discerns within scripture itself the hermeneutical principle –expressed epigrammatically in Hos 6.6 –that all the commandments are to be interpreted in such a way as to engender and promote the practice of mercy among God’s people. Thus, the story of Israel is carried forward through a particular construal of Torah within a community called to embody the mercy of God."
~~ Cambridge companion to the Gospel 

Dunamahee: The Power of I Can (Anointing)

VENGEANCE OF GOD

"Vengeance in the Old Testament is a juridical term involving the righting of wrongs that have been done. Earlier, Nineveh experienced God’s grace because they had repented. Now they will experience his vengeance. The outpouring of God’s wrath has been delayed, not because he does not care or because he was helpless to act, but because he is patient and slow to anger. The fact that Nineveh is not specifically mentioned in chapter 1, yet seems clearly to be in view, indicates that she serves as an example of the way God deals with his enemies in general. He will not leave the guilty unpunished. This is quoted from Exodus 34: 7 and forms the necessary counterpoint to God’s grace as described in Exodus 34: 6. The nation or individual who rejects God’s forgiving grace will of necessity experience the outpouring of his wrath. God will have the last word. A Jonah may be impatient with God for sparing a Nineveh for a time, but God’s people may rest confidently in his determination and power to deal with sinners in his own time and way. The awesome and irresistible power of God is displayed in nature (1: 3b–6). If the most powerful forces of nature are at God’s disposal to be used as his instrument of judgment, and if no area of creation is immune to the fierceness of God’s wrath, how will any person or kingdom be able to withstand God’s judgment?"
~~ Commentary on Nahum, Baker's Illustrated Commentary of the Bible .

Lessons from Apostle Paul at Lystra -Acts 14

PAUL PREACHING AT LYSTRA
8In Lystra sat a man who could not use his feet, lame from birth, who had never walked. 9This man was listening to Paul as he was speaking. When Paul stared intently at him and saw he had faith to be healed, 10he said with a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And the man leaped up and began walking. 11So when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!” 12They began to call Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. 13The priest of the temple of Zeus, located just outside the city, brought bulls and garlands to the city gates; he and the crowds wanted to offer sacrifices to them. 14But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard about it, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting, 15“Men, why are you doing these things? We too are men, with human natures just like you! We are proclaiming the good news to you, so that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them. 16In past generations he allowed all the nations to go their own ways, 17yet he did not leave himself without a witness by doing good, by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying you with food and your hearts with joy.” 18Even by saying these things, they scarcely persuaded the crowds not to offer sacrifice to them.

19But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and after winning the crowds over, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, presuming him to be dead. 20But after the disciples had surrounded him, he got up and went back into the city. On the next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.

COMMENTARY: The attempt to worship Paul and Barnabas (14:11–15a)
The crowd’s superstitious and even fanatical behaviour is hard to comprehend, but some local background throws light on it. About fifty years previously the Latin poet Ovid had narrated in his Metamorphoses an ancient local legend. The supreme god Jupiter (Zeus to the Greeks) and his son Mercury (Hermes) once visited the hill country of Phrygia, disguised as mortal men. In their incognito they sought hospitality but were rebuffed a thousand times. At last, however, they were offered lodging in a tiny cottage, thatched with straw and reeds from the marsh. Here lived an elderly peasant couple called Philemon and Baucis, who entertained them out of their poverty. Later the gods rewarded them, but destroyed by flood the homes which would not take then in. It is reasonable to suppose both that the Lystran people knew this story about their neighbourhood and that, if the gods were to revisit their district, they were anxious not to suffer the same fate as the inhospitable Phrygians. Apart from the literary evidence in Ovid, two inscriptions and a stone altar have been discovered near Lystra, which indicate that Zeus and Hermes were worshipped together as local patron deities.

