Holy Scriptures
Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #3 Rejoicing in the insistence
Prosperity and Waiting unto Jehovah God
Request to keep up
For this it is so important that we ask God to teach us, the way of His statutes and that He gives us the possibility to keep them to the end.
Like the psalmist we may ask God to give us understanding and direction, so that we shall be able to keep His Torah. For we delight in Them.
When our heart is turned towards God His statutes and not toward selfish gain, we do not have our eyes on the wicked who seem to have a more prosperous live than us. We do know that this life on earth today is just a temporary life, and that later there will be a much more important life under the direction of the Most Mighty King. So we better turn our eyes away from looking at worthless things, which are transitory. The passing things should not worry us. Our minds should go over those brittle matters and look forward for the not ephemeral matters.
A Sefer Torah, the traditional form of the Hebrew Bible, is a scroll of parchment. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Listening to the Voice of God as it is daily available for us in the Holy Scriptures those Words shall enable us to revive us in God His ways, fulfilling His promise to His People and to those who want to do away the wickedness. God is the One who can revive us in His righteousness. In His loving kindness He took care that a solution was made to finish the consequences of the first sin. He was the One who took care that salvation could come by His beloved son.
Delight in the Word of God
We should delight ourselves in the commandments of God because we love them.
25 My being has been clinging to the dust; Revive me according to Your word. 26 I have recounted my ways and You answered me; Teach me Your laws. 27 Make me understand the way of Your orders; That I might meditate on Your wonders. 28 My being has wept from grief; Strengthen me according to Your word. 29 Remove from me the way of falsehood, And favour me with Your Torah. 30 I have chosen the way of truth; Your right-rulings I have held level. 31 I have clung to Your witnesses; O יהוה {Jehovah}, do not put me to shame! 32 I run the way of Your commands, For You enlarge my heart.
33 Teach me, O יהוה {Jehovah}, the way of Your laws, And I observe it to the end. 34 Make me understand, that I might observe Your Torah, And guard it with all my heart. 35 Make me walk in the path of Your commands, For I have delighted in it.
36 Incline my heart to Your witnesses, And not to own gain. 37 Turn away my eyes from looking at falsehood, And revive me in Your way. 38 Establish Your word to Your servant, Which leads to the fear of You. 39 Turn away my reproach which I dread, For Your right-rulings are good. 40 See, I have longed for Your orders; Revive me in Your righteousness. 41 And let Your kindnesses come to me, O יהוה {Jehovah}; Your deliverance, according to Your word, 42 So that I answer my reprover, For I have trusted in Your word. 43 And do not take away from my mouth The word of truth entirely, For I have waited for Your right-rulings; 44 That I might guard Your Torah continually, Forever and ever; 45 That I might walk in a broad place, For I have sought Your orders; 46 That I might speak of Your witnesses before sovereigns, And not be ashamed; 47 That I might delight myself in Your commands, Which I have loved; 48 That I might lift up my hands to Your commands, Which I have loved; While I meditate on Your laws.
49 Remember the word to Your servant, On which You have caused me to wait. 50 This is my comfort in my affliction, For Your word has given me life. (Psalms 119:25-50 The Scriptures 1998+)
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Preceding: Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #2 Purity
Next: Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #5 Prayer #1 Listening Sovereign Maker
Dutch version: Vertrouwen, Geloof, Roepen en Toeschrijving aan Jehovah #4 Vergankelijkheid #3 Behaging in Volhouding
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Please do find also to read:
- The business of this life
- Golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters obedience
- Power in the life of certain
- Humility and the Fear of the Lord
- The truth is very plain to see and God can be clearly seen
- Statutes given unto us
- That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us
- Acknowledge the majesty of the Lord’s reputation!
- Teach children the Bible
- We should use the Bible every day
- Grace and beloved by God
- Immortality, eternality – onsterfelijkheid, eeuwigheid
- Created to live in relation with God
- Leaving behind the lives we have touched.
- A Living Faith #8 Change
- A Living Faith #10: Our manner of Life #2
- Words in the world
- Trust God to shelter, safety and security
- God is my refuge and my fortress in Him I will trust
- Gaining Christ, trusting Jehovah + Gain Christ, trusting Jehovah
- Repentance and conversion are not milestones which we pass on the way of life and never see again
- It is not try but trust
- Trouble is coming
- Suffering produces perseverance
- A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses
- It is a free will choice
- Your life the sum total of all your choices
- Only I can change my life
- Choose you this day whom ye will serve
- Looking forward to God’s faithfulness
- Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark
- Life in gratitude opens glory of God
- Determine the drive
- Be happy that the thorn bush has roses
- Thirst for happiness and meaning
- Old age
- Change
- Attributes to God or titles and names given to God
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Related articles
- Promises Fulfilled (thevoiceofmary.wordpress.com)
When we suffer, God suffers too. Jehovah feels our pain, just as we do. / People wonder why he won’t intervene. Does God really care, after all he has seen? / Some may think God has no interest, or he is slow. Jehovah’s purposes began long ago. - What is Faith? (my52sundays.wordpress.com)
Faith involves trusting that God is working in the unseen spiritual realm. We base this on God’s past actions in the world. If we want a spiritual life that is vibrant we have to always live by such faith - Deuteronomy 32:misc (planet.infowars.com)
Faith involves trusting that God is working in the unseen spiritual realm. We base this on God’s past actions in the world. If we want a spiritual life that is vibrant we have to always live by such faith - Behold, the LORD makes the earth empty, and makes it waste (savedbygraceblogdotcom.wordpress.com)
God’s people rejoice in his salvation, but his enemies suffer humiliating destruction. Their boasting cannot save them, and all their clever achievements finish in ruin. - Crushed, Mushed, Yet Persistent (scottstrissel.wordpress.com)
If someone who had been beaten for his faith could relate to such an emotion as hope, then there must be something to it for us as well.
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Not only was Paul confident in this hope that was in God, but he wanted others to know this comfort, confidence and hope too. His love for others placed him in danger yet he didn’t quit, withdraw, or deny his allegiance to God through the Messiah Christ Jesus. - How to Walk in the Sound Doctrine of Jesus Christ: The Conclusion (theeyesoffaith.wordpress.com)
Humility and submission, coupled with faith and trust in God, opens the door to receiving from the Lord. - God is Faithful (buildinglegacies.wordpress.com)
God is faithful to do what He said He would do. The Bible says that He is not man that He should lie, if He said it, He is faithful to do it – Num 23:19 & Isa 55:11. Our hope or expectation is based on faith in God and His Word. At the same time hope acts as a catalyst for faith. - Your Need, Is His Name (hispresentgrace.wordpress.com)
Whatever you need god to be, god is. Pray and praise the names of the lord! - Jehovah – It is not just a name. (thechurchatcarrollton.wordpress.com)
There is no better way to discover what God is like than to look at His names. Knowing Him is and should be the life long pursuit of every believer and the best way to get to know Him is to read and study what He has said about Himself. - Praise be to God (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
It is to that One Great God we do have to pray and have to bring praise. It is also His Name we should cry out loud. Others shall have to know the Name of God, and we as followers of Christ should bring the Good News and let this Name be known all over the world, always sanctifying the Holy Name of God Hashem Jehovah.
Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #2 Purity
In the previous chapters we have seen that we are tempted to compare with others in this world. We are easily influenced by others and we come into despair when we hear others brag about their success and their existence without sorrow. In this materialistic world, we see plenty of people who talk highly with praise about their gadgets and who are happy to exhibit their luxury.
The question is whether if we can be satisfied with what we have and if we want to find fulfilment in this life with all what we get, but still have much less than the other like to show.
Our daily Bible reading shows us that we do not need to look for gaudy figures, fops, show-offs, spouts and vain and that we have to make sure not to become jealous. The Word of God should be our greatest treasure which is indispensable in our lives. Scripture shows us that everything is but transitory and that everything is timely and that we can not take anything of it into our grave for our use of in our death. When we die, our life comes to an end and than we are nothing with the earthly treasures. Eventually like everyone will end up to return to dust and ashes. The scriptures counsel us not to worry about the future. Tomorrow will be what it brings and what it will be. The past flies away but we must have knowledge of the past to better understand the present and to look ahead to the future, we do not immediately have an impact on what we have, but sometimes we do have more in the hand than we think.
God gives us the assurance that those who love God and trust in Him should not worry for tomorrow.
Trust, Faith and Prayer
Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness
Prosperity and Waiting unto Jehovah God
When we have food and covering, we shall be satisfied with these. But those wishing to be rich fall into trial and a snare, and into many foolish and injurious lusts which plunge men in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some, by longing for it, have strayed from the belief, and pierced themselves through with many pains. But you, O man of Elohim, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, reverence, belief, love, endurance, meekness. Fight the good fight of the belief, lay hold on everlasting life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession before many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:8-12 The Scriptures 1998+)
Headlines posted in street-corner window of newspaper office (Brockton Enterprise), Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940. – Reproduction from color slide. Photographed by Jack Delano.
source: Library of Congress“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the congregations and on the corners of the streets, to be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. (Matthew 6:5 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. “For where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also. “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, all your body shall be enlightened. “But if your eye is evil,1 all your body shall be darkened. If, then, the light that is within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! Footnote: 1This is a Hebidiom – a good eye means to be generous, while an evil eye means to be stingy. “No one is able to serve two masters, for either he shall hate the one and love the other, or else he shall cleave to the one and despise the other. You are not able to serve Elohim and mammon.1 Footnote: 1Personification of wealth. “Because of this I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you shall eat or drink, or about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than the food and the body more than the clothing? “Look at the birds of the heaven, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into storehouses, yet your heavenly Father does feed them. Are you not worth more than they? “And which of you by worrying is able to add one cubit to his life’s span? “So why do you worry about clothing? Note well the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, and I say to you that even Shelomoh in all his esteem was not dressed like one of these. “But if Elohim so clothes the grass of the field, which exists today, and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more you, O you of little belief? “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ “For all these the gentiles seek for. And your heavenly Father knows that you need all these. “But seek first the reign of Elohim, and His righteousness, and all these matters shall be added to you. “Do not, then, worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow shall have its own worries. Each day has enough evil of itself. (Matthew 6:19-34 The Scriptures 1998+)
Carefree does not mean doing nothing
That does not mean we just have to take everything as it comes along and do nothing. As the Psalmist implores God to remember the purchased congregation and the redeemed inheritance in his dwelling place of Zion, we do well to remember the same thing and rejoice that we have been chosen to be part of this. For us it should be encouraging that even though the heart is ‘deceitful and desperately wicked’ (Jeremiah 17:9) it can still be viewed as ‘pure’ by God when it is cleansed by the Word. We can ask God to be with us and to give His word to edify and cleanse us.
9 How would a young man cleanse his path. To guard it according to Your word? 10 I have sought You with all my heart; Let me not stray from Your commands! 11 I have treasured up Your word in my heart, That I might not sin against You. 12 Blessed are You, O יהוה {Jehovah}! Teach me Your laws. 13 With my lips I have recounted All the right-rulings of Your mouth. 14 I have rejoiced in the way of Your witnesses, As over all riches. 15 I meditate on Your orders, And regard Your ways. 16 I delight {1} myself in Your laws; I do not forget Your word. {Footnote: 1See also vv. 24, 35, 47, 70, 77, 92, 143, 174, Rom. 7:22.} 17 Do good to Your servant, Let me live and I guard Your word. 18 Open my eyes, that I might see Wonders from Your Torah. (Psalms 119:9-18 The Scriptures 1998+)
Tools to stay pure
With God His word in the Holy Scriptures we are given the tools to keep our way pure. By living according to the Word of God, with our whole heart, really willingly to seek the Almighty Elohim Hashem Jehovah, He shall be willing to guide us so that we do not wander from God His commandments. Our daily bible reading should make us to hide Gods Word in our heart as the biggest treasure, that we might not sin against God.
Like the Psalmist we can ask God in what we could call “a prayer” to teach us His statutes. Speaking or praying to God we can declare all the ordinances with our lips of Gods mouth. Reading in His Words we should rejoice in the way of His testimonies, as much as in all riches. Meditating on God His precepts, considering His and not our ways. By taking God His words at hearth we can delight ourselves in His statutes. Several days, year after year reading the Bible shall make that we will not forget God His Word.
When we than try to live according to those Words of God, obeying His instructions, when we do ask Him to open our eyes, that we may see wondrous things out of the Torah, we shall get to see we shall understand more and more the Ruling and Law of God. Therefore it is not bad to ask God not to hide His commandments from you. When your soul is consumed with longing for Gods ordinances at all times, you shall feel Him close to you, because He will not abandon you.
Request not to be ashamed
We can ask the Elohim to take reproach and contempt away from us, when we have kept His statutes because they are our delight, and our counsellors.
When our soul is laid low in the dust we can ask God to revive us according to His Word. Like the Psalmist who declared his ways, and God answered him, Jehovah shall also answer us, who are willing to be near Him.
When our soul is weary with sorrow we can direct our words to the Almighty to strengthen us according to His Word. We can ask Him to keep us from the way of deceit. God grants us His Torah graciously, when we have chosen the way of truth, and are willing to set Jehovah His ordinances before us.
We may be sure that clinging to the statutes of God instead according the ways of the living majority in the world, God will not disappoint those who love Him and are willing to live according to His commandments. We should run in the path of God His commandments, for He is the Only One who can set our heart free.
People praying at the Cenacle in Jerusalem. – Photo: Alex Polezhaev
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Preceding article: Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #1 Prosperity
Continues with: Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #3 To please and persevere
Dutch version / Nederlandse versie: Vertrouwen, Geloof, Roepen en Toeschrijving aan Jehovah #4 Vergankelijkheid #2 Zuiverheid
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Also of interest to read:
- Fear not tomorrow. God is already there
- Fragments from the Book of Job #4: chapters 27-31
- Fragments from the Book of Job #5: chapters 32-37
- Fragments from the Book of Job #6: chapters 38-42
- Statutes given unto us
- Pure Words and Testimonies full of Breath of the Most High
- True riches
- Observing the commandments and becoming doers of the Word
- Wishing to do the will of God
- Self inflicted misery #8 Pruning to strengthen us
- Good to make sure that you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy
- How we think shows through in how we act
- It’s not that I’m so smart
- Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life
- If you think you’re too small to be effective
- Golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters obedience
- Does God answer prayer?
- Prayer, important aspect in our life
- A Living Faith #7 Prayer
- Prayer has comforted us in sorrow
- If you do pray you shall not be disappointed
- Give your tears to God
- Sometimes we pray and pray and it seems like nothing happens.
- Patience is the ability to count down before blasting off
- Prayer has the power to change mountains into highways
- Compassion and Discipline
- Begin by carrying away small stones to remove a mountain
- Change
- Try driving forward instead of backwards
- Preventing us from going window-shopping in prayer
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Elohim
Related articles
- Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #1 Kings Faith (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #2 Calling upon the Name of God (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #3 A voice to be taken Seriously (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #5 To meditate and Transform (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #6 Words to feed and communicate (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Mercy and Grace are in the Name! (daileytalks.wordpress.com)
- Out of the Land of Silence (kumi07.wordpress.com)
A foot slips, anger, high conflict, toxic behaviors, toxic thoughts; stress, neglect, abuse, and maltreatment; more stress, sickness, anxieties, mood disorder.
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Yahweh through Yeshua the Messiah is our stronghold. He alone will cut off and cast down our enemies.
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Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #5 To meditate and Transform
Trust, Faith and Prayer
Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 voice of God
Hearing the Voice in the Holy Scriptures
Responding to the Grand Instructor
Durga Idol – Bandel – Photo: Arpansrkr
In the Holy Scriptures God gave His Words and told people how to behave and how to follow His instructions and how to fulfil His Will. So they should know that God detest those who worship false gods. Jehovah certainly made the dignity of His voice to be heard and made the descending of His Arm to be seen, in the raging of anger and the flame of a devouring fire and cloudburst and rainstorm and hailstones. For because of the voice of Jehovah it was not only Assyria that was struck with terror. God will strike everything what He wants even with a staff. Those responding to the voice of the Grand Instructor will scatter their graven images, viewing them as something disgusting.
And you shall defile the covering of your graven images of silver, and the plating of your moulded images of gold. You shall throw them away as a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Be gone!” (Isaiah 30:22 The Scriptures 1998+)
30 And יהוה {Jehovah} shall cause His excellent voice to be heard, and show the coming down of His arm, with raging wrath and the flame of a consuming fire, with scattering, downpour and hailstones. 31 For through the voice of יהוה {Jehovah} Ashshur is broken down, with a rod He smites. 32 And every passage of the ordained staff which יהוה {Jehovah} lays on him, shall be with tambourines and lyres, when He shall fight with it, battling with a brandishing arm. (Isaiah 30:30-32 The Scriptures 1998+)
The man of God presented to the people the Words God dictated them. Those who heard the prophets could either ignore them or be willing to take in life’s water of truth; the Word of God could offer them the refuge, the security and the blessings. The Most High provided the means that people could find the way to gain the greatest benefit from the inspired Scriptures. The way to find salvation to everlasting life is to study those Scriptures and live by them every day of our lives. We must constantly meditate on God’s Word, with the same prayerful attitude of appreciation as expressed by the psalmist:
11 I remember the deeds of Yah, For I remember Your wonders of old. 12 And I shall meditate on all Your work, And talk of Your deeds. 13 Your way, O Elohim, is in Set-apartness {1}; Who is a great Ěl like Elohim? {Footnote: 1Isa. 35:8}. 14 You are the Ěl who does wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. 15 By Your arm You have redeemed Your people, The sons of Ya’aqob and Yosĕph. Selah. (Psalms 77:11-15 The Scriptures 1998+)
Foundation for meditation and transformation
Meditating on Jehovah’s ‘marvellous doing and activity’ will stir us also to be active in fine works, with everlasting life in view.
The Scriptures should be the very foundation of our daily living because it is God’s Word that can reach us every day. Let us heed the words of Paul who also speaks about the Breath of God, His Words, and tells young Timothy to continue in the things that he had learned and were persuaded to believe, always looking at the intimate connection between God and His written revelation and holding fast to those good things of God.
14 But you, stay in what you have learned and trusted, having known from whom you have learned, 15 and that from a babe you have known the Set-apart Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for deliverance through belief in Messiah יהושע {Jeshua}. 16 All Scripture is breathed by Elohim and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for setting straight, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of Elohim might be fitted, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17 The Scriptures 1998+)
“What more do we want than wisdom in relation to this matter? If the sacred Scriptures are able to make us wise, we need no other instrumentality. The Holy Spirit by the word, without infusing a single idea into it more than it actually and ordinarily contains, and without any collateral influence, teaches us all wisdom and knowledge that is necessary… Why, then, my friends, can we not be content with the means within the grasp of everyone who owns the volume of inspiration? If the ecclesiastical world were content to learn the truth from ‘the Bible alone’, and it honestly desired to obey the Messiah, there would soon be an end to Presbyterian and every other ism, by which ‘Christendom’ as it is called, or ‘anti-Christendom’, as it should be termed, has been for ages desolated” (JT, Apostasy Unveiled).
All of The Scriptures is divinely inspired, not given for our information, but for our transformation.
19 And we have the prophetic word made more certain, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture came to be of one’s own interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the desire of man, but men of Elohim spoke, being moved by the Set-apart Spirit. (2 Peter 1:19-21 The Scriptures 1998+)
… remember 2 the words previously spoken by the set-apart prophets, and of the command of the Master and Saviour, spoken by your emissaries, (2 Peter 3:2 The Scriptures 1998+)
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Preceding:
Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #1 Creator and His Prophets
Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #2 Instructions and Laws
Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #3 A voice to be taken Seriously
Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #4 Words in Scripture
Next: Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #6 Words to feed and communicate
Dutch version / Nederlandstalige versie: Vertrouwen, Geloof, Roepen en Toeschrijving aan Jehovah #3 Stem van God #5 Meditatie en transformatie
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Please do also find to read:
- Scripture Word from God
- Bible Word from God
- The Bible: God’s Word or pious myth?
- Bible guide Taking the Bible as a lead
- Bible a guide – Bijbel als gids
- The radiance of God’s glory and the counsellor
- Comparisson Bible Books in English, Dutch and French
- Order of Bible Books – Volgorde Bijbelboeken – Liste des livres de la Bible
- Bible in a nutshell
- The Bible and names in it
- The Importance Of Scripture
- Unsure about relevance Bible
- Scripture alone Sola Scriptora
- Bible in the first place #1/3
- Bible in the first place #2/3
- Bible in the first place #3/3
- Bric-a-brac of the Bible
- The importance of Reading the Scriptures
- Absolute Basics to Reading the Bible
- Why believing the Bible
- Possibility to live
- Bible for you and for life
- Appointed to be read
- Fear of God reason to return to Holy Scriptures
- יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
- Statutes given unto us
- Finding and Understanding Words and Meanings
- Knowing old sayings to understand the Bible
- The Metaphorical language of the Bible
- Another way looking at a language #1 New Year, Books and Words
- Another way looking at a language #5 Aramic, Hebrew and Greek
- Pluralis Majestatis in the Holy Scriptures
- Use of /Gebruik van Jehovah or/of Yahweh in Bible Translations/Bijbel vertalingen
- Learn to read the Bible effectively
- Missional hermeneutics 1/5
- Missional hermeneutics 2/5
- Missional hermeneutics 3/5
- Missional hermeneutics 4/5
- Missional hermeneutics 5/5
- Isaiah’s Book of the Messenger of Glad Tidings
- Do Christians need to read the Old Testament
- First Century of Christianity
- Getting to know the Truth
- Breathing to teach
- Bringing Good News into the world
- Celebrating the Bible in English
- Dedication and Preaching Effort 400 years after the first King James Version
- A feast for the Word of God
- What English Bible do you use?
- Accuracy, Word-for-Word Translation Preferred by most Bible Readers
- The Most Reliable English Bible
- NWT and what other scholars have to say to its critics
- 21st Century Version of the Christian Scripture or Mark Heber Miller Bible
- The NIV and the Name of God
- Bible Companion now also available on Blackberry phones
- iPod & Android Bibles
- Codex Sinaiticus available for perusal on the Web
- Childish or reasonable ways
- Reasons to come to gether
- Power in the life of certain
- How to look for and how to handle the Truth
- A concrete picture of what is to come in the future
- The Bible is a today book
- Bible like puddle of water
- Determined To Stick With Truth.
- The manager and Word of God
- Cell phone vs. Bible
- Working on the Bible being like re-wiring an old house
- A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t
- Of the many books Only the Bible can transform
- Feed Your Faith Daily
- Chief means by which men are built up
Related articles
- Why did God organize the Israelites? (peaceandbeauty.wordpress.com)
God organized descendants of the patriarch Abraham into a nation and gave them a body of laws. He called the nation Israel and made it the custodian of true worship and of his Word, the Holy Scriptures.
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“I myself have told forth and have saved and have caused [it] to be heard, when there was among YOU no strange [god]. So YOU are my witnesses,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “and I am God.” (Isaiah 43:12) - Scriptures to Pray Over Your Family (mywarminghouse.com)
God can’t contradict himself or give you things that go against his nature.
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There is incredible power in praying God’s Word. It’s the perfect offensive weapon when we face seemingly insurmountable challenges – and an increasingly dangerous and immoral culture. - Song of Praise for the Elohim Set-Apart (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
In order that they might guard His laws, And watch over His Torot (Psalms 105:45 The Scriptures 1998+) - Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #2 Calling upon the Name of God (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
Soon in the time of the created universe people got to understand they had to call upon God. Men began to call upon the name of the Most High Elohim יהוה Jehovah. More than once things went wrong - Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #1 Kings Faith (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
The apostle Peter may have had doubts in what his master Jesus asked him. At the time when the district ruler Herod heard the reports of Jesus and had arrested John the Baptist, Peter was perhaps not yet sure about the intimate relation Jesus had with his Father, the Most High God.
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God was totally in Jesus his heart and we see that when God’s Word had entered David and Jesus their life, that divine Word became also part of their very being and giving them the desire to know what God really wanted from them. Jesus was fully aware that it was his Father who taught him how to live to please God, because Jehovah was his and David‘s God, who led him by His blessed Spirit into cleared and level pastureland.
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Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #4 Words in Scripture
Trust, Faith and Prayer
Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 voice of God
Hearing the Voice in the Holy Scriptures
We have the opportunity to hear the Voice of Jehovah God. We have His Words in the Holy Scriptures so we can read and hear His Voice which is on the waters; the God of glory thunders; Jehovah above many waters, in power, in majesty. He breaks the strong ones also making them to skip like a calf, like a young wild ox. The voice of Jehovah goes through flames of fire, shakes the wilderness; causes the does to calve, and uncovers the forests; and in His temple all of it is saying, glory! Therefore we, the humble and the mighty, should give to Jehovah glory and strength. We have to give to Jehovah the glory due to His name; worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness. Jehovah sits as king forever on the highest throne and will give strength to His people; Jehovah will bless His people with peace. That is assured in the Writings of the ancestors of Gods people. (Psalms 29:1-11)
Excerpt from Johann Leusden’s Latin translation of the Bible book of Psalms (1688, Sefer Tehilim Liber Psalmorum, pp. 5, A2). “JEHOVA” is used for transcribing the Tetragrammaton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
We should love Jehovah and His Words because He hears our voice and our prayers and according to His judgment He the Life giver, Creator of all things, give us life. (Psalms 116:1; Psalms 119:149)
14 Yah is my strength and song, And He has become my deliverance. 15 The voice of rejoicing and deliverance Is in the tents of the righteous; The right hand of יהוה {Jehovah} is doing mightily. 16 The right hand of יהוה {Jehovah} is exalted, The right hand of יהוה {Jehovah} acts mightily. (Psalms 118:14-16 The Scriptures 1998+)
Instructor’s Voice to come to the rescue
Jehovah is ready to come to the rescue of righthearted ones. The Grand Instructor will no longer hide Himself, so He gave His Words to the world and asked the eyes of the people to become eyes seeing their Grand Instructor. For it is He Only, Elohim the Creator, who has no equal as a teacher. Through history Jehovah revealed Himself through His prophets, whose words are recorded in the Bible. (Amos 3:6, 7) Today, when faithful worshipers read the Bible, it is as if God’s fatherly voice is telling them the way to go and urging them to readjust their course of conduct so as to walk in it. Each Christian should listen carefully as Jehovah speaks through the pages of the Bible. Let each one apply himself to Bible reading, for ‘it means his life.’
18 And therefore יהוה {Jehovah} shall wait, to show you favour. And therefore He shall be exalted, to have compassion on you. For יהוה {Jehovah} is an Elohim of right-ruling. Blessed are all those who wait for Him. 19 For the people shall dwell in Tsiyon at Yerushalayim, you shall weep no more. He shall show much favour to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears, He shall answer you. 20 Though יהוה {Jehovah} gave you bread of adversity and water of affliction, your Teacher {1} shall no longer be hidden. But your eyes shall see your Teacher {1}, {Footnote: 1Or teachers. See also Joel 2:23}. 21 and your ears hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the Way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right, or whenever you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30:18-21 The Scriptures 1998+)
6 If a ram’s horn is blown in a city, do the people not tremble? If there is calamity in a city, shall not יהוה {Jehovah} have done it? 7 For the Master יהוה {Jehovah} does no matter unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. 8 A lion has roared! Who is not afraid? The Master יהוה {Jehovah} has spoken! Who would not prophesy? (Amos 3:6-8 The Scriptures 1998+)
46 he said to them, “Set your heart on all the words with which I warn you today, so that you command your children to guard to do all the Words of this Torah. 47 “For it is not a worthless Word for you, because it is your life, and by this Word you prolong your days on the soil which you pass over the Yardĕn to possess.” (Deuteronomy 32:46-47 The Scriptures 1998+)
17 Thus said יהוה {Jehovah}, your Redeemer, the Set-apart One of Yisra’ĕl, “I am יהוה {Jehovah} your Elohim, teaching you what is best, leading you by the way you should go. 18 “If only you had listened to My commands! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. 19 “And your seed would have been like the sand, and the offspring of your inward parts like the grains of sand. His name would not have been cut off nor destroyed from before Me. 20 “Come out of Babel! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare this with a voice of singing, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth! Say, ‘יהוה {Jehovah} has redeemed His servant Ya’aqob!’ ” (Isaiah 48:17-20 The Scriptures 1998+)
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Preceding: Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #3 A voice to be taken Seriously
Next: Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #5 To meditate and Transform
Dutch version / Nederlandse versie: Vertrouwen, Geloof, Roepen en Toeschrijving aan Jehovah #3 Stem van God #4 Stem in het Schrift
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Please do read also:
- I am that I am Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh אהיה אשר אהיה
- Jehovah Yahweh Gods Name
- The Divine name of the Creator
- God about His name “יהוה“
- יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
- Hashem השם, Hebrew for “the Name”
- Attributes to God, titles ascribed to Him or Names given to JHWH, the God of gods.
