Comments Bible Quotes

The first time the temptation comes, meet it in such a decided manner that it will never be repeated!

The Bible, of course, for aside from religion there is much to be learned of men and their ways in the Bible. It is also a source of comments made of references and figures of speech. No man could consider himself educated without some knowledge of it.

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . . If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine yound intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them. If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing. (Speech was broadcast by ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965)

The Bible tells us to get along with our neighbor. So our commentator Rashi says—but if his dog barks, muzzle him.

There were minutes of silence then and in them I thought about the only truth that mattered, the only morality that mattered, the only sin, the only crime. When Lily de Seitas had told me her version of it at the end of our meeting at the museum I had taken it as a retrospective thing, a comment on my past and on my anecdote about the butcher. But I saw now it had been about my future. History has superseded the ten commandments of the Bible; for me they had never had any real meaning, that is, any other than a conformitant influence. But sitting in that bedroom, staring at the glow of the fire on the jamb of the door through to the sitting room, I knew that at last I began to feel the force of this super-commandment, summary of them all; somewhere I knew I had to choose it, and every day afresh, even though I went on failing to keep it. Conchis had talked of points of fulcrum, moments when one met one's future. I also knew it was all bound up with Alison, with choosing Alison, and having to go on choosing her every day. Adulthood was like a mountain, and I stood at the foot of this cliff of ice, this impossible and unclimbable: Thou shalt not inflict unnecessary pain.

Slowly, I understood that the way I read is intertwined with the way my family reads. Investigating the often tumultuous lives of the commentators, reading biographies and looking for patterns, I noticed that the idea of family influencing reading is actually a centuries-old phenomenon.

It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another that it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant neither one nor the other, but something different from both; and this they have called understanding the Bible. It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen to the former part of 'The Age of Reason' have been written by priests: and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, and understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not.

Matthew Henry, the Puritan preacher and Bible commentator, made this statement after a thief stole his money: “Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before; second, although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because, although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.

When it comes to adding authority to the sermon, the Bible is the most powerful way to comment on what the Bible has to say.

Jesus and Paul knew the Old Testament completely. Their comments about divorce were meant to add to, not replace or change, what was already written in the Old Testament about marriage and divorce.

The approach to digital culture I abhor would indeed turn all the world's books into one book, just as Kevin (Kelly) suggested. It might start to happen in the next decade or so. Google and other companies are scanning library books into the cloud in a massive Manhattan Project of cultural digitization. What happens next is what's important. If the books in the cloud are accessed via user interfaces that encourage mashups of fragments that obscure the context and authorship of each fragment, there will be only one book. This is what happens today with a lot of content; often you don't know where a quoted fragment from a news story came from, who wrote a comment, or who shot a video. A continuation of the present trend will make us like various medieval religious empires, or like North Korea, a society with a single book. The Bible can serve as a prototypical example. Like Wikipedia, the Bible's authorship was shared, largely anonymous, and cumulative, and the obscurity of the individual authors served to create an oracle-like ambience for the document as "the literal word of God." If we take a non-metaphysical view of the Bible, it serves as a link to our ancestors, a window. The ethereal, digital replacement technology for the printing press happens to have come of age in a time when the unfortunate ideology I'm criticizing dominates technological culture. Authorship - the very idea of the individual point of view - is not a priority of the new ideology. The digital flattening of expression into a global mush is not presently enforced from the top down, as it is in the case of a North Korean printing press. Instead, the design of software builds the ideology into those actions that are the easiest to perform on the software designs that are becoming ubiquitous. It is true that by using these tools, individuals can author books or blogs or whatever, but people are encouraged by the economics of free content, crowd dynamics, and lord aggregators to serve up fragments instead of considered whole expressions or arguments. The efforts of authors are appreciated in a manner that erases the boundaries between them. The one collective book will absolutely not be the same thing as the library of books by individuals it is bankrupting. Some believe it will be better; others, including me, believe it will be disastrously worse. As the famous line goes from Inherit the Wind: 'The Bible is a book... but it is not the only book' Any singular, exclusive book, even the collective one accumulating in the cloud, will become a cruel book if it is the only one available.