Since it was in the Lycaonian language that the people shouted out their belief that the gods had visited them again, and named Barnabas Zeus and Paul Hermes, it is understandable that the missionaries did not at first understand what was happening (11–12). It dawned on them only when the priest of Zeus … brought bulls and wreaths, intending to offer sacrifices to them (13). At this the missionaries tore their clothes, to express their horror at the people’s blasphemy, and rushed out into the crowd, protesting against their intention, and insisting that they were human like them (14–15).

He begged them to turn from the vanity of idolatrous worship to the living and true God. He spoke of the living God as the Creator of heaven, earth and sea, and of everything in them (15). Did he gesture to the sky, to the Taurus mountains to the south, and to the Great Sea beyond them? Moreover, he who made all things has not been inactive since. Although in the past he let all nations go their own way (16), yet he has never at any time or in any place left himself without testimony. On the contrary, he has borne a consistent witness to himself by his kindness to all humankind, including Paul’s listeners. He has given them rain from heaven and crops on earth in their seasons, thus providing them with plenty of food for their bodies and filling their hearts with joy (17). Overawed by the majesty of this perspective, the crowd were restrained only with difficulty from sacrificing to them (18).

We need to learn from Paul’s flexibility. We have no liberty to edit the heart of the good news of Jesus Christ. Nor is there ever any need to do so. But we have to begin where people are, to find a point of contact with them. With secularized people today this might be what constitutes authentic humanness, the universal quest for transcendence, the hunger for love and community, the search for freedom, or the longing for personal significance. Wherever we begin, however, we shall end with Jesus Christ, who is himself the good news, and who alone can fulfil all human aspirations.

5 Truthful Sayings in Pastoral Epistles

1 Tim 115 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 

1 Tim 3:1 Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.

1 Tim 4:8 For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. 9 This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. 10 That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.

2 Tim 2: 11 

Here is a trustworthy saying:

If we died with him,
    we will also live with him;
12 if we endure,
    we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
    he will also disown us;
13 if we are faithless,
    he remains faithful,
    for he cannot disown himself.

TITUS 3

3 At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.These things are excellent and profitable for everyone

Great and Awesome day of the Lord

““Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.””

http://ref.ly/Ml4.5-6 via the Logos Bible Android app.

Above is the last verse of the Old testament.  Talks about the return of Elijah I. E in this case John the Baptist as Jesus himself says that Elijah has come and they have done what they wanted to do with him.

Gabriel announces about John the Baptist before his birth, "And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:17

"And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come" - Matthew 11:14

So Malachi 4:5-6 is talking about John the Baptist. So the great and awesome day of the Lord refers to the destruction of Jerusalem which happened in AD 70 and which is a consequence of Israel 's rejection of Jesus and his forerunner, John the Baptist.

That was utter destruction for Israel was reformed only in 1948 after it was destroyed by Romans in AD 70.

"Creation of Israel, 1948. On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day." -https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel
Launching the Revolt
"The Jewish Revolt began—and met its bitter end—at Masada, a hunk of rock overlooking the Dead Sea. The Romans had built a virtually impregnable fortress there. Yet the atrocities of Florus inspired some crazy Zealots to attack Masada. Amazingly, they won, slaughtering the Roman army there.

In Jerusalem, the temple captain signified solidarity with the revolt by stopping the daily sacrifices to Caesar. Soon all Jerusalem was in an uproar, expelling or killing the Roman troops. Then all Judea was in revolt; then Galilee.
Cestius Callus, the Roman governor of the region, marched from Syria with twenty thousand soldiers. He besieged Jerusalem for six months, yet failed. He left six thousand dead Roman soldiers, not to mention weaponry that the Jewish defenders picked up and used.

Emperor Nero then sent Vespasian, a decorated general, to quell the Judean rebellion. Vespasian put down the opposition in Galilee, then in Transjordan, then in Idumea. He circled in on Jerusalem. But before the coup de grace, Nero died. Vespasian became embroiled in a leadership struggle that concluded with the eastern armies calling for him to be emperor. One of his first imperial acts was to appoint his son Titus to conduct the Jewish War.