- Titles of God beginning with the Aleph in Hebrew
- Creator of heaven and earth and everything aroundיהוה The Only One Elohim who creates and gives all
- I Will Cause Your Name To Be Remembered
- Only One God
- God of gods
- God is One
- Some one or something to fear #1 Many sorts of fear
- Some one or something to fear #6 Faith in the Most High
- Some one or something to fear #7 Not afraid for Gods Name
- Fear of God reason to return to Holy Scriptures
- Scripture Word from God
- Bible Word from God
- Absolute Basics to Reading the Bible
- Bible in a nutshell
- Bible in the first place #1/3
- Bible in the first place #2/3
- Bible in the first place #3/3
- Comparisson Bible Books in English, Dutch and French
- Order of Bible Books – Volgorde Bijbelboeken – Liste des livres de la Bible
- Pure Words and Testimonies full of Breath of the Most High
- Bible Word of God, inspired and infallible
- Finding and Understanding Words and Meanings
- Knowing old sayings to understand the Bible
- The Bible and names in it
- The Bible: God’s Word or pious myth?
- Invitation to all who believe
- Getting to know the Truth
- Why believing the Bible
- The Importance Of Scripture
- The importance of Reading the Scriptures
- Scripture alone Sola Scriptora
- Bringing Good News into the world
- Unsure about relevance Bible
- Childish or reasonable ways
- Bible guide
- Bible a guide – Bijbel als gids
- Possibility to live
- Breathing to teach
- Power in the life of certain
- Appointed to be read
- The manager and Word of God
- Bible like puddle of water
- Lord or Yahuwah, Yeshua or Yahushua
- The NIV and the Name of God
- Use of /Gebruik van Jehovah or/of Yahweh in Bible Translations/Bijbel vertalingen
- Pluralis Majestatis in the Holy Scriptures
- Do Christians need to read the Old Testament
- The Metaphorical language of the Bible
- Another way looking at a language #1 New Year, Books and Words
- Another way looking at a language #5 Aramic, Hebrew and Greek
- Learn to read the Bible effectively
- Statutes given unto us
- Accuracy, Word-for-Word Translation Preferred by most Bible Readers
- Celebrating the Bible in English
- What English Bible do you use?
- Dedication and Preaching Effort 400 years after the first King James Version
- The Most Reliable English Bible
- iPod & Android Bibles
- 21st Century Version of the Christian Scripture or Mark Heber Miller Bible
- NWT and what other scholars have to say to its critics
- Bible Companion now also available on Blackberry phones
- Codex Sinaiticus available for perusal on the Web
- Cell phone vs. Bible
- Of the many books Only the Bible can transform
- Chief means by which men are built up
- Bible for you and for life
- Working on the Bible being like re-wiring an old house
- A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t
- A feast for the Word of God
- Determined To Stick With Truth.
- For Jehovah is greatly to be praised
- Praise the God with His Name
- Praise and give thanks to God the Most Highest
- The radiance of God’s glory and the counsellor
- Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name
- God’s Light
- How to look for and how to handle the Truth
- Bric-a-brac of the Bible
- The Bible is a today book
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Feed Your Faith Daily
- Faith and trial
- Partakers of the sufferings
- Faith a commitment to the promises of Christ and to to the demands of Christ
- Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark
- Walking in love by faith, not by sight
- God receives us on the basis of our faith
- Without God no purpose, no goal, no hope
- Feed Your Faith Daily
- We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory
- We will all be changed
- Give your tears to God
- Worship and worshipping
- Holiness and expression of worship coming from inside
- Be holy
- God make us holy
- God is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him
- A Living Faith #8 Change
- Honesty beginning of holiness
- Growth in character
- Let us become nothing, and Christ everything
- Cleaning up
- We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory
- Rest thy delight on Jehovah
- Rejoice even though bound to grieve
- Make a joyful noise unto Yahweh, rejoice, and sing praise unto Jehovah
- Prophets making excuses
- Man’s plans prevailed by God’s purpose
- Blind leading the blind
- Listening and Praying to the Father
- Just an Ordinary Day
- Partakers of the sufferings
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Related articles
- Why did God organize the Israelites? (peaceandbeauty.wordpress.com)
God organized descendants of the patriarch Abraham into a nation and gave them a body of laws. He called the nation Israel and made it the custodian of true worship and of his Word, the Holy Scriptures. - Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #1 Kings Faith (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #2 Calling upon the Name of God (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #3 A voice to be taken Seriously (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
Scripture Word from God
“Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was reckoned unto him;” (Romans 4:23 ERV)
“20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. 21 For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:20-21 ERV)
“And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.” (Deuteronomy 27:8 ERV)
“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4 ERV)
“Write therefore the things which thou sawest, and the things which are, and the things which shall come to pass hereafter;” (Revelation 1:19 ERV)
“The spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was upon my tongue.” (2 Samuel 23:2 ERV)
“But the things which God foreshewed by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled.” (Acts 3:18 ERV)
“And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel up out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.” (Hosea 12:13 ERV)
“24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my words: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me. 25 These things have I spoken unto you, while [yet] abiding with you. 26 But the Comforter, [even] the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. 28 Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father: for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe. 30 I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in me; 31 but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.” (John 14:24-31 ERV)
“And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto your fathers,” (Acts 28:25 ERV)
“whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began.” (Acts 3:21 ERV)
“thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.” (Isaiah 7:7 ERV)
“16 Every scripture inspired of God [is] also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: 17 that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ERV)
“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works.” (John 14:10 ERV)
“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:” (Ephesians 6:17 ERV)
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- Absolute Basics to Reading the Bible
- Finding and Understanding Words and Meanings
- Bible in the first place #1/3
- Missional hermeneutics 1/5
- Missional hermeneutics 5/5
- Comparisson Bible Books in English, Dutch and French
- The Importance Of Scripture
- Incomplete without the mind of God
- Loving the Word
- Condemnation of the World and Illustration of Justification
- The Bible and names in it
- The importance of Reading the Scriptures
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Related articles
- “Did God Only Preserve His Thoughts?” (jpfinn7.wordpress.com)
Are the Scriptures just the “ideas” of God, or are they the very WORDS of God? You decide! - “Bible-believing” and the authority of scripture: “the unfolding of your words gives light” (derekmaul.wordpress.com)
The Bible says a lot of things. That’s one of the reasons I love to read it all the time; because God is constantly teaching me, nurturing me, nourishing me, and equipping me to share the Good News of God’s love in this broken world. - Why We Should Study God’s Word. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
The Bible is an incredible book of history and facts that proves that there is a God that created all things. Most important of all, the Bible is the Word of God. It contains the mind of God and His will for each one of our lives. That is why the Bible was given to us. - 3 Reasons Scripture is not Relative (boldnetwork.wordpress.com)
Scripture is relative to who reads it. it is subjct to interrpretation. At least that is what is being pushed upon the Christian church. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Scripture can speak in different ways to you at different places in your life, but it isn’t some free flowing stream of words that is meant to mean different things to everyone. If you believe in God, then you must believe His word is truth, and truth is not subject to inerpretation. - Our Holy Scriptures (christiansareus.wordpress.com)
The idea is that every single word in the Bible is there because God wanted it there. - Is Scripture reliable? (devinkroner.com)
Some people will admit that the Words god spoke were true when they were written by Moses, the prophets, and even the apostles…but over the centuries many contend they have been changed. Not on purpose, but just as a result of errors being made in copies, etc. Therefore, some people say we can’t rely on the Scripture today as authoritative. - Fast Forward Chapters (jamesfields.wordpress.com)
some of the genealogies and other areas I call Fast Forward Chapters. Since I only use electronic devices for reading
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Consistent reading of Scripture equates to consistent breathing—you have to do it! - Helping Students understand the importance of Reading the Bible (youthmin.org)
If we only read the Bible for what we can “get out of it” we can be distracted from the heart of God’s revelation, which is Himself. We need to come thirsty.
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The most important reason to read the Bible is to understand story of the gospel. The Bible is living and active and is not meant for the bookshelf.
- I am Baptized in the Holy Ghost and with Fire! (hitchhikeamerica.wordpress.com)
There is a powerful balance when you have the power of the Holy Ghost and the knowledge of Scripture engrafted into your Spirit man.
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Comparisson Bible Books in English, Dutch and French
Order of Bible Books – Volgorde Bijbelboeken – Liste des livres de la Bible
English:
One of the possible orders of the Book of books and common names is the one as presented in “The Scriptures” and used in the ecclesia Brussel-Leuven by the Christadelphian community in their services in Brussels, Leefdaal, Leuven, Mons and Nijvel/Nivelles.
In the French capital, for the three monthly service the oecumenical order is been used (see below) or the one of the Louis Segand Bible or Le Sémur. For the bible studies we also use the most common or frequent order of the majority translations. (see below)
Dutch – Nederlands:
Één van de mogelijke volgordes van de Bijbelboeken is deze die voor komt in de vertaling van “The Scriptures” of “De Geschriften”, welke in de dienst wordt gebruikt door de Belgische Christadelphians in Brussel, Leefdaal, Leuven, Mons en Nijvel/Nivelles.
Tijdens de driemaandelijkse dienst in de Franse hofdstad wordt de volgorde genomen van de oecumenische bijbelvertaling TOB of deze van Louis Segond of Le Semeur.
Liste des livres de la Bible
Chez les Christadelphes Belge on utilese dans le service en Belgique le canon de la Bible hébraïque et en France le canon des écritures défini au Concile de Trente ou comme les éditions catholiques ou interconfessionnelles (TOB, Jérusalem, Bayard, etc.)
The Pre-Messianic Scriptures – Pre-Messiaanse geschriften – Hebreeuws-Aramese Geschriften – Les Écrits Hebreux
The Tanak – Tanakh = De Tanak = Tenach
The Tanakh (Hebrew: תַּנַ”ךְ, pronounced [taˈnaχ] or [təˈnax]; also Tenakh, Tenak, Tanach) is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra.
תּוֹרָה Torah – Teaching (commonly called Law) – Thorah – Thora of Wet – La Torah
Bookname (Alternate name) – Dutch name(s), Nederlandse naam/namen- French name, les noms en Français
Beginning - Het Begin – De aanvang
Bereshith - Beres’jiet (Genesis) Genesis, = Genèse
Law – Wet
Chamisha Chumshei Torah (חמישה חומשי תורה) / Chamisja Choemsjee Torah (Hebreeuws: חמשה חומשי תורה, de ‘vijf boeken van de Thora’): Pentateuch: Beres’jiet, Sjemot, Wajikra, Bemidbar & Dewariem
Shemoth - Sjemot (Exodus) = Sjemot – Exodus, Uittocht = Exode
Wayyiqra - Wajikra (Leviticus) = Wajikra - Leviticus, Levieten, Lévitique
Bemigbar - Bemidbar (Numbers) = Bemidbar (Bamidbar) – Numeri = Nombres
Debarim -Dewariem (Deuteronomy) = Devariem – Deuteronomium = Deutéronome
נְבִיאִים Nebi’im - Nevi’im – Newie’iem - Prophets – Profeten – Grote en Kleine Profeten – Les Prophètes
יְהוֹשֻעַ
Leningrad Codex cover page E (Folio 474a). A very old manuscript of the Hebrew bible. A former possession of Karaïte Jews. They claim its author was Karaite, a position denied by Rabbinic Jews. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
/ Yĕhôshúa‘ Yehoshua (Joshua) = Jehosjoea‘ – Jozua, Jozua, Joshua = Josué
שופטים / Shophtim Shophetim (Judges, Rulers) = Sjofetiem – Richteren, Rechters = Juges
שְׁמוּאֵל / Shĕmû’ēl: Samuel
Shemu’el Aleph (1 Samuel) = Sjemoeël 1 – I Samuel,1 Samuël = I Samuel ou I Règnes
Shemu’el Bet (2 Samuel) = Sjemoeël 2 – II Samuel 2 Samuël = II Samuel ou II Règnes
מלכים / M’lakhim: Kings
Melakim Aleph (1 Kings) = Melachiem 1 – I Koningen, 1 Koningen = I Rois ou III Règnes
Melakim Bet (2 Kings) = Melachiem 2 – II Koningen, 2 Koningen = II Rois ou IV Règnes
יְשַׁעְיָהוּ / Yĕsha‘ăyāhû Yeshayahu (Isaiah) = Jesja‘jahoe – Jeshajua, Jesaja, Esajas = Isaïe ou Ésaïe
יִרְמְיָהוּ / Yirmĕyāhû Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) = Jirmejahoe – Jeremia, Jeremias = Jérémie
יְחֶזְקֵאל / Yĕhezqēl Yebezqel (Ezekiel) = Jechezkel – Ezechiël, Ezéchiel = Ézéchiel
דָּנִיֵּאל / Dānī’ēl Dani’ el (Daniel) = Daniël = Daniel
הוֹשֵׁעַ / Hôshēa‘ Hoshea (Hosea) = Hosjea‘ – Hosea = Osée
יוֹאֵל / Yô’ēl Yo’el (Joel) = Joël = Joël
עָמוֹס / ‘Āmôs Amos (Amos) = Amos = Amos
עֹבַדְיָה / ‘Ōbhadhyāh Obagyah (Obadiah) = ‘Ovadja – Obadja, Obadia = Abdias
יוֹנָה / Yônāh Yonah (Jonah) = Jona, Jonas = Jonas
מִיכָה / Mîkhāh Mikah (Micah) = Micha = Michée
נַחוּם / Naḥûm Nabum (Nahum) = Nachoem – Nahum = Nahoum
חֲבַקּוּק /Ḥăbhaqqûq Habaqquq (Habakkuk) = Chavakoek – Habakuk = Habaquq
צְפַנְיָה / Ṣĕphanyāh Tsephanyah (Zephaniah) =Tsefanja – Zefanja, Sefanja = Sophonie
חַגַּי / Ḥaggai Haggai (Haggai) = Chaggai – Haggai, Haggaï, Aggeas = Aggée
זְכַרְיָה / Zĕkharyāh Zekaryah (Zechariah) = Zecharja – Zacharia, Zecharias, Zacharias = Zacharie
מַלְאָכִי / Mal’ākhî Mal’aki (Malachi) = Mal’achi – Maleachi = Malachie
כְּתוּבִים Kethubim Aleph Ketuvim – Ketoewiem - Writings - Hagiographa – Geschriften
(Poetic books: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon or Canticles – Poëtische Boeken: Psalmen, Spreuken, Prediker of Ecliasten, Hooglied of Koningslied of Kantieken)
תהלים / Tehillim Tehillim (Psalms) = Tehiliem – Psalmen = Psaumes
משלי / Mishlei Mishle (Proverbs) = Misjlee – Spreuken = Proverbes
אִיּוֹב / Iyyōbh Iyob (Job) = Iov – Job = Job
שִׁיר הַשׁשִׁירִים/ Shīr Hashīrīm Shir haShirim (Song of Songs)(Song of Solomon) (Canticles) = Sjier Hasjiriem – Hooglied, Koningslied, Kantieken = Cantique des cantiques
רוּת / Rūth Ruth (Ruth) = Roet – Ruth = Ruth
איכה / Eikhah Ekah (Lamentations) = Echa – Klaagliederen, Lamentaties = Lamentations
קֹהְלְת / Qōheleth Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) = Kohelet - Ecclesiasticus, Prediker, Ecclesiasten, + wijsheid van Jezus Sirach, wijsheid van Jozua Ben Sirach, Spreuken van Sirach, Sirach of Ecclesiasticus = Ecclésiastique ou Siracide
אֶסְתֵר / Estēr Ester (Esther) = Ester – Esther = Esther
עזרא ונחמיה / Ezra v’Nechemia
Ezra (Ezra) = Ezra, (Eerste boek van Esdras, eerste deel van het Boek Esdras) = Ezra ou I Esdras
Nehemyah (Nehemiah) = Nechemja – Nehemia, Nehemía, (Tweede boek van Esdras, Tweede deel van het Boek Esdras) = Néhémie ou II Esdras
דברי הימים / Divrei Hayamim – Chronicles – Chronieken – Kronieken
Dibre haYamim Aleph (1 Chronicles) = Divree Hajamiem 1 – I Kronieken, 1 Kronieken = I Chroniques
Dibre haYamim Bet (2 Chronicles) = Divree Hajamiem 2 – II Kronieken, 2 Kronieken = II Chroniques
The Messianic Scriptures – De Messiaanse Geschriften – Christelijke Griekse Geschriften
Kethubim Bet – Writings
Gospels – Evangeliën – Evangelies – Évangiles
Mattithyahu (Matthew) = Mattheüs, Matthéüs, Evangelie volgens Matteüs = Évangile selon Matthieu
Marqos (Mark) = Markus, Marcus = Évangile selon Marc
Luqas (Luke) = Lukas, Lucas = Évangile selon Luc
Yohanan (John) = Johannes, Evangelie van Sint Jan, Evangelie van de apostel Johannes = Évangile selon Jean
History of first Christians - Geschiedenis van de eerste Christenen
Ma ‘asei (Acts) = Handelingen der apostelen, Handelingen van de apostelen
Epistles or Letters or Writings from the apostles – Epistels, Brieven van de apostelen
Paul’s Lettres, Letters by Paul – Brieven van Paulus, Paulus brieven, Paulus Epistels – Épîtres pauliennes
Romiyim (Romans) = Romeinen, Brief aan de Romeinen = Épître aux Romains
Qorintiyim Aleph (1 Corinthians) = 1 Korinthiërs, Eerste brief aan de Korintiërs, I Korintiërs = Première épître aux Corinthiens
Qorintiyim Bet (2 Corinthians) = 2 Korinthiërs, Tweede brief aan de Korintiërs, II Korintiërs = Deuxième épître aux Corinthiens
Galatiyim (Galatians) = Galaten = Épître aux Galates
Eph’siyim (Ephesians) = Efeziërs = Épître aux Éphésiens
Pilipiyim (Philippians) = Filippenzen = Épître aux Philippiens
Qolasim (Colossians) = Kolossenzen = Épître aux Colossiens
Tas’loniqim Aleph (1 Thessalonians) = 1 Thessalonicenzen, Eerste brief aan de Tessalonicenzen, I Tessalonicenzen = Première épître aux Thessaloniciens
Tas’loniqim Bet (2 Thessalonians) = 2 Thessalonicenzen, Tweede brief aan de Tesselonicenzen, II Tessalonicenzen = Deuxième épître aux Thessaloniciens
Timotiyos Aleph (1 Timothy) = 1 Timótheüs, Eerste brief aan Timoteüs, I Timoteüs = Première épître à Timothée
Timotiyos Bet (2 Timo} = 2 Timótheüs, Tweede brief aan Timoteüs, II Timoteüs = Deuxième épître à Timothée
Titos (Titus) = Titus = Épître à Tite
Pileymon (Philemon) = Filémon, Philemon, Filemon = Épître à Philémon
Ib’rim (Hebrews) = Hebreeën = L’Épître aux Hébreux
Letters by other apostles – Verdere brieven van de apostelen of Katholische brieven – Lettres des autre apôtres ou Épîtres dites catholiques (c’est-à-dire universelles)
Ya ‘aqob (James) = Jakobus = Épître de Jacques
Kepha Aleph (1 Peter) = 1 Petrus, Eerste brief van Petrus, I Petrus = Première épître de Pierre
Kepha Bet (2 Peter) = 2 Petrus, Tweede brief van Petrus, II Petrus = Deuxième épître de Pierre
Yohanan Aleph (1 John) = 1 Johannes, Eerste brief van Johannes, I Johannes = Première épître de Jean
Yohanan Bet (2 John) = 2 Johannes, Tweede brief van Johannes, II Johannes = Deuxième épître de Jean
Yohanan Gimel (3 John) = 3 Johannes, Derde brief van Johannes, III Johannes = Troisième épître de Jean
Yehugah (Jude) = Judas, Brief van Judas, Epistel van Judas, Judas = Épître de Jude
Prophetic book, Revelation – Profetisch boek, Eindtijdboek, Revelatie of Openbaring van Johannes – Livre prophétique sur la fin des temps et l’établissement du royaume de Dieu
Hazon (Revelation) = Openbaring, Openbaring van Johannes, Revelatie, Revelatie van Johannes, Apolcalyps = l’Apocalypse
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Order at the Biblestudy:
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- History books: Geschiedenis Boeken:
2. Samuel en Koningen: 1 Samuel; 2 Samuel; 1 Koningen; 2 Koningen;
3. Kronieken en Ezra: 1 Kronieken; 2 Kronieken; Ezra; Nehemia; Ester;
4. Poëzie en wijsheid: Job; Psalmen; Spreuken; Prediker; Hooglied;
5. Grote profeten: Jesaja; Jeremia; Klaagliederen; Ezechiël; Daniël;
6. Kleine profeten: Hosea; Joël; Amos; Obadja; Jona; Micha; Nahum; Habakuk; Sefanja; Haggai; Zacharia; Maleachi
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Les Livres prophetiques
les Prophetes premiers
Le livre de Josue; Le livre des Juges; Premier livre de Samuel, Deuxieme livre de Samuel; Premier livre des Rois, Deuxieme livre des Rois
les Prophetes derniers
Esa’ie, Jeremie, Ezechiel, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Michee, Nahoum, Habaquq, Sophonie, Aggee, Zacharie, Malachie
Les autres Écrits
Les Psaumes, Le livre de Job, Les Proverbes, Le livre de Ruth, Le Cantique des Cantiques, Qoheleth (ou I’Ecclesiaste), Les Lamentations, Le livre d’Esther, Daniel, Le livre d’Esdras, Le livre de Nehemie, Premier livre des Chroniques, Deuxieme livre des Chroniques
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Answering a fool according to his folly
“ANSWER A FOOL ACCORDING TO HIS FOLLY”
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. (Proverbs 26:4 and 5).
IS there contradiction in the advice given to us by Solomon in the two statements quoted above?
Some have said so, and condemned the Scripture accordingly. But reflection thereon, particularly if our reflection is based on experience, soon convinces us that there is profound wisdom embodied in this apparently conflicting advice offered for dealing with “fools.” Solomon recognizes that there is no one simple and universal method of dealing with these people: further that he who would seek to put them right must watch his own steps carefully. Before we intervene in the matter of a fool and his folly we should consider well both the fool and ourselves. If, by answering him, we merely reflect his characteristics and so add yet another to the already sufficiently high proportion of these people in the community, wisdom suggests we should refrain from intervention: if, on the other hand, our answer is likely to have the effect of exposing his folly and preventing a repetition of it—which might be the case if his views were allowed to pass unchallenged—then we shall be discharging a valuable service both to the fool, and even more so to the community. It is evident, however, that before we can decide which of the two courses of action is appropriate we must first consider the situation, weigh the probable results of both courses and so determine which should be applied in any particular case.
We have referred to this relatively simple matter in order to illustrate an important aspect of applying Bible teaching to the problems and situations which arise in our experience, and which may be overlooked unless we are on our guard. In our early days in the Truth we tend to seek out and to emphasise the clear-cut definitions and decisions which the Word of God seems to demand in our relationships both inside and outside the Body of Christ. Many of these remain for all time of this nature, and form the basis of our conduct. But as our experience of life grows and our knowledge of the Truth broadens and deepens, we find that many of the problems we have to face and many of the decisions we have to make do not consist in a simple choice between what is unquestionably right and what is indubitably wrong: often a decision has to be made on the application of two principles both of which are commended to us in the Scriptures; or we may be called upon to harmonize two principles which apparently are in conflict. We find it is not sufficient just to find one passage dealing with a specific matter and apply that blindly: there is often additional teaching dealing with other aspects of that matter which must be kept in mind and applied if we are to secure a really scriptural decision. We shall find that what we have discovered to be true on the relatively low plane of “answering a fool according to his folly” is applicable in higher matters, and that our decisions must be based on a careful weighing of all the scriptural teaching available and the circumstances of the particular case. A few examples will illustrate.
We are all familiar with Christ’s words in Matt. 12:30:
“He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”
Doubtless we have all used them on occasion to emphasise the necessity for uncompromising allegiance to Christ and his call. But we must also remember Christ’s words in Mark 9:40: “He that is not against us is on our part.” Is there contradiction in Christ’s teaching? That is impossible: and we find from a careful consideration of the circumstances of the two cases that both statements are true in relation to the specific conditions which gave them expression. Both aspects have their place in the teaching of Christ, and it is essential that in our application of his teaching to the problems of our experience we keep both in mind and endeavour to make the correct choice in any given situation.
We have all heard of the terrific controversy which raged in theological circles on the question of “justification by faith or justification by works.” Each side was able to quote arguments from Scripture in support of its claims. Neither side, however, would accept the full teaching of the Bible on the question, and belittled or rejected the Scripture advanced by its opponents. Martin Luther, for example, who was a staunch advocate of “justification by faith,” is stated to have dismissed the Epistle of James, which speaks of “justification by works”, as an “epistle of straw”! The whole counsel of God in this matter finds a place for both aspects: as Dr. Thomas has put it tersely: “A sinner requires justification by faith to become a saint: a saint needs justification by works to ensure salvation.”
In facing the special problems which confront us in these difficult days it is especially necessary for us to ensure that in dealing with any situation which may arise we keep before us all the teaching of Scripture applicable to the matter, and seek a solution based on the whole counsel of God. It is not enough for us to be satisfied with one side of the question and neglect equally important evidence on other aspects. Only by considering all that the Scriptures have revealed can we form a correct judgment and follow the way of understanding.
In searching the Scriptures for guidance as to our attitude toward those without in these days of warfare we may find the commandment given by Moses to Israel recorded in Deuteronomy regarding Israel’s relationship to the nations of Canaan:
“Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days.”
Here we have Israel, God’s chosen people, being warned of their attitude towards those who are outside the covenants of God, and we might decide that here we have the very thing we require. But when we read further in the Scriptures we find Jeremiah speaking to Israel in later days and in different circumstances:
“Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”
Which advice shall we follow? Each quotation has been recommended to us recently as the appropriate attitude the Brotherhood should adopt in these days. How shall we decide? Surely the only safe method is to compare the circumstances of the two cases critically and see which approximates most closely to our own times: and when this is done we think there can be no difficulty in making our choice.
(Bro F. Turner)
Logos
“For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” Isaiah 57:15
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Read also:
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Related articles
- Psalms 14 – The Folly and Wickedness of Men (revthechristianlife.wordpress.com)
Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.
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Psalms 11 – The Refuge of the Upright (revthechristianlife.wordpress.com)
for look, the wicked bend the bow, they have fitted their arrow to the string, to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart. - Clear Meaning or Simplistic Interpretation? (allisonquient.wordpress.com)
Scripture holds a high place, at least in principle, for Evangelicals.
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What made the difference was not simply being told what passages mean, but understanding how one arrives at the meaning. Many of the passages I had previously misunderstood became clear after I learned about the culture, background and language being employed. Sometimes, it was merely a matter of understanding the context better (some of these have been discussed on this blog).
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The problem is a subjective reading of the text. While this is obvious in questions like “what does the text mean to me?” it is also prevalent in a fundamental misunderstanding of the doctrine of the “clarity of Scripture.” This mentality can be summarized as follows: I can open up my Bible and understand its plain meaning on whatever topic. This is a simplistic understanding of the text that ends up distorting rather than understanding the text.
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One big thing we often miss because we don’t understand the original culture or are too consumed with our own
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Our language has changed. If someone today was to read about a building being described as “awesome” in older English they might not understand that the building is being described as terrible. Reading Shakespeare and not understanding that “bully” means “homosexual” will also result in a gross misunderstanding. Sometimes imposing a later meaning on the same word used earlier can result in a distortion of the actual meaning. The same change in a word’s meaning happens in the Bible too (it was written over the course of thousands of years). - Homosexuality, Polyester, and Shellfish. (defendingcontending.com)
When challenged, many Christians and even many pastors, struggle to defend and explain their position in a way that is Scriptural, consistent, and loving. Homosexuals and the media often point to other Old Testament verses that forbid things that Christians now eat or use. How do we explain that?
- Sins Against the Brethren (justificationbygrace.com)
Look, apart from the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we are all idolaters. That is the propensity of fallen nature and corrupt flesh. We are in the world, yet if we are in Christ, we are not of the world. Nevertheless, although we may be saved by God’s grace, we often bear witness of our weakness when all the world is, has, embraces, and cherishes— the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,— seems to sometimes exude from our lives. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. - A Walk Through Proverbs;Rejecting Wisdom (promisebook.net)
Wisdom calls aloud in the open air and raises her voice in the public places. she calls out at streetcorners and speaks out at entrances to city gates; “How long, you whose lives have no purpose, will you love thoughtless living?
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to correct someone, if they are not in a place of repentance, is going to be taken negatively, especially now more than ever due to the increasing evil of the days we are living in. To warn someone in attempt to save them from torment and eternal death, knowing you will more than likely receive criticism, judgment, and hatred as a result, is an act of great love. - Proverbs 12 (cutpaste.typepad.com)
The moment we became Christ-followers we became part of the family of God, the body of Christ and a functioning and vital part of community. It is in this community that God helps us to be made and molded into His image.
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but what happens when most of us are corrected by the community? We get offended and leave the community and short-circuit the image building that is taking place. In that moment of the offense we don’t want to hear that we are acting like fools! No way, we are not the stupid ones, everyone else is stupid. Solomon reminds us that those who hate correction are stupid because the correction and our openness to it help us become more like Jesus – the epitome of wisdom. - What Does God Say About Anger? (bugsandstuff.wordpress.com)
How many of you know that teaching your children is the best way to teach yourself?
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Eph 4:29-32: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
Muslims should also Fear God
Koran 7:59 We sent Noah to his people. He said: “O my people! Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but him. I fear for you the Punishment of a dreadful Day!”