At Abraham's burial, his two most prominent sons, rivals since before they were born, estranged since childhood, scions of rival nations, come together for the first time since they were rent apart nearly three-quarters of a century earlier. The text reports their union nearly without comment. "His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre, in the field that Abraham had bought from the Hittites." But the meaning of this moment cannot be diminished. Abraham achieves in death what he could never achieve in life: a moment of reconciliation between his two sons, a peaceful, communal, side-by-side flicker of possibility in which they are not rivals, scions, warriors, adversaries, children, Jews, Christians, or Muslims. They are brothers. They are mourners. In a sense they are us, forever weeping for the loss of our common father, shuffling through our bitter memories, reclaiming our childlike expectations, laughing, sobbing, furious and full of dreams, wondering about our orphaned future, and demanding the answers we all crave to hear: What did you want from me, Father? What did you leave me with, Father? And what do I do now?

The noted Bible commentator Matthew Henry wrote: “She was not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.” Paul wrote that “the woman is the glory of man” (1 Cor. 11:7 NIV), for if man is the head (1 Cor. 11:1–16; Eph. 5:22–33), then woman is the crown that honors the head.

Without remembering, wisdom is impossible (see comments on Exodus 10: 2). Wisdom is learning from our own lives and from the lives of others. Wisdom matters because good cannot be achieved without it. Good intentions without wisdom lead to either nothing or to actual evil. However much evil movements have appealed to the bad side of people’s natures, almost every one of them, communism being the most obvious example, also appealed to people’s good intentions.

A mature Christian recognizes that correcting every wrong on the Internet would take more hours than a full-time job. If you snap every time your great-aunt’s friend’s cousin thrice-removed makes a snarky comment about “all the contradictions in the Bible,” it will consume you and your joy.

A Man’s life of any worth is a continual allegory, and very few eyes can see the Mystery of his life—a life like the scriptures, figurative—which such people can no more make out than they can the Hebrew Bible. Lord Byron cuts a figure but he is not figurative—Shakspeare led a life of Allegory: his works are the comments on it

The number 6 was the first perfect number, and the number of creation. The adjective "perfect" was attached that are precisely equal to the sum of all the smaller numbers that divide into them, as 6=1+2+3. The next such number, incidentally, is 28=1+2+4+7+14, followed by 496=1+2+4+8+16+31+62+124+248; by the time we reach the ninth perfect number, it contains thirty-seven digits. Six is also the product of the first female number, 2, and the first masculine number, 3. The Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (ca. 20 B.C.-c.a. A.D. 40), whose work brought together Greek philosophy and Hebrew scriptures, suggested that God created the world in six days because six was a perfect number. The same idea was elaborated upon by St. Augustine (354-430) in The City of God: "Six is a number perfect in itself, and not because God created the world in six days; rather the contrary is true: God created the world in six days because this number is perfect, and it would remain perfect, even if the work of the six days did not exist." Some commentators of the Bible regarded 28 also as a basic number of the Supreme Architect, pointing to the 28 days of the lunar cycle. The fascination with perfect numbers penetrated even into Judaism, and their study was advocated in the twelfth century by Rabbi Yosef ben Yehudah Ankin in his book, Healing of the Souls.

The similarities with Christianity and Judaism later became a sensitive topic, which was partly dealt with by the dogma that Muammad was illiterate. This insulated him from claims that he was familiar with the teachings of the Torah and the Bible – despite near-contemporaries commenting that he was ‘learned’, and knew both the Old and New Testament.

the marginal notes to the Geneva Bible did more than provide theological elucidation at points of difficulty—the “most profitable annotations upon the hard places” mentioned on the title page of the work. They offered political comments on the text, which could easily be applied to the political situation under James I—and James cordially detested what he found in those notes.