Crushing the Revolt
By now, Jerusalem was isolated from the rest of the nation, and factions within the city fought over strategies of defense. As the siege wore on, people began dying from starvation and plague. The high priest’s wife, who once basked in luxury, scavenged for crumbs in the streets.

Meanwhile the Romans employed new war machines to hurl boulders against the city walls. Battering rams assaulted the fortifications. Jewish defenders fought all day and struggled to rebuild the walls at night. Eventually the Romans broke through the outer wall, then the second wall, and finally the third wall. Still the Jews fought, scurrying to the temple as their last line of defense.

That was the end for the valiant Jewish defenders and for the temple. Historian Josephus claimed that Titus wanted to preserve the temple, but his soldiers were so angry at their resilient opponents that they burned it. The remaining Jews were slaughtered or sold as slaves.
......
 Results of the Revolt
The Jewish Revolt marked the end of the Jewish state until modern times. The destruction of the temple also signified a change in the Jews’ worship (although that change had begun as Jews had been scattering throughout the world for at least six hundred years). The first destruction of the temple, by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., had forced the Jews to become people of the Book. The temple’s sad end slammed the door on the Jew’s sacrificial system. They adjusted, of course, creating new rituals for home and synagogue. But the Sanhedrin was dissolved, and the center of Jewish religion moved to the educational institutions of Jamnia.

Where were the Christians? Out of town, basically. Many had been driven out of Jerusalem by persecution decades earlier. Eusebius wrote that when the revolt began, in A.D. 66, some of the remaining Jewish Christians fled to Pella, a city across the Jordan River.

It could be said that these events threw the young church’s balance of power toward the Gentiles. Missionaries like Paul had originally dealt with a strong (and conservative) Jewish church, based in Jerusalem. But the Christian Jews’ non-involvement in the revolt drove an obvious wedge between them and their traditional counterparts. After A.D. 70, Christians were not permitted in the synagogues.

The fall of Jerusalem, then, made the Christians even more distinct from the Jews and impelled the church to develop among the Gentiles."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-28/ad-70-titus-destroys-jerusalem.html


Elijah/ John the Baptist was given to Israel to save them from judgement.
 But they did not listen to him and Christ whom he preached. So judgement came. So this great and awesome day of the Lord refers to the judgement of Israel and not to the final judgement.

EternaL Life - Source, means and certainty

5:11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 5:12 The one who has the Son has this eternal life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have this eternal life.5:13 I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John

32tn The ὅτι (Joti) clause in 5:11 is epexegetical (explanatory) to the phrase καὶ αὕτη ἐστίν (kai Jauth estin) at the beginning of the verse and gives the content of the testimony for the first time: “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

33sn In understanding how “God’s testimony” (added to the three witnesses of 5:8) can consist of eternal life it is important to remember the debate between the author and the opponents. It is not the reality of eternal life (whether it exists at all or not) that is being debated here, but rather which side in the debate (the author and his readers or the opponents) possesses it (this is a key point). The letter began with a testimony that “the eternal life” has been revealed (1:2), and it is consummated here with the reception or acknowledgment of that eternal life as the final testimony. This testimony (which is God’s testimony) consists in eternal life itself, which the author and the readers possess, but the opponents do not. This, for the author, constitutes the final apologetic in his case against the opponents.
34sn The one who has the Son. The expression “to have the Son” in 5:12 means to “possess” him in the sense that he is present in the individual’s life (see 1 John 2:23 for the use of the Greek verb “to have” to indicate possession of a divine reality). From the parallel statement in 5:10a it is clear that believing in the Son and thus having God’s testimony in one’s self is the same as “having” the Son here in 5:12a. This is essentially identical to John 3:16: “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” In contrast, the negative statement in 5:12b reflects the author’s evaluation of the opponents: “the one who does not have the Son does not have (eternal) life.” The opponents, in spite of their claims to know God, do not possess (nor have they at any time possessed, cf. 2:19) eternal life

Source: NETBIBLE