Koran 7:65 To the Ad people, We sent Hud, one of their own brethren: He said: “O my people! Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but him. Will ye not fear Allah?”
Koran 11:84 To the Madyan people We sent Shuaib, one of their own brethren: He said: “O my people! Worship Allah: Ye have no other god but him. And give not short measure or weight: I see you in prosperity, but I fear for you the Penalty of a Day that will compass you all round.”
Koran 16:51 Allah has said: “Take not for worship two gods: For He is just One God: Then fear Me and Me alone.”
Koran 23:23 Further, We sent a long line of prophets for your instruction. We sent Noah to his people: He said, “O my people! Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but Him. Will ye not fear Him?”
Koran 23:32 And We sent to them an apostle from among themselves, Saying, “Worship Allah! Ye have no other god but Him. Will ye not fear Him?”
العربية: القرآن في متحف التاريخ الطبيعي في نيويورك Polski: Koran w Muzeum Historii Naturalnej w Nowym Jorku (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Related articles
- Repent to Allah … After Engaging in Worship? (halimadjimrao.wordpress.com)
As Muslims, we know to repent to Allah when we commit sins. We also know that Allah accepts our repentance when we turn to Him sincerely and with remorse for our errors.It is interesting, though, to consider that the topic of repentance is brought up in the Qur’an in another context as well – in connection with our worship and spiritual devotion.
- Off-Topic – Re: Do you punish or reward to the human in the grave? (disclose.tv)
Some researchers have denied the punishment of the grave on the grounds that it did not appear in the Koran, the Hadith in the right-Bukhari and Muslim have denied these grounds that they violate the Koran, what is the truth of the matter?+
Hard Qur’anic and logical that the grave is either the gardens of Paradise, or piece of fire, and say both deny the punishment of the grave, if not convinced by these verses clear this is your problem, not the problem of the Qur’an, Qur’an which explains everything, but only to look and ponder and reflect on.
Childish or reasonable ways
Several people think of believers as “naive” and “childish”. In the group of believers you have the ordinary folks and the clergymen and clergy women. They form a particular group with persons who seem either far away from the world, being put on a pedestal or being part of the world, having problems like anybody else and understanding how the world turns.
You have the believers who where so much interested in the spiritual that they wanted to make their profession out of it. Those who followed theology at university learned a lot about how people thought God and His Creation would or should be. They did not much learn from the bible, but concentrated on a lot of worldly writings by the so called saints. They formed their ideas on the dogma’s and doctrine‘s brought in by humans and were not interested to take more contact with other believers or unbelievers, save for the few they met in their “fishing expeditions” at the grocery store or during “seeker services.” Thus, all to often, when they have questions about faith or about the Supreme being they do not find other places to go to than their own bunch of people of the same denomination. But there are many who by doing their demanding job and by doing Bible reading for the preparation of their preaches, get in confrontation with the Holy Scriptures and what they have learned. Instead of daring to take the Word of God as the real Word of God, they doubt those Scriptures and want to prefer to hold fast on their doctrines. Much too often this brings them in a severe conflict. Like ordinary people trying to keep on traditions they also want to keep to those traditions, but learn from the Bible how wrong that can be. Everything they have been thought seems to come in the zone of doubtful literature. But when they start questioning those teachings it starts nagging and they do come in conflict with their surroundings. Being interested in the spiritual they first go look with other similar denominations and go to look for other spiritual religions and find much pleasure in Buddhism. Instead of wanting to believe what is written in the Bible, that once we die we are death and cannot think or do anything, they love the idea of the immortal soul they had learned in their teachings. At first they become attracted by the incarnation, but when they go deeper into the teachings of such groups who believe that they do not feel at ease either. As such, they fall outside of the fence of Christian fellowship, there seems to be a complete lack of support. This can be a very depressing place, and it is only exacerbated by the belief that there is nobody else out there who could possibly understand the rather unique situation of being an unbelieving member of the Clergy.
You can ask: “What happens when a clergy person — a minister, a priest, a rabbi, an imam — realizes he doesn’t believe in God? And what happens when he says it out loud? What happens when they find each other; when they support each other in coping with their crises, when they help each other with resources and job counseling and other practical assistance? What happens when they encourage each other to come out? Could this affect more than just these clergy people and their followers? Could it change how society as a whole thinks and feels about religion?”
On March 21st, 2011 in the United States of America the Clergy Project was launched and the question “How can the US motto be “In God We Trust” when so many Americans are Out of the Closet atheists?” came to the forefront. Former Roman Catholic priest Dr. Stephen Uhl wrote the book “Out of God’s Closet” and got as motto: “Atheists work to make this life heavenly.”
The feeling of many with doubts is one of “Once you’re enrolled in the system, there is a strong incentive not to criticise or rebel: we’re all in this boat together – don’t rock it.”
Philosopher, cognitive scientist and aprofessor at Tufts University, American Daniel Dennett says: ” teenagers glowing with enthusiasm decide to devote their lives to a career of helping others and, looking around in their rather sheltered communities, they see no better, purer option than going into the clergy. When they get to seminary they find themselves being taught things that nobody told them in Sunday school. The more they learn of theology and the history of the composition of the Bible, the less believable they find their creed. Eventually they cease to believe altogether. But, alas, they have already made a substantial commitment in social capital – telling their families and communities about their goals – so the pressure is strong to find an accommodation, or at least to imagine that if they hang in there they will find one. Only a lucky few find either the energy or the right moment to break free. Those who don’t break free then learn the tricks of the trade, the difference between what you can say from the pulpit and what you can say in the sanctum of the seminary, or in your heart. Some, of course, are unfazed by this.” (Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201112/2540123101.html)
English: Daniel Dennett at the 17. Göttinger Literaturherbst, October 19th, 2008, in Göttingen, Germany. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Linda LaScola, a clinical social worker, qualitative researcher and psychotherapist, and him have been investigating the curious, sad phenomenon of closeted non-believing clergy – wellmeaning, hard-working pastors who find they do not believe the creed of their denomination, but also find that they cannot just blow the whistle and abandon the pulpit. They knew that many churchgoers have lost whatever faith they had but continue their membership for social and psychological reasons, and surmised that there might be clergy who were similarly attached to their church. What is it like to be a non-believing pastor? We found some examples who were willing to tell us, and are now completing a second survey of volunteers.
They wanted to know, ultimately, how this happens, and how common it is. It is apparently not rare – nobody knows what percentage of clergy fall into this category, not surprisingly. Their first study reported on five pastors in different Protestant denominations, who were interviewed in depth and in strict confidence by LaScola. Because it was published electronically (on the website On Faith) and under the headline “Preachers who are not believers” (Evolutionary Psychology, volume eight, issue one), this first pilot study has received considerable attention and brought them a host of new volunteers for their ongoing research.
There are many paths into this predicament, they find, but a common thread runs through most of them: a certain sort of innocence and a powerful desire, not for social prestige or riches, but rather the desire to lead a good life, to help other people as much as possible. The tragic trap is baited with goodness itself. (Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201112/2540123101.html#ixzz219XQR8AC)
” Like reluctant debutantes or privately suspicious Ponzi victims , they button their lip for an abundance of good reasons. (Redundancy is always a good trick; it allows a collection of individually porous defences to overlap into anearly impregnable shield.) Historically, pastors have had slender economic resources, and if they live in a parsonage they build up no equity in real estate. Hanging on until the kids are out of college and one can collect one’s meagre pension is an option that can look better than making an honest dash for the door. But a tentative finding of our study so far is that the economic incentive to hang on is sometimes of less importance than the social and psychological factors. As one of our pastors says, “I’m thinking if I leave the church – first of all, what’s that going to do to my family? And I don’t know. Secondly is, I have zero friends outside the church. I’m kind of a loner.” And what about telling his wife? “It’s going to turn her life upside down.”"
So pastors tend to stay put and search for ways of protecting their conscience from the pangs of hypocrisy. Redoubling one’s efforts to take good care of one’s flock is probably a frequent effect, and hence it could be one of the side benefits of this system, a bonus that could almost pay for itself by turning its shepherds into goodness slaves. Guilt is a potent enzyme in many social arrangements, and has been especially promoted in religions.
Religions changed more in the past century than they changed in the previous two millennia, and probably will change more in the next decade or two than in the past century. The main environmental change, as many have suggested, is the sudden increase in informational transparency. Religions were beautifully designed over millennia to work in circumstances in which the people within them could be assumed to be largely ignorant of much that was outside the membrane.
“Now that mobile phones and the internet have altered the epistemic selective landscape in a revolutionary way, every religious organisation must scramble to evolve defences or become extinct. Much has been made of the growing attention to religion in the world, and this has often been interpreted as a revival, an era of expanding religiosity, but all the evidence points away from that interpretation. The fastestgrowing religious category worldwide is no religion at all, and the increasing noise we hear is apparently due to the heightened expenditure of energy by all the threatened varieties in their desperate attempts to fend off extinction.” (Read more: http://www.readperiodicals.com/201112/2540123101.html#ixzz219YCt2Wl)
Richard Dawkins giving a lecture based on his book, The God Delusion, in Reykjavik
The respectecd Catholic pastor Jerry DeWitt, who lives in Southern Louisiana, went public last October when he posted a picture of himself with the prominent and polarizing atheist Richard Dawkins, snapped at a meeting of atheists and other “freethinkers” in Houston.
Speaking in March before a cheering crowd of several hundred unbelievers at the American Atheists conference here, he described posting the picture as “committing identity suicide.”
The response was swift. His congregation put him out, friends cut him off and some family members will not speak to him, he said.
“It is not just finances and it is not just career,” he said in the fire-and-brimstone cadences of his Pentecostal background. “It is everything that you hold dear.”
DeWitt’s transition from true believer to total skeptic took 25 years. It began, he said, with the idea of hell. How could it be, as he had been taught and preached, that a loving God would damn most people to eternal fire? “This thing called hell, it began to rock my world,” he said.
Instead of daring to find solace by the non-trinitan Biblestudents, who do not believe in hell as a plac of torture, because it is not according to the Holy Scriptures, he did not dare, like the other clergy men are afraid, to go to such a group of believers where he fought against for so many years. and that is the proble we see by so many clergy men. Once they go and read more in the Holy Scriptures they find other ‘Truths’ than they have learned. They hear the same things as the Jehovah Witnesses, Abrahamic Church or Christadelphians are saying. And this confronts them with theological teaching and boundaries to their institutions.
DeWitt found that there were more people wrestling with the same issues he was.
In The Clergy Project he could find as so many others, a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs.
Currently, the community’s 300 plus members use it to network and discuss what it’s like being an unbelieving leader in a religious community. The Clergy Project’s goal is to support members as they move beyond faith. Members freely discuss issues related to their transition from believer to unbeliever including:
- Wrestling with intellectual, ethical, philosophical and theological issues
- Coping with cognitive dissonance
- Addressing feelings of being stuck and fearing the future
- Looking for new careers
- Telling their families
- Sharing useful resources
- Living as a nonbeliever with religious spouses and family
- Using humor to soften the pain
- Finding a way out of the ministry
- Adjusting to life after the ministry
Richard Dawkins says: “If a farmer tires of the outdoor life and wants to become an accountant or a teacher or a shopkeeper, he faces difficulties, to be sure. He must learn new skills, raise money, move to another area perhaps. But he doesn’t risk losing all his friends, being cast out by his family, being ostracized by his whole community. Clergy who lose their faith suffer double jeopardy. It’s as though they lose their job and their marriage and their children on the same day. It is an aspect of the vicious intolerance of religion that a mere change of mind can redound so cruelly on those honest enough to acknowledge it.”
“The Clergy Project exists to provide a safe haven, a forum where clergy who have lost their faith can meet each other, exchange views, swap problems, counsel each other – for, whatever they may have lost, clergy know how to counsel and comfort. Here you will find confidentiality, sympathy, and a friendly place where you can take your time before deciding how to extricate yourself and when you will feel yourself ready to stand up and face the cool, refreshing wind of truth.”
It is a pity so many keep in the handcuffs of the trinitarian ideologist who damn the non-trinitarians, so that they do not dare to tackle the idea of those bible students who tke the Word of God for what it says, and not for what people in history have made the so called Bible saying.
We can only hope and pray,that one day their eyes may go open again and they shall find the peace again in the Bible, which can reveal everything, when people are willing to open their heart and mind to it.
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Dutch article: Project voor afvallige kerkleiders
Find:
“Preachers Who Are Not Believers” (PDF)
Read:
Pastor’s loss of faith started with loss of hell
Biggest Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists
Moody Bible Radio Discovers ‘The Clergy Project’ – interview with Teresa MacBain
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Related articles
- Biggest Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists (alternet.org)
A burst of media attention has been focused on atheists of an unexpected stripe — clergy members. Could non-believing clergy change how we see religion?
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The project was inspired by the 2010 pilot study by Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola, “Preachers Who Are Not Believers” (PDF), which exposed and explored the surprisingly common phenomenon of non-believing clergy. The need to give these people support — and if possible, an exit strategy — was immediately recognized in the atheist community, and starter funding for the Clergy Project was quickly provided by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. - 6 Benefits of a Clergy Sabbatical Leave Program (smartchurchmanagement.com)
It is common for churches to offer sabbaticals for clergy to provide a time for refreshing, recharging and continuing education. Church leaders have great responsibilities and the many challenges that come with working in the ministry can take its toll on clergy. Many churches have discovered that providing a time to retreat from the day-to-day responsibilities can provide a benefit for both the employee as well as the church. When pastors are allowed to take an extended break from ministry they can refocus and recharge their passion and call to lead the congregation. - Administration and Spirituality: A False Dichotomy (barefootpreachr.org)
How can being a good and effective administrator be de-coupled from the type of mature Christian leadership needed as an effective Episcopal servant of the church?
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to go back to Richard Hearn’s comment about losing the clergy: It was my sense and my experience that clergy morale sank to a deep low under Bishop Bledsoe’s leadership. Bishop Bledsoe acknowledged that fact himself in a video put out a couple of weeks before the North Texas Annual Conference. He invited clergy to respond. I don’t know how many did, but I heard (and I could be wrong) that it was somewhere around forty.
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It involves speaking our own difficult truths, seeking to help one another move to perfection in love, moving to deep repentance when sin is exposed, and offering the fullness of forgiveness to one another. - Rev. Frederick Schmidt Has No Idea Why Clergy Members Leave the Faith… but He’s Going to Write An Article About It, Anyway (patheos.com)
Reverend Dr. Frederick W. Schmidt, Jr. cannot believe there’s so much press about the Clergy Project.First, he blows off the numbers like they’re no big deal
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Check out his grossly misguided reasons for why clergy members leave the faith
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There are probably a lot of reasons for the media’s interest in the subject: Even with a global economic crisis, a few wars, and a presidential election, there are always a few slow news days. “The Clergy Project” probably has a fabulous PR department, supported as it is by The Richard Dawkins Foundation, Freedom from Religion Foundation, American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, The Appignani Foundation, The Center for Inquiry, The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and Recovering from Religion.org. And beyond garden variety religious fervor, there is no religious fervor like that of a former believer. So, it’s the kind of story that always draws a crowd.There are probably a lot of reasons for the media’s interest in the subject: Even with a global economic crisis, a few wars, and a presidential election, there are always a few slow news days. “The Clergy Project” probably has a fabulous PR department, supported as it is by The Richard Dawkins Foundation, Freedom from Religion Foundation, American Atheists, the American Humanist Association, The Appignani Foundation, The Center for Inquiry, The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, and Recovering from Religion.org. And beyond garden variety religious fervor, there is no religious fervor like that of a former believer. So, it’s the kind of story that always draws a crowd.
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It is one thing to study theology, church history, and Scripture. It is another thing to integrate that learning with our faith journeys. Not all seminary programs (and very few churches) make the effort to help students with that process. But in some ways it is both more demanding and critical to the well being of clergy than is the acquisition of knowledge about the subject. - REAL NEWS June 17, 2012 (danimartextras.wordpress.com)
“Things such as theodicy [the problem of suffering and evil], the question of hell, God’s omnipotence yet lack of intervention in heinous events, the historicity of Jesus… all these bubbled to the surface and demanded to be answered,” she said. “My work to answer these questions began with the thought that as I discovered the truth, it would create a stronger faith and give me comforting answers to those in my church who were dealing with the same issues. Instead, the truth I found led me away from faith.”This experience is common among members of the Clergy Project. - The Necessity for Daily Practice…?!? (aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com)
Something that I see an increasing number of pagans and polytheists attempting, and struggling with, is daily practice. I’ve talked on previous occasions on “not being afraid to get bored” and so forth with daily practices. However, I’m also asking another question at present: is daily practice really a necessity for many people? And, I’ve come to a conclusion on the matter: no.In reconstructionist religions, one of the great advantages that has emerged over more general forms of paganism is that there are a variety of possible roles: not everyone is “clergy” or “a priest,” necessarily, in a recon context.
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The notion in many sorts of paganism that everyone is “their own clergy” and thus has clergy status, and therefore must in a variety of ways perform as if they are clergy, is rather erroneous in my view. As much as certain teachers and practitioners would suggest all of the modern pagan/polytheist population have some sort of daily practice (which usually looks like “daily meditation” in most forms I’ve seen it), I can’t really support that necessity from a general viewpoint, either as a reconstructionist or as a general spiritual practitioner who has many strong deity devotions, including Antinous. - Major Threat to Religion? Clergy People Coming Out as Atheists (alternet.org)
Unlike many believers, they actually read the Bible, or Torah, or Koran, or whatever the sacred text of their religion is. They think hard about questions that more casual believers are willing to let slide. After all — that’s their job. - The New Atheism: Its Virtues and its Vices (areycorneja.wordpress.com)
What follows is the text of the 2010 Aquinas Lecture delivered at the church of St Vincent Ferrer, New York. The lecture indicates what makes the so-called new atheism new. It then offers some defense and critique of three authors: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The chief criticism leveled against them is that their dismissal of theism is based on an ignorance of classical theistic thinking and the mistaken impression that ‘theism’ and ‘creationism’ are equivalent.
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the new ones tend to lay stress on science as positively disproving what theists believe.
+New Atheism seems to have a political dimension lacking in the writings of old atheists. The old atheists were all basically what we might think of as ‘armchair philosophers’. They tended to be happy to argue that there is no God and to leave matters at that. By contrast, new atheists appear to have a strong political agenda.
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They often talk about something called ‘religion’ and (especially in the case of Dawkins and Hitchens), they focus on what they call ‘belief in God’. But, we might ask, ‘Which religion?’ and ‘Whose God?’ My impression is that the fathers of New Atheism have not much studied the fathers of Old Atheism or the fathers of theism in its classical Christian form. New atheists (Dawkins and Hitchens anyway) seem to identify belief in God with what is commonly called ‘creationism’.
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In short, much of the ridicule poured on belief in God by the new atheists is one that can be taken on board by someone who believes in God. Unaware of it though they seem to be, in some of their critiques of belief in God (or on forms that this has taken), the new atheists can actually claim support from some serious theologians (Aquinas being a notable example). - Facebook, Biblically Speaking (modtheology.wordpress.com)
Millennials (18-29 year olds) are becoming unaffiliated with their faith* as shown in this article by Robert P Jones on the Huffington Post Blog. What his post made me think of is: does faith truly need to have an affiliation? I think yes. But the reason that kids are leaving their parents church is because a new idea of church is being created. They are communicating their faith and beliefs in different ways. Our classical notion of ‘Church’ is in a state of transformation. Church denomination are shrinking because denominations don’t appeal to the rapid evolution of human morality. Let’s face it, churches are becoming spiritually stale.
יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
יהוה = Love
YHWH, Jehovah God is a four-letter word which comprehends the most important four-letterword in our life: Love.
Though יהוה , Jehovah, the Creator of all things may be a jealous God he is showing covenant faithfulness, loving kindness and mercy unto thousands of them that love Him, and keep His commandments and who do “not take the name of Mar-Yah your God in vain” (Torah).
“you do not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, יהוה {Jehovah} your Elohim am a jealous visiting the crookedness of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and guard My commands. “You do not bring1 the Name of יהוה your Elohim to naught, for יהוה does not leave the one unpunished who brings His Name to naught. {Footnote: 1Or lift up, or take}. “” (Exodus 20:5-7 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Love” is the keynote of the Bible, notwithstanding the fact that it contains threatenings as well as promises, and declarations and manifestations of justice as well as of mercy. If God’s character were devoid of justice—if his love should override his justice—it would be a terrible calamity for all those dependent upon him. It would testify weakness of character instead of strength. It is the fact that God’s wisdom, justice, love, and power operate in full harmony—in co-ordination—that gives us admiration for him, confidence in him, love for him; and all these appreciations are intensified as we realize his unchangeableness.
Speech
The one who told to His creation that they should not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of their people; but had to love their neighbours as they loved themselves.
“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am YY . ” (Leviticus 19:18 IAV)
“The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, But violence covers the mouth of the wrong. Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions. Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has understanding, But a rod is for the back of him who lacks heart. The wise treasure up knowledge, But the mouth of a fool is near ruin. ” (Proverbs 10:11-14 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Excellent speech is not fitting for a fool, Much less lying lips for a noble. A bribe is a stone of favour in the eyes of its owner; Wherever he turns, he prospers. He who covers a transgression seeks love, But he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends. Reproof enters deeper into a wise man Than a hundred blows on a fool. An evil one seeks only rebellion, So a cruel messenger is sent against him. Let a bereaved bear meet a man, Rather than a fool in his folly. Whoever rewards evil for good, Evil does not leave his house. The beginning of strife is like releasing water; Therefore stop fighting before it breaks out. He who declares the wrong right, And he who condemns the righteous, Both of them are an abomination to יהוה. Why is this – a price in the hand Of a fool to buy wisdom, When there is no heart? A friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity. A man lacking heart shakes hands in a pledge, He becomes a guarantor for his friend. He who loves transgression loves strife, He who exalts his door seeks destruction. He who has a crooked heart finds no good, And he who has a perverse tongue falls into evil. He who brings forth a fool has sorrow for it, And the father of a fool has no joy. A rejoicing heart causes good healing, But a stricken spirit dries the bones. ” (Proverbs 17:7-22 The Scriptures 1998+)
Lose
We can begin to see God as mighty but distant and lose the precious truth that we live from within His eternal hug. We can be so busy with this world, we forget the real worthy things of the world and the universe. How many people are still able to enjoy the beauty of nature or to spend some time to look at the stars?
While many filled their dictionary with awful four-letter words, even when they are not of their mother tongue. In many languages we do hear people using the American English words which they saw introduced by television series and films. Out off these words does not only come the sound of aggressiveness, it is often used to dominate or to take on a superior attitude. Though it is not Dutch, nor French or German, many Belgians often use the words “cock”, “dick“, “damn,” ‘F…”, “foul”, “hell, ””prick”, “shit“, “tart”, “twat” and “wank” like they are married with those sounds and feel real at home. They often do not mind to use the title of the Most High putting in front of the “damn”, and forget that by doing so they use Gods name in vain.
Noob or Oldie
Those who believe in God they call “noob”, whatever it may mean. In the new English language we do find “Newbie“, “newb”, “n00b” or nOOb” as a slang term for a novice or newcomer, or somebody inexperienced in any profession or activity. But those who believe are mostly not so inexperienced as the youngsters may believe. Originally “noob” was indicating the non-experience of a person his Internet activity.
The term “newbie” which had a limited usage among U.S. troops in the Vietnam War as a slang term for a new man in a unit, did not always show the right respect for the new recruit or soldier. In the universe we can all be newbies, even for a long time, because every day there is something to learn anew. And for some it takes a long time to learn certain things. It does not show the love of the persons around the apprentice.
For the Supreme being, the Most High, everybody is just like a small microbe, even not yet an ant, because that animal is always busy and working hard for the whole community. In the world of humans the group idea is far gone and egoism brought in a stance which is not to be proud of.
Though God, out of love was willing to increase the numbers of people. Blessing the fruit of Israel‘s womb, the fruit of their land (the grain, new wine, and oil), the offspring of their herds, and the lambs of their flock, in the land that Jehovah the Lord of Lord of lords, the Elohim promised the ancestors He would give them. (Deuteronomy 7:13) But even there we do here such evil language been entered in the Hebrew and English spoken in Israel. Though God had warned them to be very careful to keep the commands and the Law that Moses the servant of the Only One God commanded them.
To cling to the Right One
“Only, diligently guard to do the command and the Torah which Mosheh the servant of יהוה {Jehovah} commanded you, to love יהוה your Elohim, and to walk in all His ways, and to guard His commands, and to cling to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your being.” (Joshua 22:5 The Scriptures 1998+)
“to love יהוה your Elohim, to obey His voice, and to cling to Him – for He is your life and the length of your days – to dwell in the land which יהוה swore to your fathers, to Abto Yitshand to Yato give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:20 The Scriptures 1998+)
By loving יהוה , Jehovah our God, we should keep to His commandments and should know He does not like bad language or vile talk. He even prefers that we would be silent if we have nothing serious to say. The least said the soonest mended. Speech is silver, silence is golden.
When a person is filled with goodness and has the right thoughts, his mouths shall also be able to utter the right words, and shall not need any bad words to bring forth his ideas.
“The good man brings forth what is good out of the good treasure of his heart, and the wicked man brings forth what is wicked out of the wicked treasure of his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks. ” (Luke 6:45 The Scriptures 1998+)
Spirit of the world
In the sermon of the Mount we can see the spirit of Jesus against the spirit of the other men, the apostles and the listeners, who could be compared to us, who are of the spirit of the world. Jesus warns on the mountain against the temptation to judge oneself better than others, even while meeting hatred with goodness, mercy and generosity of an extraordinary kind. The person using abusive language against somebody gives the impression that the speaker is more important and in the right to abase the other. Instead of humbling oneself before one’s Maker, the user of vile words tries to mortify the other. The disciple must strive to make others better by his example, even correcting them when necessary; but let him begin the work of improvement and correction with himself. Only the good can do good and get others interested to do good.
The inferior intellect is as the loftier mind from which it has taken its tone and sentiments. Every one whom God has furnished shall resemble his master. And we as Christians should let the world see who we want to have as master.
“The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, And his tongue talks of right-ruling. ” (Psalms 37:30 The Scriptures 1998+)
“I have delighted to do Your pleasure, O my Elohim, And Your Torah is within my heart1.” {Footnote: 1Ps. 37:31, Ps. 119:11, Isa. 51:7, Heb. 10:7-9}. I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness, In the great assembly; See, I do not restrain my lips, O יהוה, You know. I did not conceal Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your trustworthiness and Your deliverance; I did not hide Your kindness and Your truth From the great assembly.” (Psalms 40:8-10 The Scriptures 1998+)
The Right Word
Normally we should like be “eating” the Words of God, more to be desired than gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb, so that They can be unto us the joy and rejoicing of our heart, for we are called by the name of our Lord the God of hosts. (Jeremiah 15:6, Psalm 19:10) We should refrain our mouth from every evil way, that we might keep to Gods Word.
Even when we may be afflicted, tested, and the wicked may have laid a snare for us, we should be careful not to err from Gods precepts. Gods commandments should and shall make us wiser than our enemies, for when the Law of God is known by and followed by us it shall be with us. (Psalm 119:98-110)
Those who love God and are willing to share this love with others shall be able to sing: “O Elohim, deliver me! Hasten to my help, O יהוה! Let those who seek my life Be ashamed and abashed, Let those who are desiring my evil Be turned back and humiliated. Let those who say, “Aha, aha!” Be turned back because of their shame. Let all those who seek You Rejoice and be glad in You; And let those who love Your deliverance always say, “Let Elohim be made great!” (Psalms 70:1-4 The Scriptures 1998+)
The Elohim Hashem Jehovah, the Only One God shall be with those who want to use their words in the lineage of the Commandments, even when people repay them evil for good, and hatred for their love. But they shall be able to see the other four-letter word “Hope” coming into fulfilment by their better four-letter word than the mockers, the scoffs who do not have any “Faith“.
Rich
Those who laugh may perhaps be more “Rich” in worldly goods, but the believer shall be “Rich” in more valuable goods. The poor one may be ridiculed at, but shall not have to worry, because he shall have a better hope founded in a “Truth” which has deeper grounds.
The one who believes in God and believes in His son, shall keep to the lessons of the son and the Father. He shall prefer to hold on better four-letter words knowing what is “Best”, striving to get to the Right “Amen”. By staying “Calm”, “Glad”, full of “Glow”, being “Glad” doing “Good”, with his “Hope” not afraid to give a ” Kiss” and “Hugs” as a “Free” “Gift”, to offer “Help” and wishing “Luck”. Never being “Rude” but being “Nice” and “Kind” , “Pure”, to “Live” a “Life” full of grace, honour and sweetness, filled with an disarming smile, so that it were also nice five-letter-words that could come on the lips. This all so that both shal be able to become “Holy”. Instigating that they shall go to “Pray” and “Work” so that everything shall be able to “Heal” so that we all may become set-apart making an and to the four-letter word actions of “hate”, to find “True” “Luck” and peace (again a five letter word where we should “aim” for.)
When we speak of love we do not speak of the three letter word many people think off today when they use that four-letter word. The higher notation is for many been mislaid and often not be found. Though all of us should be in search of the “True” “Love”, true generosity, the very reverse of jealousy and envy, which spring from a perverted nature.