Note the significant fact that we always hear of the "fall of man," not the fall of woman, showing that the consensus of human thought has been more unerring than masculine interpretation. Reading this narrative carefully, it is amazing that any set of men ever claimed that the dogma of the inferiority of woman is here set forth. The conduct of Eve from the beginning to the end is so superior to that of Adam. The command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge was given to the man alone before woman was formed. Genesis ii, 17. Therefore the injunction was not brought to Eve with the impressive solemnity of a Divine Voice, but whispered to her by her husband and equal. It was a serpent supernaturally endowed, a seraphim as Scott and other commentators have claimed, who talked with Eve, and whose words might reasonably seem superior to the second-hand story of her

Further concerns were expressed over the king's increasingly obvious homosexual tendencies, which led to certain royal favorites being granted favors that were the subject of much comment and envy. Robert Carr, some twenty years younger than James, was one such favorite: he became the earl of Somerset in 1613. Although James fondled and kissed his favorites in what was widely regarded as a lecherous manner in public, the court was prepared to believe that his private behavior was somewhat more restrained.

A friend of mine commented yesterday that she has experienced similar insights that I talked about that all enlightened Masters and founders of religion are actually talking about the same ocean, the same invisible life source, the same God. She also said that she worked in a Christan environment at the time that she received these insights, and when she tried to share these insights with the Christians she was accused of being "impure" and of being associated with the "Devil". Christians hold on to the idea that Jesus was the only son of God, without realizing that we are all son's and daughter's of God. By holding on to the idea that Jesus is the only son of God, they do not either to realize that all enlightened Masters are talking about the same God. Jesus did not talk about faith, he talked about trust. He talked about discovering a trust in yourself and in relationship to God. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. In Christianity, the church has become the intermediate between man and God, and people who claim that they have found a direct relationship to God are accused of blasphemy. The Christan church has become a barrier between man and God, and anyone who has declared that he has found a direct relationship to God are immediately banned by the church, for example Master Eckhart and Franciskus of Assisi. I have always had a deep love for Jesus, but it is not the picture of Jesus that the Christian church presents. I was a disciple of Jesus in a former life, and was thrown to the lions in Colosseum in Rome as one of the early Christians. Jesus had many more disciples than the twelve disciples mentioned in The Bible. In this life, I resigned my automatic membership in the church as soon as I could think for myself when I was 15 years old. I was also disgusted with an organization that said that they preached love and which has murdered more people than Hitler. My experience with these rare and precious insights are that they expand our consciousness of reality. They are gradual initiations into reality. They may fade away, but we will never be the same again after receiving them. They will also come more and more, the more committment we have to our spiritual growth.

A different study revealed another aspect of humanity’s unique spiritual nature—the capacity for malevolence. It appears that only humans among Earth’s creatures harm each other for harm’s sake.[64] The research team housed chimpanzees in cages that allowed them to withhold food from other chimpanzees by pulling on a rope. The researchers found that the chimpanzees would withhold food (in a statistically significant manner) only from chimpanzees that stole their food—not from others. In others words, they showed no tendency toward behavior that in humans would be defined as “spite” or displaced retaliatory anger. The research team concluded that spiteful behavior appears unique to humans. Only humans engage in malicious behavior toward fellow humans for no reason other than the impulse to hurt or harm someone. The team also commented on humanity’s flip side, “pure altruism.” Only humans, not primates, engage in self-sacrificial acts performed to assist or benefit other humans or even animals with whom no social context has ever been or likely will be established. In other words, the study confirmed what the Bible says about humanity’s spiritual nature and condition: humans are uniquely sinful and uniquely righteous among all living creatures.

