Concerning Baxter's Directions to Weak Christians for Their Establishment and Growth

There are numerous practical instructions in the second chapter of Richard Baxter's 'Ethics' for the safe development of an individual's Christian religious practice as he is new to the faith or young. The several points that Baxter makes are remarkably clear and apply to areas even beyond Christianity. This is another chapter with theology amidst the practical that is excellent for philosophically inclined Christians to encounter as well as anyone else.

Points such as the attraction of the new and novel to people, including religion, and how people may move after a time to the next new thing and fail to increase their understanding of God through the Lord Jesus Christ are plainly right. In contemporary politics forgetting the past and disregarding present points of view-if not suppressing them, that are politically inconvenient is standard operating procedure for the federal government. Farther into the chapter Baxter warns against leaping into every controversy and distracting oneself from deeper understanding of God. He illustrates the fact that several character traits may be overdeveloped in controversy, and I would think that the temporal view and circumstance may be overly accentuated eclipsing thereby the eternal. Too much ego can make one miss the subtly and immanent end of the temporal experience. Jesus Christ is the doorway to eternal life with God. That is an epiphenomena l and narrow circumstance, or extrusion of the eternal into the temporal that it is too easy to lose sight of if overly preoccupied with sundry social, or worldly concerns.

I think it was Baxter, yet perhaps it was Gentry, who wrote that worldly in the Biblical context, or 'the world' referred more to the social order and social reality than the geophysical. Worldliness can thus mean the social and temporal order. It is in the social and temporal order that controversy occurs and zeal for wrong ideas may develop. Zeal to prosecute doctrine that may be in error can lead to some great and marvelous irony.

Though Athenasius and Augustine basically held post-millennial viewpoints, and Jesus said that within his present generation all of the end times things described in Matthew would be done (and the Temple was destroyed about 37 years after crucifixion), there are millions and millions of pre-tribulationist Christians with zeal for the wrong eschatology. It is a great example of what Baxter was writing about in this second chapter of Ethics.

For example, creative adaptive pop-eschatology could consider it possible that the James Webb Space Telescope may catch first sight of a vast left-wing dragon seeking to put the bite on and consume a woman in space who will flee to the wilderness of Proxima Centauri for refuge. That is a long way from the sober partial preterist first century interpretation of Matthew's eschatology and that of the Revelation.

"And they worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?”" (Rev. 13:4).

"It is evident that the initial, paradigmatic role, extreme cruelty, and length of Nero’s persecution of Christianity fit well the role required in Revelation for the Beast. Nero did wage “war with the saints” to “overcome them” (Rev. 13:7). And he is the only Roman emperor of the first century to have done such. Not only so but he did it for the length of time specified in the Revelational record: 42 months. Surely Nero is before us in Revelation 13 as the specific manifestation of the Beast."-Gentry, page 55 The Beast of Revelation

It is possible to create and offer a course in first century Christian prophecy and prophecy fulfillment that would illuminate the tremendous, living power of God to structure, decree and fulfill events in world history. There are few accurate presentations of preterist, post-millennial paradigmata from Matthew and the Revelation brought to the public in concise form that summarize the incredible accuracy of Jesus and John. Kenneth Gentry describes all of the criterion in two books; The Beast of Revelation, and He Shall Have Dominion, yet too few Christians ever encounter or read those books. In other words most Christians don't know the truth about their own religion, and what a difference it makes. Imagine if people thought the prophecies of the Old Testament were never fulfilled and were yet to occur.

Some Christians await a Jewish sort of Messianic paradigm to emerge as if they were zealots expecting an imperial ruler; something like the Emperor-Dragon with the Caesar's made in his image to rule with an iron fist and put down evil opposition. Instead a gradual build up of Christians to a majority of the population will occur even though pre-tribbers expect a doom and dwindling of believers until a new Anti-Christ world ruler takes over like Nero of old. What a difference.