Lose
Love by itself can become seen as sloppy sentimentality as we lose sight of the fact that God is our friend but not our mate. Together they show the “awe” filled grandeur and power of the One who loves, as well as the tender Father heart of the Creator and King.
Love rejoices with them that rejoice, in prosperity of every good word and work, and in the advancement in Christian grace and in the divine service of all who are actuated by the divine Spirit.
Live
To “live” the “full” “life” we “need” to experience the fullness of God. His hug is “warm” and His arms are strong.
Sometimes people can get tempted to use bad four-letter words because they feel attacked and can’t get up against the attacker. So often, when we get to fighting, the most important thing of all gets lost. We are confronted in differences of race, culture, and heritage which seem so important to us, but we overlook the similarity and often forget that we came from the same Source. All living on the same globe created by the same Maker, we should be “glad” that we are allowed to “live” here. We should also recognise that everyone has something to ad to the community and can be also being part of one of the Limbs of the Body Christ. What really is most important is faith expressing itself through love. In our high tech world today, isn’t it interesting that the most important issue is the same as it was two thousand years ago — faith expressing itself through love?
“For in Messiah יהושע {Jeshua} neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any strength, but belief working through love. ” (Galatians 5:6 The Scriptures 1998+)
Free
When we are willing to be chained by Gods Love, we shall be able to find freedom, being “free” in Christ, who requires that the floating strength in your life must be love.
All other things, although they are important, come on the second place.
Love is the sign of truth discipleship.
Though God is a jealous God and He demands all our love and attention, this does not mean we do not have to love our neighbours. Our love for God should be different from our love for another person, but not less. If we truly love God, we will show our love for Him in practical expressions of love for others. True divine love does not exclude human love; rather, it enhances it.
Kind
The Four-letter word “Love” is the seed other other four”letter word, which we should try to become: “Kind”
This English word “kind” is one of those pale, sentimental words that just does no justice to the original. We should say, instead, that love is considerate showing an active, involved concern for the needs of others, even to the detriment of one’s own comfort. We probably all think of ourselves as being “kind”, for we certainly are never “unkind”! Are we?
“And if a brother or sister is naked and in need of daily food, but one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” but you do not give them the bodily needs, what use is it?” (James 2:15-16 The Scriptures 1998+)
There are times when a “kind word” is no more than hypocrisy, because it masks a failure to help in any practical way. Have we ever been guilty of such an act, in a benign, “friendly” indifference to the circumstances of others? Then we may have been courteous and civil and pleasant, but we have not been “kind” in the Scriptural sense, and we have not been loving.
Fear
We should not be afraid not using the ‘new’ or ‘popular’ words like the much used four-letter words. We do not have to shrink in front of others who use them to impress us. No fear in love we should know better. We can show others that we can live in harmony, using fine and soft words, not having to be aggressive or insulting. If we love God we know how we should live in harmony. Where love has entered, there is no law necessary to focus. We should be afraid for the right things or for the only One.
“And now, let the fear of יהוה be upon you. Guard and do it, for there is no unrighteousness with יהוה our Elohim, nor partiality, nor taking of bribes.” (2 Chronicles 19:7 The Scriptures 1998+)
Bridge
All that God has given us riches, talents, intelligence, health diminishes with the passing of time. Man grows old and dies. Only love remains, as a bridge between this life and the life to come, a bridge over the chasm of eternal nothingness. Every other gift or talent will fail, just as the Holy Spirit gifts finally ceased. The only thing that endures is the character of man, engraven in the infinite mind of God.
“Beloved ones, let us love one another, because love is of Elohim, and everyone who loves has been born of Elohim, and knows Elohim. The one who does not love does not know Elohim, for Elohim is love. By this the love of Elohim was manifested in us, that Elohim has sent His only brought-forth Son into the world, in order that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved Elohim, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be an atoning offering for our sins. Beloved ones, if Elohim so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen Elohim at any time. If we love one another, Elohim does stay in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we stay in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son, Saviour of the world. Whoever confesses that יהושע {Jeshua} is the Son of Elohim, Elohim stays in him, and he in Elohim. And we have known and believed the love that Elohim has for us. Elohim is love, and he who stays in love stays in Elohim, and Elohim in him. By this love has been perfected with us, in order that we might have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear holds punishment, and he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love Elohim,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one not loving his brother whom he has seen, how is he able to love Elohim whom he has not seen? And we have this command from Him, that the one loving Elohim should love his brother too. ” (1 John 4:7-21 The Scriptures 1998+)
Be Walking in love by faith, not by sight, always using the right words, so that The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty.
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Previously: More-Letter-Words
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Read also:
About Four-Letter words:
- Vile language and behaviour plus little secrets
- The Y generation in conflict with itself
- Alternative four letter words
- I wanted to follow you but, uh, no.
About Love:
- Relying on the Love of God
- God demonstrates his own love
- If his love should override his justice
- The Law of Christ: Law of Love
- Do not foget the important sign of belief
- The first on the list of the concerns of the saint or Love One Another
- This is true love
- He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
- We love because he first loved us
- No person has greater love than this one who surrendered his soul in behalf of his friends
- Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends
- The redemption of man by Christ Jesus
- Lying in the senses in matters of love
- Love is like playing the piano
- Love envieth not
- To be chained by love for another one
- Love turns one person into two; and two into one
- If we love one another, God lives in us
- Experiencing God
- Christ’s ethical teaching
- Making time for payer in Summerholiday
- No good thing will he withhold
- Love been perfected with us
- A man who cannot forgive others
- No fear in love
- When we love we do not need laws
- Spread love everywhere you go
- Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
- Walking in love by faith, not by sight
- The Greatest of These is Love 1 Corinthians 13
- A Living Faith #12 The Love for Jesus
- Love and cultivate that which is pure
- God let my compassionate affection be tolerant and kind
- The Spirit of God brings love, hope and freedom
- The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
- Love will cure more sins than condemnation
- Unarmed truth and unconditional love
- If his love should override his justice
- The one who has not had a taste of love
- Unconditional love
- Enduring Love
- Papal Encyclical explores Divine, Human Love
- Got an Empty Love-Tank
- What is Love
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Additional reading:
- Some one or something to fear #6 Faith in the Most High
- Attitude to others important for reaching them
- I love Your commandments more than gold, yes, than fine gold! . –Psalm 119:127
- Abhor evil. Adhere to goodness
- Outworking of the faith
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Related articles
- Titles of God beginning with the Aleph in Hebrew (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- The importance of Reading the Scriptures (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- The Importance Of Scripture (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- July 11 Read PROVERBS 1-4 (rgaugert.wordpress.com)
- BASIC Series | Notes & Review (vialogue.wordpress.com)
the paradox between “fearing” God, and “not fearing him” as God’s children and bride. Beginning with the fear of God will lead us to the kind of life in which we are not afraid of anything else, because God is so fearful.
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Jesus says, “follow me.” Chan courageously states that millions of people call themselves followers, but their lives look nothing like Jesus, even though in their hearts they’re convinced they are followers.
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God does not want you to do this discipleship thing on your own. That’s why he created church. And “church” is not a building or an address, but rather, “the people.” Before God, we should have a true sharing, a fellowship. Acts 4:32, “the full number of those who believed were of one heart.” They shared everything and had a sense of mission together. That’s a lot different from a potluck. We’re now one. We’re family. - July 14 Read PROVERBS 13-16 (rgaugert.wordpress.com)
- Children, what does God want for you? (peaceandbeauty.wordpress.com)
Jehovah wants you to be happy. He gives you the best advice on how to enjoy your youth. He wants you to benefit from the wisdom and experience of your parents. - The Proverbs Pursuit (alookintomymind.wordpress.com)
- How to Use Slang When Writing Dialogue (writingishardwork.com)
Believe it or not, there is a grammar to using slang. The above websites always list the part of speech in which the words are categorized. Bad grammar is bad grammar with or without slang. - Scripture at Sunrise 7.17.2012 (nlbclex.wordpress.com)
that we may know our God: His power, His faithfulness, His immutable love, and so may be ready to risk everything in His behalf. He is One whose character excites our enthusiasm and makes us willing to live and to die for Him. Oh, that we may know our God by familiar fellowship with Him; for then we shall become like Him and shall be prepared to stand up for truth and righteousness. - The Sufficiency of Scripture (part one) (mindrenewers.com)
When we’re told God’s law is tamiym, we’re not only being told of its blameless quality, we’re also being told it is complete. The written covenant of Jehovah-Who-Covenants is complete and perfect. He didn’t leave anything out that needed to be there.
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Scripture’s Qualities- perfect
- sure
- right
- pure
- clean and enduring
- true and righteous altogether
- Alphabet (guapotg.wordpress.com)
Wisdom in Hebrew alphabet pg 47
The sum total of human knowledge derives from the Torah because the universe is a product of Torah which is the blueprint of the world, as the Midrash teaches: God looking into the Torah and created the world (Zohar, Ruth 88) When His Ineffable Word took physical form, heaven and earth became the clothing for the word of God which infuses Creation, and without which Creation would not continue to exist. - Super-Abridged Bible: Ecclesiastes (anadder.com)
Banish sorrow and worry for youth is fleeting. Appreciate life before you will say “I have no pleasure in it”; before the sun and moon grow dim; before the guards get shaky; before the maids that grind grow few; before the jar is shattered and dust returns to the earth. Everything is futile! such is the summary of the Kohelet’s words. - Mompiphany #33: Stop, Can’t and Don’t Are 4 Letter Words (mompiphany.com)
When they are not overusing the word mom, my kids are overusing other words, namely 4 letter words. Now I don’t profess to be the best mother but the way that some 4 letter words roll off my kids’ tongues makes me wonder where on the parenting road did I go wrong? - More-Letter-Words (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
Is it the warm, kind feeling, the fondness or affectionate and tender devotion people mean when the use the four-letter-word “Love”? - Ten Principles of Life (harikrishnamurthy.wordpress.com)
The following are the ten Principles of Philosophy for this society.
Prophets making excuses
In reply to the nice article by T.V. Antony Raj: “The Archangel Gabriel” on “Impressions ~ of what comes to my mind.” I wanted to react and place this reaction also on our ecclesia site, because we encounter many Christians who do not understand Muslims and many Muslims who think that all Christians adhere a Three-Godhead and ignore the writings of so many prophets like Enoch (Idr~is) who prophesied that Godwould “execute judgement against all, and would convict all the ungodly” (Jude 14:15).
“And Ḥanoḵ, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied of these, saying, “See, יהוהcomes with His myriads of set-apart ones, to execute judgement on all, to punish all who are wicked among them concerning all their wicked works which they have committed in a wicked way, and concerning all the harsh words which wicked sinners have spoken against Him.” ” (Jude 1:14-15 The Scriptures 1998+)God brings knowledge. Jehovah God is the “Unfathomable Knowledge” who is willing to who shed the light in the night of this world at night time and day time. Human reason fails to comprehend Him and to get all the knowledge. God is and will be forever there above and beyond all people. We have given Him different names in this line of thought to suit our convenience. We have tried to bring out His attributes in different pictures. We have projected Him in different ways. (There are many a Form and simply Formless.) All this is just to make Him easily understood. But He remains at one with that Knowledge.
But many forget that He is willing to share some of His knowledge and is willing to guide all humankind. But to be able to do so those men and women should give Him their ear.
The son of man Daniel also saw an other son of man, but whom was send in a special way and could do incredible things. This Son of Man Daniel saw was a vision of Messiah‘s kingdom, superseding the bestial kingdoms of the world. Daniel predicted that men shall see “the Son of man coming in the clouds with power and great glory.” And when standing before Caiaphas he thus addressed his judges, “I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Of this, then, there is no doubt, that the name was to Jesus a Messianic name. He would never have used it had he not wished to intimate that he was the promised Messiah of the Jews. And so it tells us, who want to listen, that here is Christ indeed; the Man in whom all humanity is centred, yet the Man who knew that he was more than man, the Fellow of the everlasting God.
The Christian, as a disciple of the Lord, as a pupil in the school of Christ, is being fitted for a place in the Millennial kingdom — for a share in its glory, honour and immortality….Hence, we see the necessity for the frequent admonitions of the Scriptures, that the Lord’s people shall be awake;–not of those who slumber; not of those who are idle; not of those who are overcharged with the cares of this life; but that they be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Their service toward the Lord is primarily the bringing of themselves into as close harmony with the Lord’s will, and into as close likeness to the divine pattern as possible; and secondly, it is that by precept and example they may help others of the called ones in the same narrow way.
“For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. So, then, we should not sleep, as others do, but we should watch and be sober. ” (1 Thessalonians 5:5-6 The Scriptures 1998+)
Though prophets are just “Son of man” (like Ezekiel) God reminded them of their position in this world, where they also would have to face death, but could live on in the memory of many others as a servant of God. Those prophets had the function to warn the people and to bring them back to the Elohim, Hashem, Allah, the only One God.
The Prophet Mohammed (figure without face) on Mount Hira. Ottoman miniature painting from the Siyer-i Nebi, kept at the Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, Istanbul (Hazine 1222, folio 158b)
Though very devoted and spending time at the cave in Mount Hira, fasting, praying, thinking, and trying to find answers to the meaning of life. He forgot that Allah always give answers to those who honestly call onto Him. But God never shows Himself because when we would see God we would die. (Exodus 33:20)
Exodus 33:20 Jehovah, the Elohim God/Allah continued, “But you may not see my face. No one can see me and live.”
Jehovah God is the only one who can give us full insight. As worshippers of God we should know as the prophet that there is no one besides Allah that could bring us the night in which we take rest, but also find comfort and insight.
Koran 28:71 Say: See ye? If Allah were to make the night perpetual over you to the Day of Judgement, what god is there other than Allah, who can give you enlightenment? Will ye not then hearken?
As it took some time for the great prophet to understand what God was willing to bring over to him, we cannot take such time any more. god has provided enough prophets for us to see and come to understanding.
Sometimes God tests people to see if they want to go according to the Will of God and really do want to follow Gods Commandments.
Exodus 16:4 Jehovah said to Moses, “I’m going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day’s ration. I’m going to test them to see if they’ll live according to my Teaching or not.
The same as when the Archangel Gabriel (Jibrāʾīl) appeared before Muhammad and asked him to read we also answer ‘I can’t” when we got a reply in our dreams. How are we then going to come out of darkness, if we dare not to do what is told us to do, but keep thinking we can not. It is a matter of trusting God.
Too many are afraid of Allah to listen to His guidance. He has provided the world with so many prophets to tell the world what to do, how to behave and to what to look forward.
While not violating his own Law, Allah took action to save mankind with sending the prophet in the line of David (Dãwud). God had sent the angel Gabriel (Jibrã’il) to a virgin, who did listen to the news that could bring her death by stoning, because she became with child not being married. But she accepted her sending and brought forth Jesus Christ, Jeshua (‘Isã) (Ãl’Imrãn 3:45; Al-Anbiyã’ 21:91)
This Jesus (Esa/Iessou) Jeshua was the only man who could stay without sin and therefore he could be the best sign for mankind and mercy came from him when this man wanted to give his body for a ransom for all. (Maryam 19:19,21) He could become the Lamb who took away the sins of the world. He came with a sign from the Most High, his Father in heaven whom we do have to fear.“The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NIV)
“God made him who had no sin to be sin {Or be a sin offering} for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV)
“The fear of יהוה is the beginning of wisdom, All those doing them have a good understanding. His praise is standing forever. ” (Psalms 111:10 The Scriptures 1998+)
“Let those who fear יהוה now say, “His kindness is everlasting.” I called on Yah in distress; Yah answered me in a broad place. יהוה is on my side; I do not fear what man does to me! יהוה is for me among those helping me; Therefore I look on those hating me. It is better to take refuge in יהוה Than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in יהוה Than to trust in princes. ” (Psalms 118:4-9 The Scriptures 1998+)
““And whatever is concealed shall be revealed, and whatever is hidden shall be known. “So, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms shall be proclaimed on the house-tops. “But I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that are unable to do any more. “But I shall show you whom you should fear: Fear the One who, after killing, possesses authority to cast into Gehenna. Yea, I say to you, fear Him! ” (Luke 12:2-5 The Scriptures 1998+)
When Jesus lived many could hear him talk and hear him explain the Word of God, but wanting to understand his talking was an other matter. Only a few years after his death an other prophet had to set things right again, because so much had gone wrong again.
Many of us do want to come up with the same foible answer as the prophet Muhammad. Many of us also do want to say they can not read the Word of God or not understand it.First off all we do have to want to read it and secondly we do have to put our mind open and be willing to read it and willing to set our mind open to the God of heaven and earth, Allah, who has a divine name which is found more than 7 000 times in the Holy Scriptures.
Do you still want to say I can not hear God? Do you not want to see the many prophets God had sent us?
If you are really loving Allah, you can not ignore His prophets and should listen to them. God has given them a voice to explain Scriptures to us. Even when they originally could not write or read and dictated that what God brought unto them, we can not ignore their voices.
Many hear, but do not take the words in their heart. they hear but do not listen. In such case they shall never be able to see.
When are people going to listen? When are people to read the words of the prophets who God gave the world to listen to and to give an aid to come closer to God?
By whom do you need to be squeezed? How many times do you need to squeezed before you will not persist any more that you “cannot do this or that, or are not able to understand” like the prophet Muhammad repeatedly resisted?
Therefore we also should read with the name of our Most High Lord of lords who created, man out of dust to which he shall return.
“1 Iqraa, or Read! or Proclaim! or Alaq, or The Clot of Congealed Blood. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Proclaim! or Read! in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created — 2 Created man, out of a mere clot of congealed blood: 3 Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful, — 4 He Who taught the use of the Pen, — 5 Taught man that which he knew not.” (Qur’an 96:1-5)
Also the great prophet Muhammad advised his people to turn back to God’s ancient books in order to obtain the answers. (see Yunus 10:94; Al-Nahl 16:43; Al-Anbiyã 21:7) These tell us that Asaph the son of Berechiah was the one who by inspiration wrote Psalm 83. (1 Chronicles 15:17; Psalm 83, superscription) Verse 18 of this Psalm says ““That they may know that {1} thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, Art the Most High over all the earth. {1) Or [thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art etc]}” (Psalms 83:18 ASV)
We thereby see that the greatest name of Allah is “Jehovah”.
Do you want to believe He is willing to guide you by the Words He has given to be written down in the Holy Scriptures?
Are you willing to accept His kindness, goodness and mercifulness and be sure that He also wants to guide you? That He is prepared to protect ordinary people, and when I was helpless, you is willing to save you as so many others?
Our are you going to keep repeating that you need to worry because you can’t trust anyone!”
“What shall I return to יהוה All His bounties are upon me. I lift up the cup of deliverance, And call upon the Name of יהוה . I pay my vows to יהוה Now in the presence of all His people. ” (Psalms 116:12-14 The Scriptures 1998+)
God is not a God who misleads those who want to follow and honour Him.
” If anyone contends with the Apostle even after guidance has been plainly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than that becoming to men of Faith, we shall leave him in the path he has chosen, and land him in Hell, — hat an evil refuge!” (Koran 4:115)
“”Of no profit will be my counsel to you, much as I desire to give you good counsel, if it be that Allah willeth to leave you astray: He is your Lord! And to Him will ye return!”" (Koran 4:34) was clearly said to those who were gone away from God. they who had disputed with believers and multiplied disputation with them. If they are of the truthful ones God would not mind to give them counsel and guide them. Allah only will bring it to you them He is pleased, and the people do not want to escape from Him.
“ “I tell you not that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor do I know what is hidden, nor claim I to be an angel. Nor yet do I say, of those whom your eyes do despise that Allah will not grant them all that is good: Allah knoweth best what is in their souls: I should, if I did, indeed be a wrong-doer.” They said: “O Noah! thou hast disputed with us, and much hast thou prolonged the dispute with us: now bring upon us what thou threatenest us with, if thou speakest the truth!?” He said: “Truly, Allah will bring it on you if He wills,- and then, ye will not be able to frustrate it! “Of no profit will be my counsel to you, much as I desire to give you good counsel, if it be that Allah willeth to leave you astray: He is your Lord! and to Him will ye return!” Or do they say, “He has forged it”? Say: “If I had forged it, on me were my sin! and I am free of the sins of which ye are guilty! It was revealed to Noah: “None of thy people will believe except those who have believed already! So grieve no longer over their evil deeds. “But construct an Ark under Our eyes and Our inspiration, and address Me no further on behalf of those who are in sin: for they are about to be overwhelmed in the Flood.” Forthwith he starts constructing the Ark: Every time that the chiefs of his people passed by him, they threw ridicule on him. He said: “If ye ridicule us now, we in our turn can look down on you with ridicule likewise! “But soon will ye know who it is on whom will descend a penalty that will cover them with shame,- on whom will be unloosed a penalty lasting”" (Qur’an 31-39)
For God it is clear that from the Garden of Eden He has given His Word to the man and woman. Men got the freedom to choose which way to go. God does not want to interupt with their choices and ongoings, except in a few cases where it became to bad and to dangerous for His people. God will leave people on the path they have chosen by stubbornly rejecting the Truth. And therefore it would be a totally wrong accusation to point a finger to the Creator. For God it is the free choice of people to either follow Him or to thrown Him out of the way (aghwaytanee). But people should be aware of the consequences of their choice.
“ He said: Now, because Thou hast sent me astray, verily I shall lurk in ambush for them on Thy Right Path.” (Qur’an 7:16)
We do have to to restrain our anxieties, perhaps we may tremble, as in an affair of doubt, but when we give our hands in the hand of God He will be with us, though many others may be against us. If what we have in this world increase under our hands, we must take notice of it with thankfulness, to the glory of God, and own that therein he has dealt graciously with us, better than we deserve. It is he that gives power to get wealth, and it is one way of Him to encourage us to continue the path laid in front of us by the Word of God: the Bible. It is a way to give effect to the agreement which He made by His oath with our fathers, as at this day.
““Be on guard, lest you forget יהוה your Elohim by not guarding His commands, and His right-rulings, and His laws which I command you today, lest you eat and shall be satisfied, and build lovely houses and shall dwell in them, and your herds and your flocks increase, and your silver and your gold are increased, and all that you have is increased, that your heart then becomes lifted up, and you forget יהוה your Elohim who brought you out of the land of Mitsrayim, from the house of bondage, who led you through that great and awesome wilderness – fiery serpents and scorpions and thirst – where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, in order to humble you and to try you, to do you good in the end, you then shall say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand have made for me this wealth!’ “But you shall remember יהוה your Elohim, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, in order to establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is today. “And it shall be, if you by any means forget יהוה your Elohim, and follow other mighty ones, and serve them and bow yourself to them, I have warned you this day that you shall certainly perish. ” (Deuteronomy 8:11-19 The Scriptures 1998+)
So in case there are people who want to continue their own way, they should not come to complain before God that they perish and land up in the grave (Sheol = Hell = the sepulchre or grave)
You can imagine that even when messengers from God came to warn people and where questioned by them, or did not believe what they heard, how difficult might it be then for us ordinary people, who do not have a living prophet with us today and no direct recognisable signs from God?
But that may not be a reason to have an excuse, like Jonah and others did.
Do you want to have the ear to hear and the heart to appreciate and accept it?
The Only One God Allah, the Elohim Hashem who gave His name to be known, Jehovah grants guidance to all by making the Truth and Falsehood clear through His signs, by His Words given in the Holy Scriptures and with signs within our own selves and the phenomenon around and through the Holy Prophets and everyone is free to follow it.
To hear Gods voice in our selves we do have to be prepared to open ourselves to Him and His Word.
When we pray to God, we also should want to hear answers to our prayers. If we do not open our mind to hear the Voice of God, we shall never receive answers.
In the hope we shall be able to find many who would like to hear answers.
Yours, kindly in the love of God,
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Preceding article: Not making a runner
Preceding Dutch article / Vervolgend op het Nederlandse artikel: Geen Wegvluchter
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Read also:
- Feed Your Faith Daily
- The Metaphorical language of the Bible
- Youth has difficulty Bible Reading
- A listening ear
- Does God hear prayer?
- Does God answer prayer?
- Prayer, important aspect in our life
- A Living Faith #7 Prayer
- Get up in the morning and pray for the Lord’s blessings
- Choices
- Good to make sure that you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy
- If you think you’re too small to be effective
- Prayer has comforted us in sorrow
- Begin by carrying away small stones to remove a mountain
- Try driving forward instead of backwards
- Preventing us from going window-shopping in prayer
- If you do pray you shall not be disappointed
- Sometimes we pray and pray and it seems like nothing happens.
- Forgiveness – Releasing God’s Presence in Prayer
In Dutch:
- Bijbellezen eigen te leren zaak
- Lezen wat er staat geschreven
- Gedisciplineerd de Bijbel lezen
- Kijken en zien van wat er geschreven staat
- Lezen in het Boek der Boeken
- Oproep tot een spirituele en theologische benadering van de Bijbel
- Waarom niet luisteren?
- De Weg, groepering van volgelingen van Christus
- De Bijbel & Bidden
- Als deelgenoten komt Jehovah ons ten goede
- Sta op in de ochtend en bidt voor de zegen van de Heer
- Christelijk gebed eerst en vooral een beluisteren
- Kracht van het gebed
- Gebedsverhoring niet door verlanglijstje
- Gebed Werkt
- Woede & Gebed
- Als je denkt dat je te klein bent om effectief te zijn
- Leren bidden
- Gebed belangrijk aspect in ons leven
- Gebed zou een basis respons moeten zijn naar de weldaden van de Heer
- Gebed om zegeningen #1B waarschuwing
- Behalve door bidden en vasten
- 86 400 seconden in een dag
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- Jesus begotten Son of God #16 Prophet to be heard (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- The End – March 25, 2012 – John 12: 27 – 36 (prissiesissie.wordpress.com)
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Zechariah described a day that would be “neither light nor dark,” where light means the spiritual enlightenment in the church; there is error mixed with truth, in the teachings of leading scholars.
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Order is associated in Hebrew with the Word and Light. Both are pointing to the Torah, who was made flesh. - The Archangel Gabriel (tvaraj.wordpress.com)
The Hebrew words for ‘light’ and ‘word’ are also similar in that they have the same meaning of order.
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Our call is to walk wisely and circumspectly. We are called to expose the evils of the wicked but not get consumed in them. The warfare that traces back to the beginning has always been an ‘infowars (click here)‘ for the hearts of men. Whether man will choose the Tree of Life or the Tree of knowledge. Blessing or cursing. - The Watchman On The Wall (manoahswife.wordpress.com)
“Yet the children of your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ But it is their way which is not fair! When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die because of it. But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is lawful and right, he shall live because of it. Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own ways.” - Jesus: False Prophet? (anatheistviewpoint.wordpress.com)
And he said to them, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.” (Mark 9:1) - False Christs and Messiahs (ptl2010.com)
People are claiming to be messiah, and their followers are being tattooed with the numbers 666, stating that this number is a positive symbol of their group’s messianic leader.The Bible is clear that Jesus Christ is the ONLY Messiah. He is the ONLY One that can save people from their sins.
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Jesus will come again, the Bible makes that clear; and when He does, the whole earth will see Him. The Messiah will not be some person that only a small group of people know about. The whole world will know when He arrives. - He Who Comes in Clouds (cleansedbygod.wordpress.com)
The title Son of Man appears in the New Testament four times outside of the Gospels. It is used for our Savior unambiguously in three places (Acts 7:56; Rev. 1:13; 14:14), but whether Hebrews 2:6 intends it as a title for Jesus is debatable. Since it is Jesus’ favorite title for Himself, it seems strange that it is not found more often in the apostolic writings. Maybe the original audiences of the epistles did not know the title’s meaning as well as the Gospels’ first readers. - Reject God’s Prophets At Your Own Peril (getrealchristianity.wordpress.com)
Many sinners are turning to God but many “righteous” are falling away and do not even know it. These “believers” have closed their hearts and minds to prophetic warnings and the full truth of the Lord’s message. They have substituted false doctrines that appear perfectly Biblical and subsist on dry formalism, dead religion, and watered-down “Christianity light” instead of embracing the Lord Jesus in all His power and glory. - This Comment has real, intrinsic value. It is without ego. It is asking valuable questions. We need more of these kinds of questions, and we need to share and discuss our responses to them. ~J (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
each Christian sect seems to focus on one and ignore the others. Diseases are assumed to be demons and “rebuked” without discernment or effect. Demons are assumed to be sickness, and “treatment” is attempted. God’s discipline is attributed to Satan, and made light of. The obvious promptings of the flesh are assumed to be the spirit, or even of the soul. The soul is confused with the flesh and spirit. A mere matter of terminology, right? With such faulty diagnosis, we attempt “ministry”, to no effect, and often to great harm. Is this ministry? Is this us? - What are you doing in the dark? (shilohrestoration.org)
In Ezekiel chapter 8, we find a very strange account of the prophet being caught up in the Spirit and seeing a vision. The first thing I notice about this chapter is where it starts. In verse 1 it says, “I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me.” This is important because chapters 8-11 are about the elders of Judah.
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Ezekiel was looking into a secret place. The abominations being committed by the elders were done in secret. They were in the temple, but in a secret place where no one would see them.