the challenges of our day-to-day existence are sustained reminders that our life of faith simply must have its center somewhere other than in our ability to hold it together in our minds. Life is a pounding surf that wears away our rock-solid certainty. The surf always wins. Slowly but surely. Eventually. It may be best to ride the waves rather than resist them. What are your one or two biggest obstacles to staying Christian? What are those roadblocks you keep running into? What are those issues that won’t go away and make you wonder why you keep on believing at all? These are questions I asked on a survey I gave on my blog in the summer of 2013. Nothing fancy. I just asked some questions and waited to see what would happen. In the days to come, I was overwhelmed with comments and e-mails from readers, many anonymous, with bracingly honest answers often expressed through the tears of relentless and unnerving personal suffering. I didn’t do a statistical analysis (who has the time, plus I don’t know how), but the responses fell into five categories.         1.        The Bible portrays God as violent, reactive, vengeful, bloodthirsty, immoral, mean, and petty.         2.        The Bible and science collide on too many things to think that the Bible has anything to say to us today about the big questions of life.         3.        In the face of injustice and heinous suffering in the world, God seems disinterested or perhaps unable to do anything about it.         4.        In our ever-shrinking world, it is very difficult to hold on to any notion that Christianity is the only path to God.         5.        Christians treat each other so badly and in such harmful ways that it calls into question the validity of Christianity—or even whether God exists. These five categories struck me as exactly right—at least, they match up with my experience. And I’d bet good money they resonate with a lot of us. All five categories have one big thing in common: “Faith in God no longer makes sense to me.” Understanding, correct thinking, knowing what you believe—these were once true of their faith, but no longer are. Because life happened. A faith that promises to provide firm answers and relieve our doubt is a faith that will not hold up to the challenges and tragedies of life. Only deep trust can hold up.

All cultures in human history have believed in God and an afterlife in eternity. There is an interesting story told about the parents of a small child who had lost their faith in God. They had become resolute atheists. When the child was old enough they felt that it was time to share with him that they no longer believed in God. After listening quietly for thirty minutes to their explanations for their atheism he solemnly replied: “Does God know that you no longer believe in Him?” It is fascinating to observe that the Bible does not even try to prove the fact of God's reality. It simply asserts what all men know in their hearts, even if their heads temporarily deny the fact. God's comment in Psalm 14:1 dismisses atheism as foolishness: “The fool has said in his heart; there is no God.

My honors thesis project was my first interactive exhibit, in which two facing chairs were activated by a motion sensor when the viewer walked by. One was a cofortable armchair of plush red velvet, with a dildo sticking out of a hole in the seat. When activated, the dildo moved up and down and a strobe light pulsed. The facing chair was hard and uncomfortable, with spikes protruding from the seat, and when the viewer walked by it a dog would bark. The juxtaposition of the two chairs was meant to represent how forces of repression censor the desire for liberation. In that same exhibition, I showed a handmade box in the shape of a cross, decorated with a beautiful painting of the Holy Trinity. The viewer was encouraged to open the box, where they would find a dildo wrapped in the American flag and nailed to a cross-- this was meant to symbolize the hypocrisy and repression that is hidden under the attractive facade of organized religion. The dildo was surrounded by pages from the Bible, which were themselves surrounded by images of the sickness and starvation caused by the embargo in Iraq, a comment on the effects of imposing one culture and religion on another.

Take the oft-repeated injunction to get “its” and “it’s” straight. Everyone claims it’s remarkably easy to remember that “its” is possessive and “it’s” is a contraction. But logic tells us that in English, ’s attached to a noun signals possession: the dog’s dish, the cat’s toy, the lexicographer’s cry. So if English is logical, and there are simple rules to follow, why doesn’t “it’s” signal possession? We know that ’s also signals a contraction, but we don’t have any problems with differentiating between “the dog’s dish” and “the dog’s sleeping”—why should we suddenly have problems with “it’s dish” and “it’s sleeping”? This type of grammar often completely ignores hundreds (and, in some cases, well over a thousand) years of established use in English. For “it’s,” the rule is certainly easy to memorize, but it also ignores the history of “its” and “it’s.” At one point in time, “it” was its own possessive pronoun: the 1611 King James Bible reads, “That which groweth of it owne accord…thou shalt not reape”; Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “It had it head bit off by it young.” They weren’t the first: the possessive “it” goes back to the fifteenth century. But around the time that Shakespeare was shuffling off this mortal coil, the possessive “it” began appearing as “it’s.” We’re not sure why the change happened, but some commentators guess that it was because “it” didn’t appear to be its own possessive pronoun, like “his” and “her,” but rather a bare pronoun in need of that possessive marker given to nouns: ’s. Sometimes this possessive appeared without punctuation as “its.” But the possessive “it’s” grew in popularity through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until it was the dominant form of the word. It even survived into the nineteenth century: you’ll find it in the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Jane Austen and the speechwriting notes of Abraham Lincoln. This would be relatively simple were it not for the fact that “it’s” was also occasionally used as a contraction for “it is” or “it has” (“and it’s come to pass,” Shakespeare wrote in Henry VIII, 1.2.63). Some grammarians noticed and complained—not that the possessive “it’s” and the contractive “it’s” were confusing, but that the contractive “it’s” was a misuse and mistake for the contraction “ ’tis,” which was the more standard contraction of “it is.” This was a war that the pedants lost: “ ’tis” waned while “it’s” waxed.