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God makes the point of saying how each person is going to his room of pictures – it deepens the understanding of how far and wide the idolatry was. No one is just caught up in an “accidental” group transgression; they are all individually sinning in a violent way against God. - Letters to the 7 *churches – Revelation 2:1-3:22 (brakeman1.com)
If anything did not agree with the word of God, the *church refused it. The *church at Ephesus believed that the word of God is the truth. The *church at Ephesus refused those who proved to be false.
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There was a group of people called the Nicolaitans. We do not know much about this group. But they did things that were not right for the Christians. They ate the food that people gave to false gods. And their ideas about sex were not what Christians should believe.
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Jesus describes himself as the Son of God. This is very different from the local god. His name was Apollo Tyrimnos. He was both the *Roman king and the god of Thyatira. People thought that he was the son of a god called Zeus. But Jesus really is the Son of the real God. - Devotional for Week of July 15, 2012 (oldgreenbrierbaptistchurch.typepad.com)
God’s Revelation of Comfort Comes to You. You must not allow the circumstances of your life to overcome God’s plan for you. You must trust God, even in the midst of pain and loss, and pursue His purposes for you and your church. God was actively at work in the lives of the people in Isaiah’s day to bring forth Messiah Jesus so that His ultimate plan of salvation could come to fruition. God is still at work. He is leading you to find beauty in what appears to be the ashes of your life. Will you wallow in the ashes of self-pity or will you walk with Him into the beautiful future he opens before you in spite of and even through the trials and tribulations of life? - Commemoration of Isaiah (brvanlanen.wordpress.com)
Isaiah son of Amoz is considered to be the greatest of the writing prophets and is quoted in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament prophet.
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He was also a comforting proclaimer of the Gospel, repeatedly emphasizing the Lord’s grace and forgiveness. For this he is sometimes called the “Evangelist of the Old Testament.”
- The Error of the Wicked (truthinscripture.com)
There is an error, called the error of the wicked spoken of in our Bibles that we had best understand. We need to know what this error is and the consequences of living a life believing in this error. Many sheep have been led astray by the error of the wicked. This is one way people fall away from the living God and end up right back wallowing in the mud immersed into and practicing sin.
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The vast majority of organized Christianity has long ago departed from sound doctrine and has replaced truth with doctrines of demons. - Jesus A.s denied in bible ! Jesus a.s is Not God ! (islamgreatreligion.wordpress.com)
Throughout the NT of the Bible, Jesus (pbuh) referred to himself as “son of man” (human being). He never possessed the knowledge, nor any Divine ability that of GOD. Jesus (pbuh) was never self-sufficient or all-knowledgeable and most importantly he prayed to GOD, so this is enough to say that he wasn’t God nor did God come down to earth to be Jesus. - The Night of Al-Mi’raj (Muhammad’s Ascension) & Salah (come2islam.wordpress.com)
- Allah misguide people? Lies Exposed ! (islamgreatreligion.wordpress.com)
Allah has given every creation a particular function and then guided it to correspond to its role in the scheme of things. This guidance is granted to everything and everyone, men, jinns, animals, plants and all the other creation.
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Some people especially Christian polemics argue that Allah Himself misguides people and does not give them free-will and therefore He would be unjust in punishing them. This is utterly wrong interpretation!
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Now is the question as to how Allah misguides? This is plainly told in the Quran.
“If anyone contends with the Messenger even after guidance has been plainly conveyed to him, and follows a path other than that becoming to men of Faith, We shall leave him in the path he has chosen, and land him in Hell,- what an evil refuge!” (Quran 4:115)
- Written to recognise the Promissed One (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
Do you want to hear the Voice of Jehovah, the Only One God (Allah) and ignore His send one? - Christ having glory (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
God Himself who carried the Word, the ideas or thoughts as well as the expression of His thinking and wishing, in Himself because every thought every word, every expression, was part of Himself. Are we willing to take His words to the people around John the Baptist and his nephew Jesus at the Jordan to our heart? - Homelessness, God & Jesus (mobilecrisis.org)
Jesus warns us that he did not come here to mess around and make everything blissful and pretty. He came to clean house! To divide those who believe from those who do not.
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By doing what God says and what He himself Commands. Your organization, or you as an individual will be given your due as per what God desires to give. Period. Just as He did for Moses, Abraham, David, Lot and the rest. Some were made Kings ( had great wealth) and some were simply made great leaders (still had much wealth). God wants us to be responsible with what He provides to us. He does not want His Gifts to be used on those who do not desire to do His Will or even hear about it. - Pious Husband (come2islam.wordpress.com)
‘ how did you stay awake all night and worship Allah, when your wife saw you sleeping?’ - Taqiyya/Takiya (islamgreatreligion.wordpress.com)
- How Did Prophet Muhammad Pbuh Bring Mercy to the World? 3: 164 (asqfish.wordpress.com)
To bring mercy to people is to improve them, and to pull them out of the dungeon of depression and self-destruction that they reside in. This is due to their ignorance of the Almighty and their preoccupation with the hedonism of the present. - Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) (abbaskhizar.wordpress.com)
J.H. Denison in his Emotions as the basis of Civilization, wrote:
In the fifth and sixth centuries, the civilized world stood on the verge of chaos …. it seemed that the great civilization which had taken four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration … Civilization like a gigantic tree whose foliage had over-reached the world .. stood tottering .. rotted to the core ….. It was among the Arabs that the man was born who was to unite the whole known world of the East and the South.
(pp. 265-269)
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The religious attachment of 6th century Arabia was idolatry, though there were a sprinkling of Atheists and worshippers of heavenly planets, who offered sacrifices to the sun, moon and other heavenly bodies.
Liberal and evangelical Christians
In the United States of America seems to whirl a wind bring clouds of evangelical and liberal Christians in coalition.
A few years ago we had the doom preachers, but they were overblown by the atheist bringing the end of the world onto the Aztec agenda for the end of 2012.
Questions are asked if Christians who read the Bible arrive at a different place, but we better could ask if those Christians really take the whole Scripture to read and to compare the presented fragments or verses in the light of other verses in the Holy Scriptures.
According to Gary Tandy, Professor of English and English Department Chair at George Fox University, there is a cultural tendency in evangelical Christianity that does not leave room for “evolving” positions, complexity, uncertainty, or doubt. He is been discouraged with the nature and tenor of the conversation of Christians reacting in the wake of Obama’s interview stating his personal opinion on same-sex marriage. In Mitt Romney‘s commencement speech at fundamentalist, evangelical Liberty University, Romney only addressed the issue once, but he addressed it in tones of certainty: “Marriage,” he declared (to roaring applause), “is a relationship between one man and one woman.” Here’s what an audience member had to say in an NPR interview when asked about her position on same-sex marriage: “It’s wrong. There’s nothing else to say about it. It’s in the Bible.” This audience member’s attitude was pretty close to the old bumper sticker: “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”
With it many questions were raised if people could accept that either their idea had to evolve with what is really meant in the Bible, or that the Bible would evolve with the times. We for sure know that many people would love to adopt the bile to their own ideas. Many would prefer that the world could progress and as such the Bible Words should have to interpreted according evolving times.
The Old Plantation (anonymous folk painting). Depicts African-American slaves dancing to banjo and percussion late 1700s
People do forget that it is not the Word of God that has to adapt to the time of the day. They also forget that often it are people who give it a certain strict meaning which is not exactly there black and white on the paper. Certain denominations do want to give it their interpretation because it suits their thoughts. America as such found a way to accept slavery and to not see any harm in using the black people do do all the dirty work for them at no special wage. We have seen a face in history that white people did not see any harm in ownership of a human being. Also poor white Europeans could find themselves in indentured servitude in the New World.
Historically, slavery was not just an Old Testament phenomenon. Slavery was practised in every ancient culture: Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman and Israelite. Slavery was an integral part of ancient commerce, taxation, and temple religion. For over 18 centuries Slavery in different forms has been imposed by Christians. But they did not see that they themselves also became slave of certain systems and ideas. In Catholic as well in protestant groups we can find defenders of slavery. Biblical verses pro- and against slavery, and textual argumentation were used on both sides.
The whole matter concentrates on the relationship of human beings against other human beings. It has been about colour, about sex and about age, that people tried to use or misuse Bible verses to get their right. Often the problem lay in the not understanding customs of the time and in the differences of forms of servitude, customary in ancient times, those condoned or cursed by the Torah.
The role of women in the human system has been also of a lot of debate.
And in the time of free sex, persons want to get to know the interpretation of the different denominations about the human relationship in a sexual context, between men and women, men and men, women and women, and also in relationship of different partners. All sort of mixes seem to be talk of the day.
We all want to be loved, appreciated and have pleasure and fulfilment in our lives. Today pleasure seems to receive first priority. And lots of people want to consider the Bible old fashioned.
Though we all should be aware that God gave us all the capacity to love and be loved, to have special friendships with others, but that it had to be in a way acceptable in the creation-system of the Almighty. From the first moment human was created God had foreseen that he could have a sexual nature, sexual desires and a will to create new human beings by coming close together. God want that people multiplied themselves.
In the United States some preachers teach that even an emotional tie is still considered adultery. They even consider it as a sin even when the emotional attracted people are not sexually involved. Naturally sin begins in the mind, and it is there that we do have to go to look for. In which way does our mind go strange?
Often people forget that God gives wisdom and also common sense. That last part is often put aside for doctrinal reasons.
Also cultural and language differences made that people wanted to adjust Biblical words, because they thought it would be better to adapt the language to the public. A decennia ago in the Dutch language we got for that reason a Prison Bible, a Youth Bible, a Bikers Bible, with modern slang words in it.
Because certain ideas seem to be offensive for one or an other group they have to be changed, the publishers think. In stead of putting a clear note of explanation of what is meant with such an expression. For example, today some publishers are wondering how they could cope with the words ‘son of’, because Muslims do have a problem with God who would have to have sex to get children. The idea of Jesus as Son of God is highly offensive to Muslims, therefore some of the Wycliffe Bible Translators prefer to use “Messiah” instead of “Son” in the translations and “Lord” instead of “Father.”
When we talk with Muslims about the Father – Son relationship, we do compare it to fosterparents, who also did not have to have sex, to be the ‘father’ or mother’ of the foster child. We also try to let them understand that any creation of a builder is a product and as such a child of the creator. We notice that many Muslims can find our way of thinking reasonable and not so wrong.
Naturally several Christians would encounter more problems when they say the son of God equals God the son, because then there is a real problem, for Christians like us, and for Muslims and Jews, who accept that there is only One God, who is the God of gods, but the Only One Almighty Elohim, Allah whose name is Jehovah. In such concept of the first mentioned Christians we do find the Trinity bias. For those trinitarians the Wycliff Translations are even a bigger problem than for us, who do not like the modern versions either. “Son of God” and “God the Father”, becoming God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are essential elements of the Christian concept of the Trinity, which is the Holy Core of Christianity according the Trinitarians. Many evangelical supporters of the Wycliffe organization find this very troubling, and are considering withholding support for the organization.
More “liberal” critics who see the Bible as a reflection of a particular people in history and their struggle with understanding their relationship to a deity argue that the historical contexts are a fundamental part of the meaning of the books of the Bible. Further, they suggest, reworking or changing the theology of these biblical texts will make missionary work among Muslims more difficult since Muslims claim that the Bible is corrupted and contains errors, and has therefore been abrogated by the Qur’an.
When publishers, for reasons to sell enough books, give preference to adapt the language to the times and culture of the moment, Muslims are very right that they charge Christianity with deformation of Gods Word. A pity they do not consider the main Bibles which stay in publication or can be found many years after they had been published for the first time. Even when certain changes where allowed and even the name of God had been taken away they stayed in the running, saying exactly the same thing as previous publications.
In that, having so many people working against the Holly Scriptures, but standing erect for thousands of years we see a much mightier hand than that of any human being. Even with some less correctly translated versions, people, who really read the whole Book, can find the Truth, because Gods Word is unchangeable.
Words are also part of passion. Which version you have in front of you, shall have a lot to do with your feelings and preferences. Wanting old language or modern language, being used to such a way of speaking or an other way of expressing oneself. It all depends on a matter of choice and ‘inner feeling’. Your love for words or love for telegram style messages. character of the person, his upbringing, schooling, formation on religious level, it shall all form the background to evaluate from a certain standpoint.
Several American Christians attempt to categorize the content of the Bible according to a pre-defined framework that is then passed on to others. The idea is to summarize and condense all Biblical teaching into a handful of topics, with a handy list of verses next to each topic, providing support for the idea. As a result, the framework becomes all-important when training students how to answer the question, “What does the Bible say about ?”
A big problem which we do encounter is that with many of those evangelicals, most often Pentecostals, many times, most of the verses in the list are being pressed into service on a topic to which they do not really relate. Or, perhaps, whether they are applicable depends upon other assumptions held by the person who created the list. Just because a person says something is true, and backs it up with a list of Bible verses, does not prove their point is true. Often the very framework that defines what constitutes legitimate avenues of inquiry, is up for debate.
A big problem we notice also that lots of them do not compare the verses and stories from the Old and the New Testament and do not take the whole picture in account.
The Trinitarian Christians want to place Christ Jesus dot in the centre. Mishkan David correctly observes: “There was a time when all astronomers held the premise that the earth was the center of the solar system. Working with that assumption, they concluded—based on very real and accurate observation—that the planets had some highly unusual traits in their behavior. It seemed that the planets accelerated at some points, and decelerated at others… and at different points on their orbit each time! The characteristic I always loved in high school science class was the notion of retrograde motion—the planets actually seemed to loop back in their paths, literally doing loop-de-loops as they moved along in their orbit!” though he seems to be a messianic Jew who does not believe any more in One God but in three gods, who are supposed to be one as well.
When people take the whole Book of Books, they shall see that Jesus is one part of Gods Plan, and that Israel is an other very important part of the Plan of World Peace. Jesus shall come on the throne in Israel, the municipal city of the Kingdom of God.
King James did like to have the full control of the Christian system in his country. In his edict number three he stated that his Authorised Bible was to retain the word “church” in the translation and it was not to be replaced with the word “congregation.” This he did because he had no jurisdiction over the congregation (people), but he did over the church (physical buildings). So you can see he never wanted the word “assembly” associated with the original meaning of the Old Testament which meant “congregation.” So he knew the correct translation, obviously, but he didn’t want it in there, that way they retain control over “the church.” (Read: Christ’s Ekklesia and the Church Compared, by Richard Anthony)
We always should be very careful what words we want to use and to which translation we want to preference. Having a preference for one or another version does no harm, and reading several versions can broaden the knowledge of every member in the community.
But all those members in the meeting, the ecclesia, should together, search the Scriptures to get to the Truth. This they should do in all openness for the Word of God, recognising that we are always living in a world which wants to give preference to certain ideas, which are not always according to Biblical Truth nor to the Will of God.
The Bible may be about vocation and election, but it is in the choice we do have to make our selves that we can become part of the elected or not. The Word of God gives the inhabitants of the universe the possibility to create a world where every creature can live in unity. The biblical emphasis, across the board, is on solidarity and love for each one and for everything around us.
In such a world we should not be tossed by political views but should stand firm in the Word of God which shall give us the necessary insight.
Marcus Ampe
2 June2012
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Please do find additional reading:
The Bible is an anti-libertarian document
People long to do whatever they want. They don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or what to say. But they also long to order their lives in accordance with a concept of right and wrong, and join forces with others who have a same or similar concept of right and wrong. People are in search of a constitution, a commonwealth, that suits them. The contradiction is blatant. The Bible clashes with a libertarian point of view. The Bible is a conglomerate of texts assembled at the intersection of ancient polities, movements, institutions, and traditions. It is full of liberty-restricting provisions and considerations in the service of the long-term viability of said polities and traditions. The Bible simply is an illiberal book. At times it takes an anthropologist to point this out. In her still important critique of Jacob Neusner’s The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism, Mary Douglas pointed out that the rule-making that is part and parcel of biblical exhortation and, specifically, of Torah, both in and beyond the Bible per se, is coercive in intent.
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those who value individual freedoms above all will look elsewhere for a constitution and a res_publica. They will look for a framework that privileges and protects a more expansive concept of res privata than that found in biblical literature, Judaism, and Christianity.
Reimagining the Historicity of the Bible
It might also be important to try again to conceive of a history of the religion of Israel, a history of emergent Christianity and normative Judaism, insofar as they can be constructed from biblical, post-biblical, and non-biblical sources. Now is an inopportune time to walk away from the questions which have animated modern biblical studies from the beginning.
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Historicism and scientism so defined are modern myths. In the diction of Bruce Lincoln, they are ideologies in narrative form. Both stand in contradiction to the narrative of the Bible in which everything hinges on a vital relationship with a singular principle of truth, justice, and goodness which occurs to people as a God of great power and beauty.
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On the contrary, if a text presents itself to a reader as the sum of a variety of precursor texts, the whole is unquestionably greater than the sum of its parts, but an understanding of the whole is enhanced to the extent that a reader can take the text apart and put it back together again.
Moreover, if a particular textual component corrects or contradicts another, why is it irreverent or unloving to point it out? The point is obvious in the case of the book of Job. The truth it mediates lies at the intersection of not one contradittorio (cross-examination, debate) but many. It is no less true in the case of the Pentateuch, if one treats it, as one should, as a literary whole. For example, the treatment of specific topics across the various legal corpora, the Covenant Code, Deuteronomy, and the Holiness Code, embodies a debate, the sum of whose parts must be constructed beyond the bounds of the text. There is a strong sense in which the truth Torah tells inevitably resides, not in the text before us, but outside of it.
Which Kingdom Will You Serve?
What is systematic theology, you ask? It is the attempt to categorize the content of the Bible according to a pre-defined framework that is then passed on to others.
My Growing Problem With Liberal Christianity
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Related articles
- My Growing Problem With Liberal Christianity (brucegerencser.net)
On one hand, I understand WHY many people adopt some form of liberal Christianity. They are tired of Evangelical (which is Fundamentalist) Christianity and its attendant certitude and black and white thinking. They are tired of the culture war. They are tired of being viewed as mindless, knuckle dragging Bible thumpers.
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Liberal Christians are known for reinterpreting the Bible to fit their own agenda. They write book after book to explain why the Evangelical interpretation of the Bible is wrong, misguided, or outdated. Never mind WHAT the text says. All that matters is making the square peg fit in the round hole.
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Look at Tandy’s questions. He desperately wants to believe the Bible is unclear on the matter of homosexuality. But , it is not. He is an English teacher. He values words and their meanings. What does the text say? What would an every day, non-original language educated person, in other words, 99% of the people sitting in the pew, think these verses mean? - Pat Robertson: The Bible Is “Terribly Wrong” (slog.thestranger.com)
Apparently, we can pick and choose parts of the Bible after all, says Pat Robertson. When asked on the 700 Club today why some believe “America was founded as a Christian nation” even though it allowed slavery, Robertson said, “like it or not, if you read the Bible in the Old Testament, slavery was permitted.” But Robertson concluded that despite what the Bible says, “We have moved in our conception of the value of human beings until we realized slavery was terribly wrong.” Of course, when Dan Savage made a similar point about the Bible (albeit with saltier language), the Religious Right was irate.
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We’re asking conservative Christians to ignore what the bible says about homosexuality just as they ignore what the bible says about slavery. - Let’s Talk About Sex Part 2 (brucegerencser.net)
Christianity is a text-based religion. The foundation of Christianity is the Bible, the Word of God. From the most liberal Christian to the most strident Fundamentalist, every Christian, to some degree or another, accepts the Bible as truth, as the final authority.
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I am sure that someone may suggest that everyone knows that the word touch used in First Corinthians 7:1 means to have sexual intercourse. Perhaps. All I am trying to do with this post is to show how a Christian, armed with the belief that the Bible is the literal Word of God, could come to the conclusion that the Bible teaches that before marriage a man or a woman should not touch each other.
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As physical familiarity increases so does the risk of engaging in sexual intercourse. Every sexually-aware human being knows this. - How to Witness to an Atheist (brucegerencser.net)
Many atheists were Christians before they became atheists. In my case, I was a Christian for 50 years and I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 of those years. Granted, most atheists are not like me but many of them were raised in the Christian church and know what the Christian gospel is and what the Bible teaches.
+- People become atheists for a variety of reasons. Often there are emotional and cultural reasons why a person becomes an atheist but, at the end of the day, most people become an atheist for intellectual reasons.
- Most atheists are not atheists because they are angry with God, mad at the church, or hurt.
Be prepared to give evidence (proof) of the assertions you make. Saying the Bible says will not work since the atheist will likely not accept the authority of the Bible.
- Growing Pains, Pt. 6 | “Evangelism” (thereformedwesleyan.com)
Christianity is a religion of return. No one comes to faith in isolation. Faith requires a body of faith to give it to others. If you had never seen a church, a Christian or a bible you never would have known about Jesus. You may have thought about God, for Paul said that the world testifies of God, but what we need can only come through revelation and that gift and responsibility has been given to the Church of Jesus. If there has been any benefit or change in our lives, then we are charged with a great responsibility, to give what has been given to us.
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Sharing your faith with someone else is like taking a vitamin. The more and the longer you share your faith the better you feel and the stronger your faith will become. - Pat Robertson Discovers Cherry Picking (patheos.com)
What happened to all that “Bible is the literal word of God” stuff? Since we already eat shellfish and work on the Sabbath and wear cotton-poly blends, can slavery be dismissed just as easily? Because some of that stuff is so antiquated it is not only irrelevant in the 21stcentury but downright absurd.If Robertson has his way, we can let thousands of years of Bible-condoned slavery slide… but if someone dares question Leviticus (also in the Old Testament, let us not forget) and suggest that gay people should be allowed to legally marry, we are a nation full of sinners?! Really?! - In Why I am an atheist – Libby Anne (freethoughtblogs.com) you can see the problem when fundamentalist religious people teach their kids certain things which are not in accordance with reality and not in accordance what is really written and meant in the Holy Scriptures. Once they become a person who can make up his own mind and find archaeological and historical scientific works the fantasies they were taught to them fall to pieces.
“I was raised on the line between fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity. I was homeschooled, and nearly every subject was related to God and the Bible. History was His story and our science textbooks were all creationists.” … “And then I went to college, where my young earth creationist views were challenged. I responded by fighting back. I argued with both students and professors, sure that I had some sort of truth they were missing.”
For such person the confrontation with other thinkings clashes so that they do not see any more the background of the words of the Bible. They even go out to read about where the Bible came from, written by people who are against the Word of God and distorting its words. Doing that the most of them are going to think the Bible is a book full of errors and contradictions, while there are not such contradictions, though good that they start seeing it is also a very human book.
Often it is because certain religions take away the humanity, like they want to make of Jesus the God, instead of accepting that he was a man of flesh and blood.
When they really start reading the full Bible and get themselves loose of the doctrinal teachings they start to become being pulled in two, for the both loose their grip with the divine and are becoming incredibly fascinated with the very human development of the very human book that is the Bible.
Normally you would expect that they would come to a better understanding and that finally, the Bible would make complete and total sense. Than arrives the problem, that most of them want to hold fast on traditions and the dogmatic teachings in which they were brought up. In such an instance they feel being forced to choose between holding onto the divine and the beauty of total understanding, thinking that that would mean to put God and everything sacred away, instead of coming to the Truth and taking God for what He really is and taking Jesus for what he really is. - Gay for God? A Primer on How to Talk to Christians About the Gay Debate (theparish.typepad.com)
Until someone can give me a compelling reason—without citing Leviticus or Romans—that a class of American citizens are denied the same rights and privileges I enjoy, please just admit that the only real arguments you have are theological (i.e., god doesn’t like it) or aesthetic (i.e., it’s gross). Take away the Bible references, you got no argument save the one about old school conservatism and the wisdom of slow change.
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It’s a Constitutional issue, not a theological one. Our legislators aren’t paid to parse Scripture and debate hermeneutics.
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The Bible prohibits punching babies in Leviticus (it really doesn’t, but we’re pretending). 3000 years later, we learn there is a class of people who are born to punch babies, who actually enjoy punching babies. We call them pugilinfantos. They point out that when the Bible was written, the term didn’t even exist; therefore, the Bible can’t have their orientation in mind.
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an honest read of the OT yields the idea that homosexual acts were considered part of the moral prohibitions, as were all the sex acts listed. The question is whether or not you want Bronze Age people defining allowable sexual ethics.
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There is enough ambiguity in the Pauline corpus about words like arsenokoites and sodomite that liberal and evangelical scholars will continue to argue for decades. Again, the problem is that same sex issues made it into the NT; whether they are specifically about homosexual sex or economic exploitation or pederasty is one for the scholars. They don’t agree on it. - Why do people fall for “old” Christian Fundamentalism? (unbiasedtruth.net)
- Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity(unbiasedtruth.net)
I am sending this to you to help those who have left fundamentalist churches that preach damnation, hatred, fear and “you’re not a Christian if you don’t believe like me.” Many have turned against the church and never came back, or just ran away from strict preachers, parents, teachers, etc. and never looked back to find a loving, caring church, group, club, etc. I like a church sign down the road from me that states:
“We Welcome Sinners and Backsliders Like Us.” You’ll find some good ideas from the summary and the reviews shared from others who have had a similar experience.
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The time is past, says Bruce Bawer, when denominational names and other traditional labels provided an accurate reflection of Christian America’s religious beliefs … - Government agency approves Christian fundamentalist exams as ‘comparable’ to A-Level(liberalconspiracy.org)
A Christian fundamentalist qualification which teaches that the theory of evolution has “no scientific basis” has been declared comparable to A-levels by UK Naric.NARIC is the UK’s National Agency responsible for providing information and opinion on vocational, academic and professional qualifications from across the world.
The International Certificate of Christian Education (ICCE) uses a curriculum that was previously criticised for claiming the Loch Ness Monster “appears to be a plesiosaur,” and that the mythical beast is evidence against evolution.
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In a training booklet for ACE staff, future teachers are told, “It’s interesting that in the African primitive languages there is no word for wisdom. We in the West find that surprising, but you see, the idea of wisdom came through the Biblical channels of the Judaeo-Christian religion and filtered into all of western culture and society.” - How Many Christian Fundamentalists Are There in the UK?(leavingfundamentalism.wordpress.com)
Christian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism,[1] arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians.[2] - Loch Ness monster cited by US schools as evidence that evolution is myth(scotsman.com)
Pupils attending privately-run Christian schools in the southern state of Louisiana will learn from textbooks next year, which claim Scotland’s most famous mythological beast is a living creature.Thousands of children are to receive publicly-funded vouchers enabling them to attend the schools – which follow a strict fundamentalist curriculum.
The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) programme teaches controversial religious beliefs, aimed at disproving evolution and proving creationism.
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!!!Mr Wilson believes that such fundamentalist Christian teaching is going on in at least 13 American states.
He added: “There’s a lot of public funding going to private schools, probably around 200,000 pupils are receiving this education.
“The majority of parents now home schooling their kids are Christian fundamentalists too. I don’t believe they should be publicly funded, I don’t believe the schools who use these texts should be publicly funded.” !!!
- In Will Smith Hits Back at Ex-: “Miss Holy Roller”(blackwriteandread.wordpress.com) you can see to which problems it comes when fundamentalism gets to one person in a family.
“ Will goes on to say that it is “fundamental Christians” like her who cause others to fall by the wayside … killing, denying, cheating, lying, stealing, depriving, living selfish lives, committing atrocious acts and heinous crimes in the name of their “god” (the ones listed before) and then coming back to rein people into their world of self-righteousness with a Bible that was used by Europe to put people in slave chains; and to destroy, kill, and steal from others.” - How We’ve Infuriated Centuries of People(str.typepad.com)
It should come as no surprise that the individuals who abide by fundamentalist Christian and radical Islamic doctrines would be the first to cry out that they are being persecuted when their dangerous, damaging and disingenuous beliefs come under attack. Most of these people lack the maturity and intelligence to act in a socially acceptable manner. Many of them are sociopaths and quite a good number of them are psychopaths. All of them are clearly delusional….
Bigotry, discrimination, hatred, coercion, terrorism, slavery, misogyny and everything else that is part and parcel of fundamental Christianity and radical Islam should not be tolerated….
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The truth is, what has infuriated people about Christians throughout the centuries is that they can’t get us to conform to them. From Shadrach, to Peter, to Richard Wurmbrand, no law, threat or torture can turn true Christians from loving and serving God or affirming what we know to be true.
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it is often characteristic of humans to be most emphatically hostile to things that they themselves most deeply and secretly are guilty of; I wonder how many of the most hostile anti-theists are trying to wipe out god by denying him so strongly. - The Egalitarian and Complementarian Divide (5) (allisonquient.wordpress.com)
Sacred and secular cultures have had massive impacts on Evangelicals, and as a result, have influenced the gender debate. It is common to hear how much secular culture and liberalism have influenced Egalitarianism or how Egalitarianism will inevitably lead Evangelicals down the path to liberalism or even the acceptance of homosexuality. Massive amounts of effort has been dedicated towards making this alleged reality known and warning the faithful of the danger of falling down the slippery slope.
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We ought not to trivialize the issue by substituting rhetoric for substance. We ought not to marginalize the issue by obscuring the clarity of Scripture.
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Many Complementarians believe Egalitarians have read back into Scripture what is at heart a secular ideology, even if Egalitarians do this inadvertently.
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What is overlooked or underemphasized is the commonality between Egalitarians and Complementarians when it comes to the authority of Scripture and how Egalitarians are also influenced by culture in much the same way Complementarians are. In fact, when the Evangelical Woman’s Caucus became polarized between the liberal and conservative Christians over accepting a homosexual lifestyle, those who were liaisons to the Evangelical world found they could not in good conscience stay in their current organization.
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In the article discussed earlier he mentioned that those in the Episcopal church did not feel the need to exit their denomination when a woman was made a Bishop in 1989 and so “advocates of homosexual ordination were not worried about a split in the church.” When a compromise followed just allowing individual churches to bless homosexual unions or not, Grudem wounders “As I am writing this chapter, it remains to be seen whether conservatives will finally leave the denomination.”
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History serves as reminded that Evangelicals are heavily influenced by culture whether it is secular, liberal or our own subculture. For better or worse, we have been influenced to our detriment and are being influenced now. When it comes to the gender debate, fears of a liberal or secular takeover have colored and shaped how Egalitarians are perceived and biased the debate in the opposite direction even though it is unwarranted.
The importance of Reading the Scriptures
For those who say they have found Jesus and want to follow him, they should take the words of Jesus at heart.
Jeshua, better known as Jesus, spoke several times out of the Torah and tried to explain the Words of God. People had to know him and his Father. The man of Nazareth was clear that he of himself could do nothing. Always he made it clear that people should get to know his Father, on whose behalf he was talking and handling. Jesus knew very well the Word of God. It is because he was well aware of what was written in the Torah (the Hebrew Scriptures) that could learn what God wanted from his and from the people. Because he knew the Holy Scriptures so well Jesus could know what Godwanted and could tell to others what his Father had taught him.
Jesus was also aware that the One who sent him was still with him; He, Jehovah God, did not leave Jeshua (Jesus) the Messiah to himself, because Jesus always did what pleased God. Also we, as followers of Christ should try to please our Father. Many people who heard Jesus tell them to honour his Father and to pray to Him, who is in heaven, found the honesty in that man and trusted in him. So Jeshua said to the Judeans who had trusted him, “if you obey what I say, then you are really my talmidim, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
“I have much to say and to judge concerning you. But He who sent Me is true, and what I heard from Him, these Words I speak to the world.” They did not know that He spoke to them of the Father. So יהושע (Jeshua) said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Adthen you shall know that I am He, and that I do none at all of Myself, but as My Father taught Me, these words I speak. “And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.” As He was speaking these words, many believed in Him. So יהושע said to those Yehud who believed Him, “If you stay in My Word, you are truly My taught ones, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:26-32 The Scriptures 1998+)
The Son of Man has been lifted up, and we should know that he Jesus (Jeshua) is the one to follow and to belief. He said he was the son of God and the son of man who loved his Father and prayed to Him. We also should do as Jesus and be aware of the importance to know the Father. To get to know this Father of Jesus we do have to listen to the words of Christ but also to the words of the One to whom Jesus was listening. To listen to the one who sent him and taught him we do have to take up the Bible, read in it and think about the Words of God which are written in it.
As followers of Christ, being called Christians, we should hold to Christ his teaching, only then we can become considered to be really his disciples. Only by listening to Jesus words and to the Words of his Father we shall get to know the truth, and the truth will set us free.
Though Jesus himself knew that when he would be gone, many would stand up and come to preach all sorts of things. Like savage wolves several preachers will come in among the people and to those who believe in Jesus they would bring all sorts of teachings which would bring confusion. For Jesus it was clear that they would not spare the flock. He even warned that even from among their own number, men will arise and teach perversions of the truth, in order to drag away the pupils or talmidim after themselves. “So stay alert!” Jesus warned his disciples and also us. Because the word said so many years ago are still going today.
In the short time of three years public life, Jesus warned those around him night and day. The apostle Paul did the same as Christ, he never stopped warning the members of the meeting. But he knew his time on this world was very short and he had to go and therefore he entrusted them to the care of God and to the message of His love and kindness. He did that because it could build them up and give them an inheritance among all those who have been set apart for God.
“And when they had come to him, he said to them, “You know, from the first day that I came to Asia, how I was with you all the time, serving the Master with all humility, with many tears and trials which befell me by the plotting of the Yehudas I kept back no matter that was profitable, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, witnessing to Yehudand also to Greeks: repentance toward Elohim and belief in our Master יהושע (Jeshua) Messiah. “And now see, I go bound in the spirit to Yerushalayim, not knowing what is going to meet me there, except that the Set-apart Spirit witnesses in every city, saying that chains and pressures await me. “But I do not count my life of any value to me, so that I might accomplish my mission with joy, and the service which I received from the Master יהושע , to bear witness to the Good News of the favour of Elohim. “And now see, I know that you all, among whom I went about proclaiming the reign of Elohim, shall see my face no more. “Therefore I witness to you this day that I am clear from the blood of all. “For I kept not back from declaring to you all the counsel of Elohim. “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Set-apart Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of Elohim which He has purchased with His own blood. “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves {1} shall come in among you, not sparing the flock. {Footnote: 1See Mt. 7:15-23, Mt. 10:16, Lk. 10:3, John 10:12}. “Also from among yourselves men shall arise, speaking distorted teachings, to draw away the taught ones after themselves. “Therefore watch, remembering that for three years, night and day, I did not cease to warn each one with tears. “And now, brothers, I commit you to Elohim and to the word of His favour, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those having been set apart. “I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or garments. “And you yourselves know that these hands supplied my needs, and for those who were with me. “All this I did show you, by labouring like this, that you ought to help the weak. And remember the words of the Master יהושע (Jeshua), that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” ” (Acts 20:18-35 The Scriptures 1998+)
“But He (יהושע Jeshua) answering, said, “It has been written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of יהוה (Jehovah).’ ”{1 Footnote: 1Dt. 8:3}.” (Matthew 4:4 The Scriptures 1998+)
If we want to find the full meaningful life we should trust יהושע Jesus and get to know the words of his Father יהוה our Elohim, who is the only one we do have to honour and serve the best we can.
“Then יהושע (Jeshua) said to him, “Go, Satan! For it has been written, ‘You shall worship יהוה (Jehovah) your Elohim, and Him alone you shall serve.’ ”{1 Footnote: 1Dt. 6:13}. (Matthew 4:10 The Scriptures 1998+)
We should know it is not from the physical and practical worldly work that we can get the most out of our life. We should be well aware that it is the spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help. The words Jesus has spoken to the world are spirit and life, and should be followed up.
““It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh does not profit at all. The words that I speak to you are Spirit and are life. {1 Footnote: 1See v. 68, and 1 Cor. 15:45}. Word and Spirit are in unity. ” (John 6:63 The Scriptures 1998+)
Jesus has let his disciples know God so that his Father could make his disciples competent as ministers of a new covenant— not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
“And such trust we have toward Elohim, through the Messiah. Not that we are competent in ourselves to reckon any matter as from ourselves, but our competence is from Elohim, who also made us competent as servants of a renewed covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. ” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6 The Scriptures 1998+)
We can find many letters on papers or on the screen, but the words shall have to get meaning. There have been many writers, but those who were in the hands of God and wrote down the Words of God, can bring us the most important words to go through life in the best way.
Peter, who believed Jesus was the Holy One of God and Christ, the Son of the living God, asked the Master where to go to but knew Jesus had the words of real life, eternal life. (John 6:68-69) In the short time Jesus preached he showed the people they could find that mysterious life and all the answers in the Book of Books. Though they may have been written in the past they were written to teach us, so that with the encouragement of the Tanakh or the scriptures, we might patiently hold on to our hope.
“And all these came upon them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come, ” (1 Corinthians 10:11 The Scriptures 1998+)
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV)
Knowing that the Holy Scriptures only can be God-breathed we can be assured that they are also profitable for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness. By reading and studying the Word of God we can get to know God better but also can get to know how to work at our self, so that we as men of God may ourself become complete, and completely equipped for every good work in a different way than a heathen doing good works. We shall get to see that the Word of God is so powerful that it also shall expose us for what we really are. We can never hide for God, He knows our inner thoughts. But for humans we can perhaps put on an other mask and shield. Jehovah God does know everything of us. He knows when we sit and when we stand up and discerns our inclinations from afar (Psalms 139:2).
When we are going to search the Scriptures it is important that we do it with the right reasons, because the Adonai Jehovah Elohim, the Most High searches the heart and tests the inner motivations; in order to give to everyone what his actions and conduct deserve.
““I, יהוה (Jehovah), search the heart, I try the kidneys, and give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. ” (Jeremiah 17:10 The Scriptures 1998+)
When we take up the Book of the Word of God and read in the Bible regularly is shall be able to form and transform us. By reading His Word we shall get to know what He says to us and what He wants from us. We shall get to know the tools to make us stronger and to resist temptations. It shall give us insight of what is good and of what is wrong (sin). In the words we shall find how we shall be able to please God and how we can avoid going against His wishes (sinning). By avoiding sin or doing what is wrong we can safeguard ourselves from the consequences of such wrong doing.
In the Book of Books we shall be able to find out how to behave in this world. Out of the many writings we shall be able to filter the necessary things to work on ourselves. Not only shall we will learn what kind of mental outlook we have, but also how to come to a better mental outlook. By letting the Words work in us we shall be able to learn patience instead of anger. Our minds shall also get clearer. We shall be able to control our thinking much more so that we shall have not to think about bad things but shall find ourselves more thinking of of good things instead of dwelling on the negative. In the transformation we can undergo by reading regularly the Bible we shall be able to learn real love and compassion instead
of love based on sexuality, personal greed or selfishness, and harsh intolerance. Humility instead of arrogance shall come into the heart which shall become more open to everyone whatsoever his conviction.
The many stories of other people shall give us more insight in how they have behave, what the consequences were and how we should behave. We shall be able to discover the many instructions on how to treat our spouse or other people, how to raise our children, how to act on the job, how to react to others or to help them, even how to be good for those who may be hurting us and giving them chances to become better citizens as well. The Bible shall learn us to comfort those who are hurting.
In the Words of God we shall be able to find a way to become better persons ourselves and how to make life easier and more enjoyable for us and those around us. By learning how we can have assurances in our life because we can trust Jesus and we can count on his Father, who shall always be there for those who look for Him. On Jehovah God we may count that at any moment He shall be there with us to give us strength in our weakness, to give us faith when we doubt, and to give us peace when we are in turmoil. In times of hardship we shall be able to find comfort by taking up His Word, by reading in the Bible.
The more we read in the Holy Scriptures the more we shall learn about God and what He wants for us. By studying His Word it will teach us also who we are in relation to Him.As we read and study the Bible, we shall discover that God is making us a new creation as he shall help us reach our full human potential. Jehovah, the Creator of everything, has provided the human race with The Bible as our Instruction Book. We shall be confronted with questions. We also shall have to make choices in what to believe or in which way to go further. But when we really want to be open minded and want to put away all the dogma’s which we have learned by the human teachings and biased popular human writings, we shall find that the Bible can be an eye opener which has all the answers for our life. By reading it regularly it shall become easier to discern God’s direction in our life. Full understanding only comes from time spent in His word. Though we shall not have to expect miracles overnight. It shall not bring an incredible change in a one two three click of the fingers. But day by day it shall bring some small changes into our personality and over the months or years you shall be able to grow to a new person, reaching at one point the turning point of becoming as ‘reborn’.
We do hope you want to be patient and want to read the Holy Scriptures, more than once, so that it can become a special experience which gets you away from this harsh world more than once in a lifetime.
No matter what happens know that everything exposed to the light is revealed clearly for what it is (Ephesians 5:13) and that God is willing to answer your prayers as long as they are consistent with His Will. He will give to each of us what our deeds deserve. (Revelation 2:23)
““Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. ” (Matthew 7:7 The Scriptures 1998+)
Therefore make time to read the Bible. Dig in the Holy Scriptures to find who is who and to find new pastures plus to get to know what Gods Plan is with this world. Are not afraid to pray to God before you start your reading sessions. In case you can read with somebody else you shall be able to discuss the read fragments with each other and can help each other to get a better understanding of the exposed material. When you read the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures take time to observe those things Gods Words presents to you. Try to hear what God wants to tell to you and incorporate those teachings in your life.
Whatever you read or see let it always be in the light of Gods Word. Let every word or action be checked with what the Bible enlightens you and take the according action to make the right changes.
And always remember that if you want to be a Christian it is even more important to read the Holy Scriptures than if you would not believe in a god or in the God we should honour.
Do not wait until it is tomorrow or to late to study the Bible. It is a too much important book not to spend important time to it.
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Previous article: The Importance Of Scripture
Please do find out how reading in the Bible can also give insight of how and what is going to happen to the world:
- Written to recognise the Promissed One
- On the Nature of Christ
- Another way looking at a language #5 Aramic, Hebrew and Greek
- Another way looking at a language #6 Set apart
- Another way looking at a language #7 Lingua Franca
- The Bible and names in it
- Reasons to come to gether
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Read also:
- Why believing the Bible
- How was the Bible put together and by whom?
- A Book written by God
- How many people wrote the Bible?
- The Bible: God’s Word or pious myth?
- In which languages was the Bible originally written?
- Can we rely on scripture?
- How can we be sure that the Bible is true?
- When did the word “holy” get added to “holy bible”?
- What scriptures address the timelessness of the Bible?
- Bric-a-brac of the Bible
- How many chapters and verses are in the Bible?
- A book sufficiently profound as to cause its readers to “think”
- Bringing Good News into the world
- What does the name of each book of the Bible mean?
- What is the Pentateuch?
- Old and New Testament not discordant
- How did the NT canon become established? Did the church decide what books it should include?
- In what year was each book of the Bible written?
- Where is the middle of the Bible?
- What book of the Bible has only two chapters?
- Are Paul’s writings guidelines for the times or commands for us today?
- What do 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:20-21 mean?
- Should the Gospel of Thomas be included in the Bible?
- Why can’t Bible scholars agree on how to interpret the Bible?
- Why are some authors of Bible books unknown?
- Determined To Stick With Truth.
- Cell phone vs. Bible
- Bible for you and for life
- Power in the life of certain
- Possibility to live
- The Metaphorical language of the Bible
- Forbidden fruit
- Youth has difficulty Bible Reading
- Gathering to chat about subjects wich could be related to the Bible
- What English Bible do you use?
- Choosing some Bible translations: Bijbelvertalingen Selecteren
- Appointed to be read
- I love Your commandments more than gold, yes, than fine gold! . –Psalm 119:127
- People don’t hunt out “loopholes” when they are seeking to love God and neighbours
- The Bible is a today book
- Bible a guide – Bijbel als gids
- Working on the Bible being like re-wiring an old house
- Bible like puddle of water
- Chief means by which men are built up
- Of the many books Only the Bible can transform
- Live much in the Bible
- A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t
- How can we feel the Holy Spirit in our lives?
- What happens to people who twist Scripture for their own evil designs?
- What is the devil’s Bible?
- Does the Book of Mormon contradict the Bible?
- Does the Quran contradict the Bible?
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“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16 NIV)
Related articles
- The Importance Of Scripture (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Not making a runner (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- The Soul confronted with Death (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Servant of his Father (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Anointing of Christ as Prophetic Rehearsal of the Burial rites (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- A Great Gift commemorated (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- Elohim (earthpages.wordpress.com)
Elohim is a modern and ancient Hebrew word that denotes god or gods, making it grammatically singular or plural. - God, Elohim (hoagiestyle.wordpress.com)
Have faith and believe that God will carry out his perfect plan in your life. He cares about us and loves us. He will see to it that his plan is accomplished – we can either choose the hard way (trust man) or the easy way (trust HIM). Trust ELOHIM today… - I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me (bummyla.wordpress.com)
Paul used what part of the Bible? He used the Hebrew Scriptures. Paul used the Old Testament to show that Jesus was the Messiah - Submitting It All (beingrebekah.com)
we are all called for a purpose and yes it is to reach those who don’t know Jesus but we can also have “worldly professions” that God can use - N. T. Wright’s “Big Book on Paul” (gaudetetheology.wordpress.com)
For Paul, the church in its unity and holiness is itself a symbol, a visible symbol that proclaims to the world that there is a God and Jesus is Lord (“and by the way, Caesar isn’t”). Thus, Wright perceives the church at the heart of Paul’s theology, rather than at the periphery as it is often treated; and sees the practice of theology itself as the praxis that sustains the community. - Jesus Christ on the Infallibility of Scripture (rodiagnusdei.wordpress.com)
Jesus never belittled Scripture (as some modern critics do), or set it aside (as the Jewish leaders of His day had done with their Oral Traditions), or criticized it (although He criticized those who misused it), or contradicted it (although He rejected many interpretations of it), or opposed it (although He sometimes was free or interpretive with it), nor spoke in any way as “higher” critics do of the Old Testament (Tanakh).
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Jesus obeyed the Word of God, not man. He was subject to it. If some leaders” view of inspiration were true, Jesus was subject to an errant, rather casually thrown-together “Word of Man.” Jesus would have been subject, then, to the will of man, not the will of God.
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The holy Scriptures . . . make you wise to accept God’s salvation (Hebrew Yeshua) by trusting in Christ Jesus (Hebrew Yeshua HaMashiach).The whole Bible was given to us by inspiration from God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives; it straightens us out and helps us do what is right. It is God’s way of making us well prepared at every point, fully equipped to do good to everyone. – II Timothy, Chapter 3, Verses 15–17, Living Bible
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Why Read the Bible? – Day 7 of 32 – Guide to our Path (christlikeministriesnwa.wordpress.com)
we need a Word of God revival in our homes and in our churches. That’s the ONLY way this nation is going to turn around. It’s not going to be done from the top down.
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Y’all ever tried to find your way around in a dark room? It can be quite fearful, and maybe a bit comical can’t it? - Why Read the Bible? – Day 11 of 32 – Eternal Life (christlikeministriesnwa.wordpress.com)
the Bible is about Jesus…and the more we read it and apply it…the more we become conformed to His Image as our ministry verse Romans 8:29 tells us we can be.
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Any pastor who stands in a pulpit and says that the Word of God isn’t relevant to today’s world…according to 1 John 4:1-6they are of the spirit of the Antichrist, and we ought to run out of that place as fast as we possibly can. - Seduction: A Primer for Persecution? (pilgrimpassing.com)
One of the principal false teachings at the time was the belief that godhood could be attained by created beings. Though that is foundational to Mormonism (“As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become”) and Hinduism (self-realization is realizing that man is God), it had worked its way in various forms and methods into different “Christian” movements, teachings, and practices. Much of it was promoted by extreme Charismatics, but it was also finding its way into conservative evangelical churches through so-called Christian psychology (with its emphasis on self and self-esteem, leading to the exaltation and deification of self). Of course, the lie that man could become a god was the cornerstone of Satan’s seduction of the human race (Genesis:3:1-5). - Slave for people and God (christadelphians.wordpress.com)
- The Real Thing (lightandsalvation.wordpress.com)
In order to not be fooled or deceived, I encourage you to: 1) Read your Bible daily, 2) Don’t just have head knowledge of the Bible but truly hide it in your heart, make it your foundation, and 3) Obey God’s Word. We live in a fallen world that is full of temptation, sin, and false teachings. The times that we are tempted are not when we are surrounded by our good Christian friends. We are tempted when we are alone, vulnerable and at our weakest. When we hide God’s Word in our heart and obey it on a daily basis, we will be able to overcome those temptations and know exactly what really is “The Real Thing.”
The Importance Of Scripture
Lots of people do laugh at those who enjoy reading the old Books of Books, the Bible. Of all those books the last series bring the world Glad Tidings. In the New testament we also do find the apostle Luke his writings on the first followers of Christ. He gives us an idea what went on in the first communities of the then called sect The Way.
Of the New Testament readings the Acts of the Apostles brings before us how the gospel spread from Jerusalem to Rome from Jew to Gentile. Luke begins and ends with his thoughts on The Kingdom of Godand gives us with the later convert Paul an idea of what beautifuls is laid in front of us.
Ministry of the Apostles, a complex multi-figure icon with a full-height image of Jesus Christ, surrounded by sectors with scenes of His disciples’ calling, ministry and martyrdom. Icon from the Yaroslavl Museum Preserve. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The man they followed, was a prophet of God who came to this world to make every thing more clear. Jesus from Nazareth wanted us to get to know the Creator in the best way we could. For this great teacher from such a small place, not only he had to go out into the world to proclaim the marvellous news of what was going to be accomplished by the Will of God. For Jeshua it was clear, those who wanted to follow him, had to recognise the Will of the Father and should have as their main aim of the preaching of the gospel.
Today that is still not changed. Those who call themselves Christian, which should mean that they are real followers of Christ Jesus, should spread the word of the Gospel. They should tell others of the good news concerning the things of The Kingdom.
“In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.” (Acts 6:1-2 NIV)
As for the twelve who summoned the whole body of the disciples together, we as an ecclesia should also call each other and say, “It is not right that we should have to neglect preaching the Word of God in order to look after the accounts.” We also should take care that we can grow in the word of God and that we can be of good reputation, being both practical and spiritually-minded. As individuals but also as one community of fellow brothers and sisters we should devote ourselves whole-heartedly to prayer and the ministry of the Word.
It may be alarming when we see how the world develops, but on the other hand it may be lovely that we can notice that we are nearing a special time, which has been long foretold. We also come to a time were many have lost the faith in the Word of God, and many do not want to know anything about a god, or a better way to live. Though many may put the Word of God aside we can find others who are eagerly looking for the Truth and are wiling to take time to get to know it. Those who are looking for the purpose of this life and for whom is behind it are the ones who want to take up the Bible to study it. So the Word of God can gain more and more ground. In the world we can see that the number of disciples greatly increases. As in the old times we sometimes do have to start from scratch, not finding any believer round ourselves; but by letting the fire in us shine we can be the light for others. By our enthusiasm we can spread the good feeling of this Good News.
Though most of the world might not be interested in God and His Word, the Word of the Lord continues to gain ground and increase its influence. (Acts 12:24) “Thus mightily did the Lord’s Message spread and triumph!” (Acts 19:20 Wey)
We have the responsibility to let the word of God increase. Constantly we are told that the main vehicle used to bring the gospel to others was the Word. For example we read in Acts 4 : 31 that the apostles “Spoke the Word of God with boldness.” Of those who took hold of the message it says, chapter 8 : 14 “They received the word of God.”
Having chosen to be followers of Christ we also should be “in Christ” and try to become “like Christ”. As Christians we should give ourselves to Christ Jesus and should as such belong to Him who is the word made flesh. The ramification of this is very sobering, to become part of Jesus means that our lives must be like his, enveloped in the Word. Jesus was the man who brought Gods Word close to all people, believers and non-believers, Jews and gentiles.
Jesus made it very clear we had to live according to the Spirit of the Law and therefore we should live the Word of God. Every act we do should be under the guidance of the God most High. Every word we utter should be in respect to every creation of the Almighty. The many Books God has provided to the public are not just letters on a piece of paper to the enjoyment of reading. the Words from the paper have to go into the blood of the reader. They should enter the brain and become a living part of it.
When we go out into the world we should breath the Word of God. In everything we do people should notice something special, which make the difference between a good heathen or gentile and a Christian. The gospel is preached at its best when it is being lived.
When others can look on us and say that they have been with a follower of Jesus and could witness this Jesus from long ago in the world of today. We should be able to give the others a feeling that they might have learned something of him. To do this we must allow our minds to be developed by God’s Word. The carnal mind, or the mind of the flesh is something that by nature we possess. The mind of the spirit can only be obtained by grafting into it scripture. The importance of the Word of God in our lives cannot be underestimated.
“Thus saith Jehovah, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what manner of house will ye build unto me? and what place shall be my rest? For all these things hath my hand made, and [so] all these things came to be, saith Jehovah: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word.” (Isaiah 66:1-2 ASV)
Jehovah should be able to see the house that we have build unto Him. Not only should we hear the word of Adonai Jehovah, the most High, and tremble at His word, we should make sure that His Word shall be known all over the world so that the Elohim Hashem Adonai may be glorified, so we can see God His joy, but also their shame.
“Hear the Word of יהוה (Jehovah), you who tremble at His Word, “Your brothers who hate you, who cast you out for My Name’s sake, said, ‘Let יהוה be esteemed, so that we see your joy.’ But they are put to shame.” (Isaiah 66:5 The Scriptures 1998+)
We may have the assurance that God shall look at every man who is willing to learn about the Most High God, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at Gods word.” (Isaiah 66 : 2).
The Apostle Paul says in his warning to the Ephesian elders to be watchful (Acts 20 : 32) “And now, brothers, I commit you to Elohim and to the word of His favour, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those having been set apart. (Acts 20:32 The Scriptures 1998+)
The Holy Scriptures tell us that we may be sure that we can learn from it and that those words can not only edify us but also build us up, and give us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. For we as Christians should be fellow workers of Elohim, we should be the field of Elohim, the building of Elohim. (1 Corinthians 3:9)
“He who went down is also the One who went up far above all the heavens, to fill all. And He Himself gave some as emissaries, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as shepherds and teachers for the perfecting of the set-apart ones, to the work of service to a building up of the body of the Messiah, until we all come to the unity of the belief and of the knowledge of the Son of Elohim, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the completeness of Messiah, so that we should no longer be children, tossed and borne about by every wind of teaching, by the trickery of men, in cleverness, unto the craftiness of leading astray,{1 Footnote: 15:6, also 2 Cor. 10:5, 2 Cor. 11:3-14, Gal. 1:6-9, 2 Tim. 3:1-8, 2 Tim. 4:2-4, 2 Peter 2:2-22, Jud. vv. 10-19}. but, maintaining the truth in love, we grow up in all respects into Him who is the head, Messiah, from whom the entire body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the working by which each part does its share, causes growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. So this I say, and witness in the Master, that you should no longer walk as the gentiles walk,1 in the futility of their mind, {Footnote: 11 Cor. 12:2, and Jer. 10:2}. having been darkened in their understanding, having been estranged from the life of Elohim, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart, who, having become callous, have given themselves up to indecency, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Messiah, if indeed you have heard Him and were taught by Him, as truth is in יהושע (Jeshua): that you put off – with regard to your former way of life – the old man, being corrupted according to the desires of the deceit, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the renewed man1 which was created according to Elohim, in righteousness and set-apartness of the truth. {Footnote: 1Rom. 8:1}. (Ephesians 4:10-24 The Scriptures 1998+)
There is “truth in Jesus” who brought the Word of God to us. Following the day of Christ’s vengeance the sorrows of Israel will be turned into abundant joys. All the Gentiles spared shall rejoice in her salvation. All nations will look upon the glory of God as it shines in the face of Christ, the King, and worship will be carefully and constantly attended upon by all the peoples of the earth.
Today we can take notice of what is happening in the Middle East and with great interest we look at the providences of God towards the Jews, knowing that their return to their land is a preparation for the fulfilment of much prophecy, a sign of the approach of the close of the age and Christ’s coming. “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Times coming closer to the Endtimes shall not make it easier for us, but we may be sure se shall find the blessings at the end.
“And indeed, all those wishing to live reverently in Messiah יהושע, shall be persecuted.{1 Footnote: 1Mt. 5:10}. But evil men and impostors shall go on to the worse,{1} leading astray and being led astray. {Footnote: 1Mt. 24:12, Rev. 22:11}. But you, stay in what you have learned and trusted, having known from whom you have learned, and that from a babe you have known the Set-apart Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for deliverance through belief in Messiah יהושע. All Scripture is breathed by Elohim and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for setting straight, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of Elohim might be fitted, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:12-17 The Scriptures 1998+)
From the moment we can get the possibility to learn the Word of God we start as babies and should be eager to learn more as a child, noticing that the Holy Scriptures, are able to make us wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. The 16th verse of 2 Timothy may be translated either Every Scripture is inspired of God and is profitable for teaching or Every Scripture inspired of God is profitable for teaching, but in either case the inspiration of Scripture is assumed, the writer being content to indicate its various uses. The most important wisdom comes from the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation. In and of itself, the Bible does not save us – but it is only through the Bible that we can receive God’s truth about Jesus, and put faith in him.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
It is the Word of God that has then the ability to build us up, to make us wise unto salvation and save our souls. Let us take an example from the nation of Israel to illustrate these principles.
In Numbers chapter 13 the record tells us that the children of Israel came to the borders of their inheritance, Moses instructed them to select a man from each tribe to spy out the land. Ten of them brought an evil report whilst Joshua and Caleb brought a good report. In the report that the ten brought we read these words (Numbers 13 : 31) “But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” In contrast to these words Caleb had said (Numbers 13 : 30) “And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.” We know that the congregation of Israel accepted the evil report rather than that of Joshua and Caleb. In Hebrews chapter 4 the reason for this failure is given. (Hebrews 4 : 2) “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith.” They failed to believe in the word of God, to allow it to envelope their lives and it resulted in them failing to enter the land of promise. They were not aware that “the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword … and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” and that all things “are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4 : 12, 13). They wanted to return to Egypt for that is where their heart was. They could remember all the fleshly things they had there (see Numbers 11 : 4 – 6) yet failed to remember the deliverance out of the house of bondage, the provision of food and water, the assurance of God’s presence in the pillar of cloud and fire. The confidence of Joshua and Caleb is seen in the words Caleb spoke to the people. “We are well able” and in chapter 14 : 8 “If the LORD delight in us, he will bring us into this land.” This belief came from a firm conviction in what God had promised he was able also to perform. There was nothing magical about their faith. Faith is developed by a reading and meditating on the Word of Life.