October 25 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 SEE how the Bible opens: “In the beginning God.” Let your life open in the same way. Seek with your whole soul, first and foremost, the kingdom of God, as the place of your citizenship, and his righteousness as the character of your life. As for the rest, it will come from the Lord himself without your being anxious concerning it. All that is needful for this life and godliness “shall be added unto you.” What a promise this is! Food, raiment, home, and so forth, God undertakes to add to you while you seek him. You mind his business, and he will mind yours. If you want paper and string, you get them given in when you buy more important goods; and just so all that we need of earthly things we shall have thrown in with the kingdom. He who is an heir of salvation shall not die of starvation; and he who clothes his soul with the righteousness of God cannot be left of the Lord with a naked body. Away with carking care. Set all your mind upon seeking the Lord. Covetousness is poverty, and anxiety is misery: trust in God is an estate, and likeness to God is a heavenly inheritance. Lord, I seek thee; be found of me.

Early in my career, I formed a personal motto, one by which I continue to live: If offering a criticism, accompany it with one potential solution. In the case I described, the individual didn’t want to work together to find a solution. Unfortunately, I’ve never found an effective way to deal with adults who exhibit immaturity. The Bible offers a bit of interesting insight that I consider applicable: “Do not eat the bread of a selfish man, or desire his delicacies; for as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says to you, ‘Eat and drink!’ but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the morsel you have eaten, and waste your compliments. Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words” (Proverbs 23:6-9). The Bible also says, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Romans 12:18). It saddens me to say, but in that individual’s case, peace meant limiting my interactions with him. To foster peace, I stopped saying hello in the mornings. Not out of spite, but because friendly conversation led to comfort, and comfort, I noticed, opened the door for negative comments. Rarely do I take such an extreme measure, but sometimes distance is helpful. His visits ended. My peace and fervor began to reemerge.

One of my best friends is LinDee Loveland, who is a Bible teacher at OCS and the children’s minister at our church. She and another friend and teacher, Mrs. Rita, were there at the hospital with us. As soon as they heard that everything had gone well, the two of them gathered all of Mia’s cousins together. “Missy, what’s Mia’s room number?” LinDee asked. I rattled it off, then quickly caught up with Jase, who was heading to the recovery room. We spent an hour in the recovery room with Mia, and when she was ready to be moved to her regular hospital room, Jase and I walked beside her gurney. When we walked into her room, I burst into tears. Mia’s room was beautiful! Several weeks before Mia’s scheduled surgery, Mrs. LinDee had asked the children at church to make snowflakes that would be given to a child who needed some encouragement. Mia even made one herself and signed it. “Each individual snowflake is special, and no two are alike,” Mrs. LinDee told them. “It’s the same way with us,” she shared. “No two people are alike. God makes everyone unique and special, with a purpose designed to glorify Him.” Later, when Mia wasn’t there, she asked all the children to make cards for Mia. When LinDee and the cousins scooted out of the waiting room, they went straight to Mia’s room and hung up the cards and the snowflakes all over her room. Mia was awake by the time she got back to her room, and when she saw the decorations, she literally oohed and ahhed. Dr. Sperry and Dr. Genecov both made the same comment when they visited Mia later. “I’ve never seen a room like this! This is the most decorated room that’s ever been in this hospital!” And Dr. Sperry summed it up beautifully: “Wow, somebody must really love you.” Having a room decorated means so much to a child--and maybe even more to a child’s parents. The fact that so many of Mia’s friends had created such exquisite, handmade snowflakes and worked so hard to make cards for her, and that Mrs. LinDee, Mrs. Rita, and all the cousins surprised us with the final display, spoke volumes to me about the way people loved Mia and our family. That expression of creativity was not only beautiful, it also touched my heart deeply.