There are significant events in the ministry of Jesus that Matthew, Mark, and Luke include that John leaves out, including Jesus’ birth, baptism, temptation in the wilderness, the Last Supper, the agony in Gethsemane, the Ascension, demonic confrontations, and parables. But John seems to five an extra dimension on the Word which has become flesh in we do have to behold his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1 : 14). Here is the one who said “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me), to do thy will, O God.” (Hebrews 10 : 7).
The Messiah, Christ, the Redeemer from sin, is represented as offering himself to do God’s will (tou poiēsai to thelēma sou, the genitive articular infinitive of purpose). and when we would like to be Christ we should also bring our offering as good as we can. We also should completely surrendered to God His will.
We cannot have the deep spiritual insight that Jesus had in the Word, nevertheless, we, if we are to be part of him, must try and apply these words to our own lives. Jesus gave us the well-known parable of the sower which is recorded for us in Matthew chapter 13; Luke chapter 8. The details are well known to us, it is not only about the reception that people give to God’s Word but also of the reception they give to Him who is the Word. When Jesus is truly in our hearts then the gospel shines from us. “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10 : 15).
Speaking of the disciples Jesus says in his prayer to his Father “They are not of the world … Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” (John 17 : 16, 17).
The New Testament complements the Old testament, in which the future was foretold which came to existence in the presence of Christ Jesus. From Genesis onward there was the promise of the one to come to make an end to death. In the other books many times Jesus is in the centre of the Old Writings and are about him and our salvation in him, if we are not opening our eyes to see this, the Bible will continue to remain a closed book.
Let us take courage and spend a little more time in reading and applying the word in our lives. This way we can like Joshua and Caleb be sure that the Lord will delight in us and will give us the inheritance he has promised to those that love him for we have received the word with joy.
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“In the gospel there is an invitation to all who believe what God has promised, to share with Christ in his kingdom, glory, and joy, which invitation is given on certain conditions well defined (1 Thess. 2:12; ; Matt. 25:21faith in the things covenanted to Abraham and David, and in those taught concerning Jesus, in the Old and New Testaments; immersion into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and thenceforth a life of without which no one will be approved and promoted to the honour and glory of the kingdom ().”John Thomas. (1990; 2002). Comments from Brother Thomas (Pagina 2). Logos Publications.
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To be continued: The importance of Reading the Scriptures
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Read also:
- Cell phone vs. Bible
- A Book written by God
- The Bible: God’s Word or pious myth?
- Why are some authors of Bible books unknown?
- If the earliest manuscript we have for a book of the Bible is relatively late, does that mean the book is a forgery/unreliable?
- sources_english_bible.gif (GIF Image, 327×509 pixels)
- A book sufficiently profound as to cause its readers to “think”
- What book of the Bible contains the most number of God’s promises?
- Unsure about relevance Bible
- How do we know that the prophecies in the Bible are true?
- Why believing the Bible
- Why Believe the Bible? Internal Evidence
- Why Believe the Bible? External Evidence > Megiddo – The Bible
- Old and New Testament not discordant
- Are the New Testament manuscripts reliable?
- The Metaphorical language of the Bible
- What does the name of each book of the Bible mean?
- Which man is mentioned most often in the Bible? Jesus, Moses, Abraham or David?
- How many people in the bible had their names changed by God?
- Which numbers in the bible are literal and which aren’t?
- Which Bible version should I use?
- Scripture alone Sola Scriptora
- Why hasn’t anything been inspired recently? Revelation was the last inspired book and it was a long time ago. Why aren’t there any more?
- Sola Scriptura and its Pitfalls
- Why can’t Bible scholars agree on how to interpret the Bible?
- Where does the Bible first mention schools and study?
- How can I restore my faith?
- Is it alright to become a member of a non-denominational Christian fellowship, who follow the Bible teachings?
- Live much in the Bible
- Bible for you and for life
- Does the Bible talk about collective salvation?
- How do you reconcile the Bible and evolution?
- Why are numerous major Biblical events so similar to contemporary and historical mythology?
- How has the Bible helped and changed the world today?
- Bric-a-brac of the Bible
- Of the many books Only the Bible can transform
- People don’t hunt out “loopholes” when they are seeking to love God and neighbourhs
- Gospel human words backed by divine energy
- Chief means by which men are built up
- A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t
- Working on the Bible being like re-wiring an old house
- How does today’s seeker differ from the seeker of 1975?
- Determined To Stick With Truth.
- Bible like puddle of water
- Bible a guide – Bijbel als gids
- The Bible is a today book
- How do we determine in the bible what refers to AD 70 and what is yet to be fulfilled in prophecy?
- Appointed to be read
- What English Bible do you use?
- Power in the life of certain
- Unfair Contest about The Bible and Personal Growth
- When life caves in, honor the Lord
- Significant number of American teenagers lack knowledge of Bible
- How can we feel the Holy Spirit in our lives?
- Which church is to be followed?
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Related articles
- Acts 13: The Great Commission – Comparing Our Role and the Holy Spirit’s (cutpaste.typepad.com)
Acts 13 (especially vs. 13-52) beautifully describes the extension of the Kingdom of God from Judaism to “the nations” – an ‘inclusive’ movement of revolutionary, world changing proportions. This explosion of the Gospel from Jews to “the nations” is announced at Acts 1:8, which is considered the purpose statement of the entire Book of Acts: “When the Holy Spirit has come upon you …you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”This statement of Christ echoes His command at Matthew 28:19 – “Go… make disciples of all nations.” Of course, “all nations” was the explosive part of the Great Commission, as no one had really heard or considered the idea of proclaiming the Messiah of the Jews as Lord to the Gentiles. - Acts 14: Paul, Hermes & Hermeneutics (cutpaste.typepad.com)
In preaching the Gospel, Paul importantly taught Christ from the Old Testament (e.g., 13:16-25), sharing knowledgeably and skillfully how the Scriptures pointed to Christ and to that Christ accomplished. In doing this, Paul calls to mind the words of Jesus Himself: “You search the Scriptures [Old Testament] because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me…” (John 5:40). - What Is Your Understanding of Biblical Discipleship?(kevinnunez.org)Biblically, discipleship is not a program but a process of becoming Christlike and being zealous to see others become disciples also.
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Christian discipleship is a lifelong journey of obedience to Christ that spiritually transforms a person’s values and behavior and results in ministry in one’s home, church, and the world. - Reading the Signs of the End Times – Acts (naturalspirituality.wordpress.com)
To Luke (no doubt a Gentile) and still a proportionally very small group of believers (relative to all Jews and pagans) in the late 1st century, Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah. They had expected “apocalypse now” and with its failure to materialize, they had some serious problems.
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The Holy Spirit could be used as the claimed agent for introducing what otherwise seemed too much of a disjuncture – the covenant of Jehovah with Israel was envisioned as a New Covenant, for Gentiles as well as Jews, that God had promised and, just that morning was instituting. He had inaugurated it initially by raising Jesus from the dead (2:30-32). Peter goes on with our central point by saying, “… having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear” (2:33). - Christ as Hermeneutic: Moses Wrote of Me (frted.wordpress.com)
Unlike what some modern Christians like to claim, that literalism is the principle by which we read the Old Testament, the New Testament itself gives us the clue for reading the Old Testament. - Falling Walls: A Pentecost Sermon (maryharristodd.wordpress.com)
the Spirit didn’t make the outsiders able to speak and understand the language of the church, and then bring them to the church. The Spirit empowered the insiders to speak the native languages of the outsiders, and took the church out to them.
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Sometimes I wonder how well the presence of this congregation of Jesus’ disciples can be seen and heard. I wonder. This church house is quiet most of the week. If we park around the back, people passing might not notice it when we are here. The new construction on this end of the building is completely hidden. Folks can’t see this new development. - And Then The End Will Come (freedomarc.wordpress.com)
Around the world, prophetic people are struggling to fit what God is showing them into an eschatology that simply doesn’t work, because it is based on a false premise, and a misinterpretation of this passage of scripture, amongst others. As I say, that is because people have not approached it with a proper understanding of covenant and covenant language. - Jesus, the Centre of all History (freedomarc.wordpress.com)
And when we look at eschatology, the study of the last things, it is all about Jesus. It’s not about us, it’s not about the church, it’s not about the world – it’s about Jesus. He comes to sum everything up. It’s all about Him. He holds everything together. All the Old Covenant looks forward to Jesus. All the New Covenant looks back to Him. So every time we look at a scripture, we must interpret it through Jesus’ message and His Person. You can’t take it in isolation.
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We read in Ephesians 3:10 ‘…that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church…’. I love that word ‘manifold’, because it means multi-coloured and multi-faceted , all expressing who God is: all expressing the wonderful wisdom of God. Being made known through… us, through the church. Being made known to whom? ‘… to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which God carried out in Christ Jesus.’ - The Old Testament and Christ (pastorreeder.wordpress.com)
In St. Luke’s Gospel, the 24th Chapter, Jesus once again links His Word and His work to the Old Testament. Significantly, Jesus once again confesses and testifies that the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in Him.
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The Old Testament together mightily witnesses of the Coming One. The individual references in the Old Testament do not give the entire picture of the Messiah as do the Gospels, but they do point to Him and in Christ they find their fulfillment.
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If we fail to see and believe that the Old and New Testament Scriptures center on Jesus and are about Him and our salvation in Him, the Bible will continue to remain a closed book. - Compromising the Gospel (spiritofdiscernment.wordpress.com)
Many Christians may get offended when I highlight the disparities between the church I see today and the church that was evident in scriptures.
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There are various brands of Christianity, or “Churchianity” to put it more correctly, today with each declaring that they have the true gospel. The naïve and the simple-minded will however declare that all churches are the same despite not understanding that there is a gulf of difference between the various versions of what they claim is the truth. Perhaps the god of this world has blinded their eyes to the truth such that they are not able to glean the fact that there is only one truth and that two or more contrary positions cannot all be truth at the same time. It is not only the preachers therefore who are compromising the gospel but the hearers also when they neglect to “test every spirit” and study the scriptures as the Bereans did when they heard Paul’s message. - Jesus, How Should I Preach? (biblicalpreaching.net)
The first phase of the process is to be loving God by sitting at Christ’s feet.
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Then as you start planning your message, plan it prayerfully with a deep concern for them to understand, to stay engaged, to be able to follow, to feel the import and impact of the message of the text. And as you preach it, preach with the winsomeness and grace of God permeating your demeanour, because God is passionately excited about incarnating His grace and truth! - The Concept and Importance of Canonicity (raymondjclements.wordpress.com)
The world in its own wisdom would never understand or seek God (Rom. 3:11) but always suppress or distort the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18, 21). So Paul concluded that “the world in its wisdom did not know God” (I Cor. 1:21), and he set in sharp contrast “the words which man’s wisdom teaches” and those which “God revealed unto us through the Spirit” (I Cor. 2:10, 13).
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God’s people must not submit to uninspired words of men. “Thus says Jehovah of hosts, Hearken not unto the word of the prophets… speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Jehovah” (Jer. 23:16). Nor should God’s people allow their faith to be compromised by any philosophy which is “after the tradition of men… and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8). Christ Himself condemned those who “have made void the word of God because of [their] tradition” (Matt. 15:6). Human philosophy and human traditions have no place in defining the Christian faith.
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The church cannot subsequently attribute authority to certain writings. It can simply receive them as God’s revealed word which, as such, always has been the church’s canon. Authority is inherent in those writings from the outset, and the church simply confesses this to be the case.
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Historical evidence indicates that, even with the difficulties mentioned above, the Old and New Testament canons were substantially recognized and already established in the Christian church by the end of the second century. However, there is adequate Biblical and theological reason to believe that the canon of Scripture was essentially settled even in the earliest days of the church. - Acts 16: The Conversion of Lydia (cutpaste.typepad.com)
The Lord (not Paul or Timothy, and not even Lydia) opened Lydia’s heart (willingness, attitude, perception of truth, faith, repentance) to respond to the Gospel; as always, God did the electing, and He dispensed the gifts of faith and repentance; Paul’s job, being Christ’s ambassador, was to deliver the Gospel and teach the truth of God’s word;
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The Good News was being extended to Gentiles and the nations! As Jesus Himself ministered to people – whether men, women, Samaritans, or whomever – so Paul and his companions ministered inclusively, in obedience to the “all nations” mandate of Christ, and to the calling of Paul as “Apostle to the Gentiles”; andLydia immediately manifested the gift of hospitality. God granted this woman faith in Christ and the Gospel, and he granted repentance; then the Spirit immediately called and empowered her to extend hospitality to Paul and Timothy, who were truly in need of it. We see also the beginnings of a life of faith, wherein Lydia was already learning to obey the commands of the Lord, as she enters a life of unity and fellowship among the believers. - We Received of His Fullness (divinityhc.wordpress.com)
Jesus Christ received of the spirit of His Father to over flow without measure and to whomsoever He wills He will give of that spirit. It is a mystery to us human that the same spirit of God was given to Christ in its fullness without limitation and yet God is not diminished in His essence and power.
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Christ was full of the spirit of God and He was led by the same into the wilderness to face the enemy. He survived the ordeal through the spirit of God and we can too if we trust and depend on God’s spirit to show us the plans of our Father. So, we have all received of the fullness of Christ by the making of His Father through His spirit. - The Sermon Today (goldenbible.wordpress.com)
Paul went to so many places, but wherever he was, there was a thoroughness to his work, he left nothing undone in the region where he was ministering and he could say “there’s no longer any work for me here.” One of the characteristics needed for blessing in ministry, or even in our jobs, is to be thorough and to finish the work God calls us to do. - The Danger Of Traditions (raymondjclements.wordpress.com)
Traditions are very important in some religions … In Roman Catholicism, tradition is placed on par with God’s Word + Protestant churches have their own traditions … To be a member of a particular denomination, one must accept its traditions
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Traditions of men tend toward ritualism (just look at the rituals found in many religions that have no scriptural basis)
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When traditions of men are taught on the same level as the commands of God, it leads to vain worship – Mark 7:7 - Encouragement-4 (dailyousmisc.wordpress.com)
As Christians, we are called by God to encourage others. Time and again in the Scriptures we read that we are to “love the brotherhood” and with a fervent and pure spirit (1 Peter 1:22, 2:17). We are to build one another up in faith (Jude 20). We are to remind one another of the goodness and love of God (1 John 1:1-4).The expression of encouragement is always to be active. We are not merely to be an encouragement to others through our example of a virtuous life. We are to share encouragement by voicing words of encouragement and engaging in specific deeds. Encouragement is not merely something we are. It is something we do.
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We are not called to be doomsday phrophets, pessimists, down-in-the-mouth naysayers, or condemning critics. We are called to encourage! - Acts: How the Great Commission is Done (cutpaste.typepad.com)
Luke tells us what happened after the Apostles received the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Therefore, if we want to know how the recipients of the Great Commission and direct disciples of Jesus Christ went about the Great Commission, we need to read about that in the Book of Acts.
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We might think of the four gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) as the direct witness of the life, death and resurrection of Christ, the Book of Acts as the skeletal depiction of the carrying out of the Great Commission, and the epistles of the NT as the meat on the bones of that skeleton. - Acts (tylersheart.wordpress.com)
Acts is, in part, an apology (or defense) on behalf of the early Christian movement vis–vis Rome. Consequently, the writer of Acts wanted to show that nothing could keep the good news about Jesus from spreading everywhere. He also demonstrates that the good news did not pose a threat to the Empire. Still, Acts is a story of origins, told in retrospect, that shows how the earliest followers came to understand who could belong to God’s people (see e.g., Acts 10 and 15). - The Gospel Part One! (randyhenri.wordpress.com)
The Bible is a progressive revelation. If you skip the first half of any good book and try to finish it, you will have a hard time understanding the characters, the plot, and the ending. The New Testament is only completely understood when it is seen as being built upon the foundation of the events, characters, laws, sacrificial system, prophecies, covenants, and promises of the Old Testament. In this manner all of Old Testament history was a learning or training period to prepare the world for the arrival of Jesus Christ and His role in the plane of redemption.
The dark side of our earthly existence
DaanSpeak writes about the dark side of our earthly existence all the time.
The previous years we heard many times that this world was going to go under. The end was near said more than one prophet.
The British futuristic action thriller Doomsday, written and directed by Neil Marshall, saw the light in 2008. In it the Reaper virus infects Scotland, so the country is walled off by the British government. After a quarantine they think everything is gone back to normal, with the remaining Scottish populationand the virus apparently dying off. Decades later, though, the virus reappears in London. A team of people work to prevent a disaster threatening the future of the human race.
At the turn of the century many doom preachers came again to the forefront and tried to make people frightened for the coming near future. According to some ministers in some protestant denominations people had to be aware of the last days of the world which entered our world. They warned us that the many abominations which came over them were a punishment of God. If people were not to convert and change their way of living they would encounter even more troubles and would be doomed for ever.
By “malheur”, men heard the name of God brought in front of them referring to all the disasters which came over the world: earthquakes, tsunamis, heavy storms with disastrous floods but also droughts. Confronted with all the bad news lots of people thought it was Gods penalty for the way people were living today. They did not see any reason to look for the cause by men himself. God got the honour to be the cause of it all. He was the easy scapegoat.
Harold Egbert Camping a lifelong members of the Christian Reformed Church, served there as an Elder and Bible teacher for many years, until the year 1988. This Open Forum program on Family Radio continued to the present time and is broadcast on the more than 140 stations owned by Family Radio in the U.S. The man authored about 30 books and booklets.

Harold Camping speaks during a taping of his show "Open Forum" in Oakland, Calif., May 23, 2011 - two days after the 89-year-old had said the Earth would end. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Camping, 90, has made predictions about Judgment Day, Christ’s return and the end of the world for the past few decades – with the May 21, 2011, forecast receiving the most media attention. Each time the date passed, he did not admit to mistaking the timing but instead reasoned that the events happened “spiritually” rather than physically.
On Family Radio they teach that all mankind are sinners and, therefore, are subject to God’s righteous wrath. For them man by nature is spiritually dead and therefore he will not and cannot come to God on God’s terms. Today, according to them, we are heading for the end of this world’s existence, we should not be a part of a local church though God is still adding to His eternal Church consists of people all over the world whom God has planned to save as they come under the hearing of the true Gospel.
The radio predicted the end of the world last year time and says now that there has come a time of confusion and turmoil, and agree that events within the last year have proven that no man can be fully trusted. “Even the most sincere and zealous of us can be mistaken.”
They humbly acknowledge they were wrong about the timing; yet though they were wrong God is still using the May 21 warning in a very mighty way. In the months following May 21 the Bible has, in some ways, come out from under the shadows and is now being discussed by all kinds of people who never before paid any attention to the Bible.
Today they say: “We were even so bold as to insist that the Bible guaranteed that Christ would return on May 21 and that the true believers would be raptured. Yet this incorrect and sinful statement allowed God to get the attention of a great many people who otherwise would not have paid attention. Even as God used sinful Balaam to accomplish His purposes, so He used our sin to accomplish His purpose of making the whole world acquainted with the Bible. However, even so, that does not excuse us. We tremble before God as we humbly ask Him for forgiveness for making that sinful statement. We are so thankful that God is so loving that He will forgive even this sin.”
The same year many looked to 2012, the year the Mayan Indians predicted many centuries ago that the world was going to come to an end, according some.
All kinds of holy scriptures through the ages have heard the gong for the last round. The year 2012 is mentioned with striking frequency, like by the Pueblo-Indians, the Zulus and the Maya. the Maya made their predictions about the moment when the gong would sound on the basis of calculations that still hold nowadays. At the centre of these are their calendars by which they calculated in periods of 26.000 years and larger. These periods evolved from their own calculation of time which seems to be superior in accuracy, also to our own calendar.

AHAU (logogram); named day 20 of the Tzolkin cycle of the Mayan Calendar
When we look at the calendar system the Maya used we may find it very accurate in their calculations and as a consequence we may imagine that they could make very accurate predictions. They marked the end of the large calendar as December 21, 2012. This date and of the cycle of thirteen so-called baktuns after which the earth starts the ‘period of the fifth sun’ has been taken by many to be the end of the world. Though that is not exactly what the Mayans said. An end of one calendar period does not have to mean the end of the world. According to their calculations, which still are astronomically correct, our solar system will be in one line with Hunab K’u, the center of the Milky Way, the place the Maya call the mother womb. Technically you can then get a sort of zero situation in the revolutions of the electromagnetic fields of our solar system. According to the traditions of the Hopi Indians, this will take three days; three days of emptiness and darkness. After that the magnetic poles can reverse. Who knows?’ Whatever happens, the Maya calendar then will start over with the year zero. the Maya do not have a linear time calculation, but see time as overlapping circles.
December 21, 2012 should as such not be the end of it all but could be the beginning of a large new period again of 26.000 years and a smaller period of 5200 years. The Guatemalan ‘Mayan Elders of the Eagle Clan’ write: “This is a cycle of wisdom, harmony, peace, love, of consciousness and the return of the natural order. It is not the end of the world as many from outside of the Mayan tradition have misinterpreted it to be. “
In January 2012, the Doomsday Clock read five minutes to midnight (11:55pm).
Since 1947 the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago presented a symbolic clock face The Doomsday Clock . Originally, the clock analogy, during the Cold War, represented the threat of global nuclear war; however, since 2007 it has also reflected climate-changing technologies and “new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.
The idea is that various existential risks, as supervolcanos and asteroids, but also catastrophic global warming, nuclear war, or bioterrorism, have the potential to destroy, or drastically restrict, human civilization and could cause human extinction; or even cause the end of Earth. some people even think that an extraterrestrial life could invade Earth.
This group does not see that the Jews are the chosen people by God but consider them the murderers of Christ Jesus and that God has smitten Jews with a certain unique madness. for them “America Is Doomed”, “Israel Is Doomed”, and “ADL Jew Bullies”.
Phelps concluded by stating, in an apparent reference to the Book of Revelation, that all the nations of the world would soon march on Israel, and that they would be led by President Barack Obama, whom she called the “Antichrist“.
According to them over 1 billion Catholics in the world will split Hell wide open when they die and as such this would mean every day hell is brought closer to this world.
The protestant churches do not escape criticism because “their preachers have shirked their responsibility to tell people the truth about sin, and instead lie to them about what the Lord their God doth require of them.”
But what does ‘the Lord our God’ require from men? What has God foreseen for humankind and how would he treat men and women?
Is it reasonable to think December 21, 2012 would be the last day of this universe?
It it time to stop planning your careers, bothering buying a house or is it just the opposite and have we to work harder to make sure everything is done what we wanted to do?
Is it time to make sure to spend the last years of our life doing something we always wanted to do but never had the time.
We may tell you that you have the time now lying in front of you. Every day you live is one more day that you could make the best out of your life. But every day that passes is also a day we should have to be ready to expect the end of times coming around the corner and greeting the return of Jesus Christ our Messiah.
What does it mean that we should be “awake” and that the night is nearing its end or that the Day is close-by?
Do you want to belong to those who are called out of darkness into His marvellous light and be something or nothing in God’s estimation?
Life is compact of little things and it passes very quickly. We as inhabitants of this world and tenants of this space should be aware how we treat others and nature around us. We also should listen to what men of God told the people, who wanted to hear, about the future and look forward to the return of the promised one.
From the time we waken till we go to rest, we are engaged in a thousand trifling tasks. And this is as true of the greatest of mankind, who lead humanity in thought and action, as of the rest of us who are but common clay. Great hours come to us but rarely; common hours are with us all the time. Great hours reveal our possibilities; common hours reveal our consecration. And for our Lord the usual was the big thing, because the usual is nine-tenths of life, and sets the field for triumph or defeat.
We should be aware what the real world is but also what is going to happen really to the world. Being part of this world we should also know we can be part of an other ‘world’ and remember the Divine Call.
The Bible stands unequalled in all Literature. Yes, there are many volumes of sacred writings held in high esteem by many peoples; works of history, poetry, philosophy, spirituality, humanity, philanthropy and mystery. They each have their place, and have undoubtedly contributed in some way or another to either the maintenance, or advancement of their respective cultures. But, still, none of them equal the Bible in its depth of inspiration, or its sweep of influence.
Therefore we can better take the Bestseller of all times and look in it for the wisdom, because it is a real treasure which can reveal a lot. It is also a book which can disclose matters of the things still going to happen. Lots shall come manifest by reading and understanding the Holy Scriptures.
Even Jesus did not know when he was going to return or when the end times would come. How should we know then?
While there are still doomsday dates currently circulating, Camping and Family Radio said they have “no new evidence pointing to another date” and have “no interest in even considering another date.”
“God has humbled us through the events of May 21, to continue to even more fervently search the Scriptures (the Bible), not to find dates, but to be more faithful in our understanding,” they highlighted.
“[W]e must be satisfied to humbly wait upon God, and trust He will guide His people to safety. At Family Radio, we continue to look to God for guidance. If it is His good pleasure for us to continue on with our original mission, the proclamation of the Gospel, God’s Word, then we must continue to look to Him.”
Come and find out this coming Saturday March 10 in Amersfoort, Holland at the ecclesia of our Dutch brethren: ‘t Nieuwe Kerkehuis, hoek Daltonstraat/Leusderweg in Amersfoort for the Studyday in Dutch and on Sunday the 11 th of March in Heverlee at Texaco, E40 Motorway, Ecclesia Brussel-Leuven for an English update.
We shall show you there is no way to panic, only to be aware of what we should know and what we should do, ‘staying awake’ and ‘being prepared’, trusting God, not fearing man or heathen predictions.
Invitation: > Uitnodiging voor studiedag 2012
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Please do find:
DaanSpeak, the News behind the news:
- In English: Maya predicted a long time ago: The year 2012 will be a turning point
- In Dutch: Maya’s voorspelden al lang geleden:
Het jaar 2012 wordt een omslagpunt
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You can find more literature on the subject of this study weekend:
In English:
- Preparing for the return of Christ and the Kingdom of God on earth.
- Life and Prophecies of Nostradamus
- 2012 Doomsday Predictions
- The real Doomsday in 2012
- No Doomsday in 2012
- The great Day of their wrath
- The hands of God’s wrath
- Radio talk: May 23rd 2011 Family Radio Full Broadcast: Harold Camping’s New Doomsday
- Video: MAY 21ST DISASTER UPDATE: 6PM in New Zealand! (Dino Run, lol!)
- Harold Camping Employee Estimates $100M Spent on Judgment Day Advertising
- Could Harold Camping Be Sued?
- Antichrist and The Most Hated Family in America in crisis
- End Times
- The days are coming
- 1. Rapture what does it mean?2. The Rapture or admittance with Christ.
- Increase Earthquakes
- Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
- Rugby Prophecy Day
- Called ones escape
- Why does God “loosen Satan for a time” at the end of the age?
- Armageddon and other global disasters that could spell the end of the world.
In Dutch:
Vind meer gegevens over deze en een zelfde onderwerp behandelende studie dag:
In het Nederlands:
- De Dag is nabij #1 Voortdurende moeilijkheden
- De Dag is nabij #2 Bruikbare informatie
- De Dag is nabij #3 Niet laten verrassen
- De Dag is nabij #4 Begrijpen
- De Dag is nabij #5 Terugkijken naar verleden
- De Dag is nabij #6 Uitzien
- De Dag is nabij #7 Thema van de dag
- Eindtijd / Eindtijd
- Is er een komende Eindtijd
- Wereld waarheen? #2 Gebed om de komst van de koning
- Wereld waarheen? #3 De Wortelscheut van David
- Wereld waarheen? #4 Het Lied van de Serafs
- De Wederkomst en de eindtijd #1 Dit geslacht zal geenszins voorbijgaan
- De Wederkomst en de eindtijd #2 Blik op de nabije toekomst
- De wederkomst en de eindtijd #3 Let op de Vijgeboom
- De Wederkomst en de eindtijd #4 De komende toorn
- De Wederkomst en de Eindtijd #5 De Verlosser uit de hemel
- De Wederkomst en de eindtijd #6 De Dagen van Noach en Lot
- De Rapture of Wegvoering blootgelegd:1. Hoofdstuk 1: Wat betekent”Rapture” of “vervoering”?
2. De vervoering of de toegang met Christus.
- Is er een komende Eindtijd
- Een Naam voor een God #8 Vergeten of weigeren
- Het begin van Jezus #6 Beloften van innerlijke zegeningen
- De Bijbel onze Gids #15 Het Heerlijke einde
- Visie op Jezus’ wederkomst van invloed op vraag hoe met deze aarde omgaan
- Harold Camping komt met nieuwe dag op de proppen zonder verontschuldiging
- Doemdagscenarios
- Laatste dagen omroepers
- Newsweek vraagt zich af of wij nog onwetend willen houden
- Hoe de Satan vandaag rond toert
- Messiaanse tijd
- Toename van aardbevingen
- Lucas 21, 25-36 toegelicht door Augustinus
- Blijf waakzaam nu einde nabij komt
- De Knecht des Heren #5 De Gezalfde gezant
- Welke dag van de komst
- Fragiliteit en actie #7 Gebeurtenissen en Prioriteiten
- Jesaja profeet en boodschapper van God
- Draagbare Tempel
- Door verkondiging ook geruster
- Zo maar gerechtvaardigd?
- God meester van goed en kwaad
- Vandaag 22 September en vooruitzicht op Vrede
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Related articles
- Harold Camping Admits Sin, Announces End to Doomsday Predictions (revivalandreformation.wordpress.com)
After numerous failed doomsday predictions, Family Radio founder Harold Camping announced this month that he has no plans to predict ever again the day of God’s Judgment. He also issued an apology to listeners, admitting that he was wrong. + Harold Camping Admits Sin, Announces End to Doomsday Predictions - What a Liberating Hope We Have As Christians (verticalviewer.wordpress.com)
The Bible claims to contain all the truth (John 16:13), and everything that pertains to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). From 2 Timothy 3:16-17 it is apparent that since the Scriptures are profitable for correction, that whatever corrections one will need to make in their life, the Bible will be useful in each of those areas.
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Those who fear the Lord are encouraged to trust God and to rely upon Him. Others, who insist on making their own fires, torches or flashlights, are those who are attempting to find the way out of the darkness without following the Scriptures. What will the end result be? - Wyoming Bill Prepares for Doomsday (newser.com)
Wyoming lawmakers are ready for anything—even the apocalypse. House legislators advanced a bill Friday to prepare for a possible nationwide economic or political meltdown, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. - The Maya Calendar Explained at Chaa Creek Website (prweb.com)
The Lodge at Chaa Creek, located in Belize’s heartland of the Maya, has added a functioning, interactive Maya Calendar to their website to help people understand and appreciate the Maya concept of time in the lead up to 2012. - December 21st 2012 – END of THE World as According to The Mayan Calender (socyberty.com)
considering the predictions and considering the prophecies catastrophes past of the end of the world, the earth should have finished on time that it is! Since the earth always is here, it would be just to say then that, to date, all the prophecies and the predictions catastrophes of the end of the world (before that 2012) failed! May 21 2011 the Prediction of Camping of Harold of the rapture and final judgement failed.+
The cycle Tzolkin , 260 days long, was a calendar religion based on two shorter cycles, a 13-day and another of 20. The combination of these two cycles forming a cycle of 260 days (13 × 20 = 260), the Tzolkin cycle precisely. - Doomsday Dashed: Why the End of the World Will Not Happen on December 21, 2012 (ibtimes.com)
Many believe that the end of the calendar, which happens to fall on the same day as the Winter Solstice, marks the end of the world. Doomsday prophets are banking on the end of humankind. - Circling a fate on the calendar (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
There are years that are remembered for changing the course of human history: 1492. 1776. 1945.Then there are years that were predicted to change the course of history. 1844, when Judgment Day didn’t materialize. 1910, when Halley’s comet didn’t wipe out humanity. And remember Y2K?But rarely does a year arrive with such a mixture of anticipation and dread as 2012.We speak not of the presidential campaign but of the Maya calendar, and the projection that it — or, more accurately, a cycle within it — will end on Dec. 21, 2012. That date has kicked up a swirl of anticipation, based on science, pseudoscience, hucksterism and spiritual belief. The idea is that 2012 will be a game-changer, the last year of civilization as we know it.
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There is dispute among Maya scholars about the date, however. While some believe it is accurate, Aldana contends the calculations used to align the Maya calendar with the Gregorian calendar (the one widely used today) were based on a misunderstanding and could be as much as 50 to 100 years off. - December 21 2012 End of the World Mayan Countdown Begins Today (VIDEO) (blippitt.com)
Amid all the various predictions of Armageddon, the Mayan prophecy of December 21, 2012 seems to carry the most weight with the general population.
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Of course, the blogosphere erupted with excitement when Mexico’s archaeology institute acknowledged on November 24 that a secondreference to December 21, 2012 had been found on a brick discovered at other ruins.“Human beings seem to be attracted by apocalyptic ideas and always assume the worst,” Gronemeyer said. - Mayan Connection(tracewhitley.wordpress.com)Carlos Barrios: “Anthropologists visit the temple sites and read the inscriptions and make up stories about the Maya, but they do not read the signs correctly. It’s just their imagination. Other people write about prophecy in the name of the Maya. They say that the world will end in December 2012. The Mayan elders are angry with this. The world will not end. It will be transformed.”
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“Mayan Day-keepers view the Dec. 21, 2012 date as a rebirth, the start of the World of the Fifth Sun. It will be the start of a new era resulting from and signified by the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator and the Earth aligning itself with the center of the galaxy.”
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“We are disturbed — we can’t play anymore. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action. Everyone is needed. You are not here for no reason. Everyone who is here now has an important purpose. This is a hard but a special time. We have the opportunity for growth, but we must be ready for this moment in history.”
- ‘Doomsday’ minister mum on 2012 forecast (droneratti.org)
Well the year 2011 has flown by without a hitch … or, at least, without Earth bursting into flames. Radio evangelist Harold Camping’s famous pair of prophecies — his prediction that true Christians would be safely evacuated to heaven on May 21, and that a series of global cataclysms would then climax in a grand, Earth-shattering finale on Oct. 21 — seem to have flopped.Yes, it looks as if we’ll make it to 2012 after all. But what then? - 2012 Mayan Calendar (socialmediasnews.wordpress.com)
New Age (New Age Movement and New Age Spirituality) is a social collective phenomenon and a spiritual nature/cosmology movement that seeks universal truth through the Oneness of Humanity. It combines aspects of spirituality, esotericism, complementary and alternative medicine, various religious practices and environmentalism. It is characterized by an eclectic and individual approach to spirituality with a general rejection of mainstream dogma and religion. - Cycles of Time – Playing with Numbers (theabysmal.wordpress.com)
We have the luxury of being able to harmonize what works from various systems with what works in others. - Hunab Ku |by Donna Hilton FaceBook OnLine| (vedernikov.wordpress.com)
Hunab Ku was, to the Mayas, the supreme God and ultimate Creator. It represented… the gateway to other Galaxies beyond our Sun as well as all of the Consciousness that has ever existed in this Galaxy.
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New Age beliefs about Hunab Ku derive from the work of Mexican anthropologist Domingo Martínez Parédez ( 1904–1984 ), who first presented his interpretation of the concept in 1953 and expanded upon his ideas in a subsequent book, Hunab Kú: Síntesis del pensamiento filosófico maya (1964). - Maya kind of Mexico (firstchoice.co.uk)
To appease their gods, Mayan priests would pin victims down over stone altars, plunge flint blades into their chests, and then tear out their still-beating hearts. But it’s not all about grisly history lessons and Indiana Jones-style adventure. Head off on a Mayan trail and you’ll also come across the real Mexico – rainbow-painted haciendas, tropical rainforests, cactus-studded deserts – the lot. - What the Mayan Elders Are Saying About 2012, A Guest Post Contributed by Michael Brine (notesalongthepath.com)
We are no longer in the world of the Fourth Sun, but we are not yet in the world of the Fifth Sun. This is the time in-between, the time of transition. As we pass through transition there is a colossal, global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and ongoing earth changes. - Experts Answer Mayan Calendar Doomsday Issues (socyberty.com)
Leonzo Barreno, Maya experts from Saskatchewan, Canada said, the concept of ‘Resurrection’ is a wrong interpretation of the long count calendar (long count).+
Many descendants of the Maya who also dismissed the doomsday predictions, and call it a ‘Western idea’. - Calendar 2012 Mayan (socyberty.com)
Like our Gregorian calendar ends on December 31st of each year and begin a new year. December 21, 2012 calendar year does not end the Maya, of course. 21.12.2012 Winter Solstice and is our sun will align with the center of the Milky Way or the “Tree of Life” as the Maya call it. The importance of the day would be “the end of a big” no “to the world.” Instead, bring a new sense of awareness, or understanding. ”
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Maya was a time to move and they were interested in a new beginning at the ends. The world is changing rapidly and we must all learn about ourselves in order to cope with future changes. Not a moment of fear. There is a time for hope. There is a time to develop their skills. The choice is yours. - Mayan Calendar Predicts Doomsday in 2012. or Not (socyberty.com)
Ian O’Neill, a physicist by training, has written a piece that says, “there’s no evidence to suggest the Mayans believed the end of their Long Count calendar would spell doomsday.”+
O’Neill blames the viral marketing campaign in 2009 that promoted the Roland Emmerich disaster movie “2012.” The film got mediocre reviews but sold a lot of DVDs. And social scientists say the mythology of a doomsday prophecy fits an old pattern: When times are tough, it’s almost comforting for people to blame higher unseen powers.“It’s almost like you’re out there looking for evidence of a looming apocalypse,” said anthropologist Wade Davis, an explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, “and I think it also ties into a lot of uncertainty that exists in our world today.” - Mayan Calendar Predicts Doomsday in 2012. or Not (maboulette.wordpress.com)
At Yahoo News, writer Lisa Hix quoted Bruce Love of the Archaeological Institute of America: “Whatever the significance of the date is, it is significance we are putting on it; it’s not the significance the Maya are putting on it. It’s not coming from anywhere in the literature or in the Mayan hieroglyphic writing.” - *** New Artifacts proves alien contact with Mayas *** (disclose.tv)
“I can just say that the Mexican government is preparing to tell humanity and the world things that are critical for us, for the way we live, for the way we’ve been handling the planet.” - Maya cosmology and 2012 (theskythismonth.wordpress.com)
The night sky has inspired cultures throughout history to come up with many versions of creation. - Rapture Insurance – act now… you have less than 24 hours to go!!! (pinnaclelife.co.nz)
If we in the ‘life industry’ were thinking on our feet, we’d have designed Rapture Insurance; insurance that takes care of your family after you’re raptured away to heaven.From the insurance industry’s perspective, rapture insurance would be the ultimate insurance gamble. (Dare I say it… it’s like earthquake insurance). - Editorial: The Truth About the Doomsday Virus? (nytimes.com)
Two months ago we warned that a new bird flu virus – modified in a laboratory to make it transmissible through the air among mammals – could kill millions of people if it escaped confinement or was stolen by terrorists. Now Ron Fouchier, the Dutch scientist who led the key research team, is saying that his findings, which remain… - Does Harold Camping Foresee the World Ending in 2012? (livescience.com)
- ‘Doomsday’ minister mum on 2012 forecast (msnbc.msn.com)
- Failed doomsday predictions (antiworldnews.wordpress.com)
On the Nature of Christ
If Christendom is astray as to the Father and the Holy Spirit, it is not wonderful that we should find it astray in its conception of the Lord Jesus who is the manifestation of the Father by the Spirit. Christendom believes Christ to be the incarnation of one of three distinct essences, or personalities, which are supposed to constitute the God-head; and that though clothed in human form, he was God in the absolute sense of being the Creator.
This is the doctrine of the Trinitarian section of Christendom, in opposition to which, another section believes that Christ was a mere man, begotten in the ordinary process of generation, and distinguished above his fellows by a pre-eminent endowment of the “virtues” of human nature, which fitted him to be an example to mankind. This (the Unitarian) view regards him as a teacher sent from God, and is in some sense the Son of God; but denies the essential divinity of his nature. Both these views will be found equally removed from the truth. The truth lies between.
Papyrus 69 or P. Oxy 2383 Marcion Gospel of Luke
The testimonies which teach the indivisible unity of the Deity, as the One Father, out of whom ALL things have proceeded, and who is supreme above all, even above Christ (I Cor. 11:3), are inconsistent with the Trinitarian representation of God. The supremacy and unity of the Father would not be affirmable if there were three co-equal personalities in His One personality—a doctrine which presents us with a contradiction in terms as well as in sense. Jesus emphasises the distinction between himself and the Father, in the following statements:—
“I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30).
Again:—
“My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me” (John 7:16).
Again:—
“It is written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself; and the Father that sent me (the other witness), beareth witness of me” (John 8:17–18).
Again:—
“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, AND Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
The persons of the trinity are identified by symbols on their chests: The Son has a lamb (agnus dei), the Father an Eye of Providence, and the Spirit a dove. – Fridolin Leiber (1853–1912)
But the Unitarian view, still more so. Joseph was not the father of Jesus. He himself repudiated his paternity, and was about to put away Mary, his betrothed, when an angel came to him with this message:—
“Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife. For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20).
This marvel had been previously intimated to Mary by the angel Gabriel, as recorded in Luke 1:35:—
“The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee; and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
The Unitarian evades these testimonies by denying the authenticity of the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke. The reasons for this denial are altogether flimsy and insufficient: nay, they are bad. The evidence in proof of the genuineness of the (by them) rejected chapters is more than decisive: it cannot be answered: it is irresistible. It leaves no room for doubt or gainsaying. There is the united evidence of all the accessible ancient MSS. and versions, supported by the recognition of the very earliest Christian writers, confirmed by the internal character of the chapters and the necessity for the event which they narrate, to explain the character and mission of Jesus of Nazareth. Against this, there is the merely negative fact that the disputed chapters are absent from the Ebionite gospel, which at the time of its production was pronounced a corruption; and from the Evangelium of Marcion, a gospel which he wrote to suit his own heathenish notions, and from which he recklessly omitted, not only the disputed chapters, but everything that interfered with his peculiar ideas.
Baptism of Christ – Francesco Albani (1578–1660)
The first writer who mentions the Ebionites is Irenæus, who speaks of them as a sect not only separated from the general body of Christians, but who opposed the doctrines preached by the Apostles, and rejected, not only the disputed chapters, but the greater part of the books of the New Testament, rejecting all the epistles of Paul, whom they called an apostate from the law. They only made use of a Hebrew gospel, which they called Matthew’s, but which differs from Matthew in many particulars besides the two chapters. Here is a sect which rejected whole books of authentic Scripture, because they were inimical to their notions. How can a reasonable man accept such a sect as affording guidance on the question of the authenticity of two particular chapters absent from their version, but present in almost all other MSS. throughout the world? Their “Matthew” was impugned at the time. It was proclaimed a corruption of the genuine gospel, while the “canonical” Matthew, as we have it, was never called in question. Epiphanius thus speaks:—“In that gospel which they (the Ebionites) have called the gospel according to Matthew, which is not entire and perfect, but corrupted and curtailed, and which they call The Hebrew Gospel, it is written” (and he quotes), “Thus,” says he, “they change the true account into a falsehood … They have taken away the genealogy from Matthew, and accordingly begin their gospel with these words: ‘It came to pass, in the days of Herod, King of Judæa.’ ” Origen alludes to it thus:—“It is written in a certain gospel, which is called, ‘according to the Hebrews,’ if indeed any one is pleased to receive it, NOT AS OF AUTHORITY, but for illustration of the present question” (and then he quotes). He afterwards quotes this as a specimen of the same gospel according to the Hebrews: “Just now my mother, the Holy Ghost, took me by one of my hairs, and carried me to the great mountain Tabor.” This absurdity, and another passage, quoted by Origen, prove that the text of the Hebrew gospel, read by Origen, was not the same as our Greek gospel of Matthew, with which its friends suppose it to be identical. It differed on many points besides the first two chapters. The absence of the first two chapters of Matthew from the Ebionite and Nazarene gospels is of no weight in view of their rejection of Paul’s epistles, which even the Unitarians accept. The omission is accounted for in the way the rejection of Paul’s epistles is accounted for; the two first chapters did not coincide with their notions, and therefore they struck them out. The Nazarene and Ebionite copies of Matthew’s gospel not only omit the first two chapters, but in several instances they contradict the other three gospels of Mark, Luke, and John, whereas the corresponding passages in our Greek copy of Matthew agree with them, which shows which way the tampering has occurred.
As to Marcion, he omitted the two disputed chapters: but he also rejected the whole of the Old Testament, both the law and the prophets, as proceeding from the God of the Jews, whom he regarded as the creator of this world, in contrast to a higher Creator. As to the New Testament, he made one for himself consisting of only one gospel, supposed to be compiled chiefly from Luke, and only ten of Paul’s epistles, which are altered from the received version in numerous instances, in order to make the text more pliable to his gnostic notions. People who quote him against the miraculous conception are bound consistently to follow him in these variations as well. He did not admit Christ to have been born at all. Consequently, be begins his gospel thus:—“In the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius, God descended into Capernaum.” He not only omits the first two chapters of Luke; he omits also the account of John the Baptist, the baptism of Christ, and his visit to Nazareth. He also omits part of chapter 8:19; 10:21; 11, part of verse 29, and all of verses 30, 31, 32, 49, 50, 51; 12:6, 28, part of verses 8, 30, 32; 13:1–5: altered verse 28, omitted from 29 to end of chapter: 15:11–32; 17, part of 10–12: whole of verse 13: whole of 17:31–33; 19:28–48; 20, from 9 to 18: also 37, 38; 21:18, 21, 22; 22:16, 35, 37, 50, 51; 23:43; 24:26–7, and verse 25 altered.
Those who quote Marcion as an authority in the case of the first two chapters, ought to accept him as such in all these cases. That they disregard him in these cases is a proof that, even in their opinion, his authority is of no weight.
The divine paternity of Jesus would stand an unassailable truth, even if the records of Matthew and Luke had no existence. These records are, however, invaluable. They are the circumstantial illustrations of a truth which, though the nature of the case, and the prophetic testimony necessitate it, we could not have so clearly and satisfactorily comprehended without them. They explain to us the appearance and character of Christ, and make us privy to the divine method of procedure, from its incipiency onwards, in the most wondrous work of God among men.
That Christ was an example in the sense of being “holy, harmless, and undefiled” is beyond doubt; but it is also true that he was a great deal more. The speciality of his mission is so plainly stated as to leave no room for the Unitarian doctrine of moral example. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, ” said John the Baptist, on seeing Jesus (John 1:29). How did he take it away? The answer is in the words of the apostle Paul:—“He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26). Jesus himself had said, “I lay down my life for my sheep.” Paul also says to Timothy, in the second epistle, first chapter, tenth verse, “Jesus Christ hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”; a fact which is stated by Christ himself in this form, “God sent His Son, that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). Furthermore, Peter says, “There is none other name under heaven given whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12). Salvation is thus directly connected with the first appearing of Christ, and with what he accomplished then; not on the principle of moral stimulus supplied, but in virtue of the essential result secured by the course he fulfilled.

Incarnation of the Virgin Mary with the Three-Une God- Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Incoronazione della Vergine (Getty Museum) about 1604 – 1607
Leaving both Trinitarianism and Unitarianism, we may find the truth in the Scriptures for ourselves. The simple appellation of “Son,” as applied to Christ, is sufficient to prove that his existence is derived, and not eternal. The phrase, “Son of God,” implies that the one God, the eternal Father, was antecedent to the Son, and that the Son had his origin in or “out of” the Father to whom he must therefore be subordinate in a sense inconsistent with Trinitarian representation. “This day have I begotten thee” is the language of Scripture, dearly pointing to a commencement of days. This view is confirmed by the statement of Christ:—“As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:26).
Christ, therefore, though now possessed of inherent life, had been invested with it; it is not in this case underived. It is only the Great Uncreate, the Father, that can say, “I am, and there is none else beside me.” Yet, though Christ’s is not an underived existence, it is more directly divine than the human. A man is an embodiment of his father’s mortal life-energy. Jesus was not born of the will of the flesh, but of God. He was begotten of Mary through the power of the spirit. This was the origin of his title, “the Son of God.” See the angel’s words to Mary:—“Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).
But, though Son of God, he was flesh and blood. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of THE SAME.… He took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren” (Heb. 2:14, 16, 17). He was made sin for us, who knew no sin (II Cor. 5:21). As he was in character sinless, this could only apply to his bodily constitution, which, through Mary, was the sin-nature of Adam. As Paul says elsewhere (Rom. 8:3), “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” “He was sent forth made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4), “of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3). Jesus was “a man approved of God by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him (after his thirty years’ preparation) in the midst of Israel” (Acts 2:22). This is Peter’s description of him. Paul speaks of him as “the man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). He was tried and disciplined as Adam was, but succeeded where Adam failed. “Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). This precludes the idea of his being “very God.” He was the Son of God, the manifestation of God by spirit-power, but not God himself. “The life was manifested, ” says John, “and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us” (I John 1:2).
Again, in his gospel narrative (chapter 1:14), he says:—“The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth,” from which it is evident that Christ was a divine manifestation—an embodiment of Deity in flesh—Emmanuel, God with us. “God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him,” says the same apostle (chapter 3:34). The spirit descended upon him in bodily shape at his baptism in the Jordan, and took possession of him. This was the anointing which constituted him Christ (or the anointed), and which gave him the superhuman powers of which he showed himself possessed. This is clear from the words of Peter, in his address to the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius—(Acts 10:38)—“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed.”
This statement alone is sufficient to disprove the popular view of Christ’s essential Godhead. If he were “very God” in his character as Son, why was it necessary he should be “anointed” with spirit and power? He did no miracles before his anointing. He had no power of himself. This is his own declaration: “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30). “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10). On Calvary, left to the utter helplessness of his own humanity, he felt the anguish of the hour and cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). Before his anointing, he was simply the “body prepared” for the divine manifestation that was to take place through him. The preparation of this body commenced with the Spirit’s action on Mary, and concluded when Jesus, being thirty years of age, stood approved in the perfection of a sinless and mature character. After the Spirit’s descent upon him, he was the full manifestation of God in the flesh. The Father, by the Spirit, tabernacled in Christ among men. “God was in Christ,” says Paul, “reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”
The Lamb of God exhalted.- Cellar painting in Peace church in Schweidnitz (an Apocalyptic scene) – Photo Qasinka
When Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” he did not contradict the statement that “no man hath seen God at any time,” but simply expressed the truth contained in the following words of Paul:—Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15); “the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person” (Heb. 1:3). Those who looked upon the anointed Jesus, beheld a representation of the Deity accessible to human vision.
Jesus declares things of himself which are held to sanction the idea that he existed as a person before his birth of Mary; such as that “he came down from heaven to give life to the world” (John 6:33); that “he proceeded forth and came from the Father” (John 8:42; 16:28); that he had “power to lay down his life and power to take it again” (John 10:18); that he “had glory with the Father before the world was,” and was “loved of Him before the foundation of the world” (John 17:5–24), etc.
It is evident, however, that we must understand these expressions in the light of the undoubted facts of Christ’s life and mission. These literal facts are that he was begotten of the Holy Spirit, and born a baby at Bethlehem (Luke 1:35; 2:5–7); grew up to be a man, increasing in wisdom with years, stature, and experience (Luke 2:52); remained the private and undistinguished son of Joseph the carpenter, until the power of the Spirit was shed upon him at his baptism (Luke 3:21–23): AFTER WHICH, he did the works and spoke the words recorded; that he was put to death through weakness (II Cor. 13:4); was deserted of the power of the Father when suspended on the cross; and that he was afterwards raised from the dead by the Father (Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30, 37, and so on).

Baptism of Jesus Chrits represented by a masterpainter from Lake Constance of 1466, with the Trinitarian idea of the Godheads – 1450 – Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts Graphiques
With these facts in view, we are enabled to attach the proper sense to statements which, in a naked and detached form, would appear to teach a personal pre-existence. For instance, when Jesus said to the Pharisees that he came down from heaven, he could not mean that the person standing before them had bodily descended from the clouds, as his words, literally understood, would have taught, and as the Pharisees appeared to have understood; he meant to say that his origin was from heaven. The “Holy Spirit” that came upon Mary—the “Power of the Highest” that overshadowed her, came down from heaven; consequently, the resultant man could, without extravagance, say he came down from heaven. The sense was literal as applied to the Power of the Highest that produced “the man Christ Jesus”; both at the stage of his begettal and the stage of his anointing on the banks of the Jordan, when the Spirit descended in bodily form and abode upon him; but not literal as applied to the man Christ Jesus.
When he said he proceeded forth and came from God, it was in the sense of these facts. He could not mean that as a person he had emanated from the very presence of the Almighty, but that the Father had sent him in the way disclosed in the record of his birth and baptism. John is described as “a man sent from God,” without meaning to suggest that John existed before he was born and sent.
When Jesus said he had power to take up his life after it should be laid down, he expressed the confidence that God would raise him. It was not power in the dynamic sense; but authority (εξονσια); he immediately adds, “This commandment HAVE I RECEIVED OF MY FATHER”; that is, the taking up of his life would result from the Father’s power and authority, exercised in accordance with the pledge given by the Father. Literally, Jesus did not take up his life; the Father raised him (see the references to Acts, three paragraphs back); but because it was the Father’s purpose, and because the Father spoke through Jesus (John 14:10), Jesus could appropriately say that he had power to raise up himself. An example of this style of language, in which what a person has a relation to in the divine purpose, is considered as under his control and referable to his power, occurs in Jer, 1:10:—
“See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.”
Literally, the prophet did none of these things, but was overpowered and slain, as nearly all the servants of God were; yet the things he predicted came to pass, and this is taken as a sufficient basis for the highly-wrought language above quoted, which imputes the result of Jeremiah’s predictions to Jeremiah’s individual operations.
Christ’s statement that he had glory with the Father before the world was, must in the same way be understood in harmony with the elementary facts of the testimony. The glorification of Jesus was a purpose with the Father from the beginning: and, in this sense, he had glory with the Father before the world was. This may appear a strained explanation; but a regard to the scriptural habit of speech will justify it, in view of the testified facts of the case.
The Lord said to Jeremiah (chapter 1:5):—“Before I formed thee in the belly I KNEW THEE; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I SANCTIFIED THEE: and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Now Jeremiah did not exist before his conception. Yet these words would seem to teach it, if understood as those who believe in the pre-existence of Christ, understood the statements about him. As a purpose Jeremiah existed; his person was as clearly present to the divine mind as if he had stood before Him in actual fact. This is the explanation of words, which, rigidly construed, would imply Jeremiah’s pre-existence.
Look again at the words spoken of Cyrus, the Persian ruler, more than a hundred years before he was born (Isaiah 45:4):—“For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.” The same remark applies here: Cyrus was present to the divine contemplation as really as if he existed. Hence a style of language which would seem to assume his existence before he was born.
On the same principle, the purpose to raise a dead man is expressed by ignoring his death, and assuming his continued existence. Thus Jesus deduces the resurrection from the fact that God styled Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, at a time when these men were dead. The Sadducees saw the force of the argument, and were silenced (Matt. 22:31–34). The principle of the argument is expressed in the words of Paul (Rein. 4:17)—“God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not (but are to be) AS THOUGH THEY WERE.”

Anointing – Priestly Code the high priest is anointed
The words spoken of Jesus are of this order. When he said in prayer to the Father, “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world,” he did not teach that he existed from “he foundation of the world,” but that the Father regarded him with love from the beginning, and that, therefore, to the Father’s mind, he was present. In the words of Peter, “He was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times.” (I Peter 1:20).
The same style of language is adopted with reference to Christ’s people: “He hath chosen US in him before the foundation of the world.” Literally, this would prove the existence of believers before the world began, for properly, a thing must exist to be the object of choice; actually, it only proves divine foresight. The glory which Jesus had before the world was, was the glory which God purposed for him from the beginning. Literally, he had not the glory referred to before the world was. What was the nature of that glory—the glory Jesus received in answer to this prayer? HE—the bodily Jesus—the body prepared —that which was evolved from the substance of Mary and made the subject of the anointing—was made incorruptible in substance, and the spirit shed upon that substance so abundantly, that it made him more luminous than the sun (Acts 26:13), and gave him power to bestow the spirit, and control providence in heaven and earth. Was Jesus possessed of this glory before he was born? Was he a body anointed with the spirit before he was the body prepared? Was he a real resurrected Jesus before Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem? Yet this was the glory he had with the Father before the world was. It was a glory he had in the Father’s purpose, but in no other sense.
In the same way are we to understand the words, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). This was Christ’s answer to the incredulity excited by his statement, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.” The Jews thought he meant to insinuate that he was contemporary with Abraham, whereas he only meant to express the fact stated by Paul in the following words:—“These all (including Abraham—see verse 8) died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them AFAR OFF” (Heb. 11:13). It was this seeing of the promise of Christ “afar off” that made Abraham glad. It was the day presented in the promises that he saw, but, as they almost always did, the Jews mistook Jesus, and, as he was prone to do, he deepened their bewilderment by using another form of speech, which still more obscured his meaning, on the principle indicated in Matt. 13:11–15: a form of speech which in one phrase expressed two aspects of the truth concerning himself, viz., that he was purposed before Abraham existed, and that the Father, of whom he was then the manifestation, existed before all.
Jesus said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). He could not mean, in view of all the testimony, what Trinitarians understand him to mean, that he and the Father were identically the same person (“the same in substance, equal in power and glory”), but that they were one in spirit-connection and design of operations. This is apparent from his prayer for his disciples, “That they may be one, EVEN as we are one.” The unity is not as to person, but as to nature and state of mind. This is the unity that exists between the Father and the Son, and the unity that will be ultimately established between the Father and His whole family, of whom Christ is the elder brother. When this unity is established, Christ will take a more subordinate position than he now occupies, in relation to the race of Adam. Paul says, “When all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all” (I Cor. 15:28).
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Robert Roberts. (1984; 2002). Christendom Astray from the Bible (On The Nature Of Jesus Christ p154–165). Logos Publications. (Re-edited by the Belgian Christadelphians (2011)
Preceding articles: Jesus begotten Son of God #10 Coming down spirit or flesh seed of Eve
How The Seed Of The Woman Was Bruised On The Heel
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