(3) Theology of Exodus: A Covenant People “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod 6:7). When God first demanded that the Egyptian Pharaoh let Israel leave Egypt, he referred to Israel as “my … people.” Again and again he said those famous words to Pharaoh, Let my people go.56 Pharaoh may not have known who Yahweh was,57 but Yahweh certainly knew Israel. He knew them not just as a nation needing rescue but as his own people needing to be closely bound to him by the beneficent covenant he had in store for them once they reached the place he was taking them to himself, out of harm's way, and into his sacred space.58 To be in the image of God is to have a job assignment. God's “image”59 is supposed to represent him on earth and accomplish his purposes here. Reasoning from a degenerate form of this truth, pagan religions thought that an image (idol) in the form of something they fashioned would convey to its worshipers the presence of a god or goddess. But the real purpose of the heavenly decision described in 1:26 was not to have a humanlike statue as a representative of God on earth but to have humans do his work here, as the Lord's Prayer asks (“your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” Matt 6:10). Although the fall of humanity as described in Genesis 3 corrupted the ability of humans to function properly in the image of God, the divine plan of redemption was hardly thwarted. It took the form of the calling of Abraham and the promises to him of a special people. In both Exod 6:6–8 and 19:4–6 God reiterates his plan to develop a people that will be his very own, a special people that, in distinction from all other peoples of the earth, will belong to him and accomplish his purposes, being as Exod 19:6 says “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Since the essence of holiness is belonging to God, by belonging to God this people became holy, reflecting the character of their Lord as well as being obedient to his purposes. No other nation in the ancient world ever claimed Yahweh as its God, and Yahweh never claimed any other nation as his people. This is not to say that he did not love and care for other nations60 but only to say that he chose Israel as the focus of his plan of redemption for the world. In the New Testament, Israel becomes all who will place faith in Jesus Christ—not an ethnic or political entity at all but now a spiritual entity, a family of God. Thus the New Testament speaks of the true Israel as defined by conversion to Christ in rebirth and not by physical birth at all. But in the Old Covenant, the true Israel was the people group that, from the various ethnic groups that gathered at Sinai, agreed to accept God's covenant and therefore to benefit from this abiding presence among them (see comments on Exod 33:12–24:28). Exodus is the place in the Bible where God's full covenant with a nation—as opposed to a person or small group—emerges, and the language of Exod 6:7, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God,” is language predicting that covenant establishment.61

He was but three-and-twenty, and had only just learned what it is to love—­to love with that adoration which a young man gives to a woman whom he feels to be greater and better than himself. Love of this sort is hardly distinguishable from religious feeling. What deep and worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or art or music. Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic statues, or Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression into silence, our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery. And this blessed gift of venerating love has been given to too many humble craftsmen since the world began for us to feel any surprise that it should have existed in the soul of a Methodist carpenter half a century ago, while there was yet a lingering after-glow from the time when Wesley and his fellow-labourer fed on the hips and haws of the Cornwall hedges, after exhausting limbs and lungs in carrying a divine message to the poor. That afterglow has long faded away; and the picture we are apt to make of Methodism in our imagination is not an amphitheatre of green hills, or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores, where a crowd of rough men and weary-hearted women drank in a faith which was a rudimentary culture, which linked their thoughts with the past, lifted their imagination above the sordid details of their own narrow lives, and suffused their souls with the sense of a pitying, loving, infinite Presence, sweet as summer to the houseless needy. It is too possible that to some of my readers Methodism may mean nothing more than low-pitched gables up dingy streets, sleek grocers, sponging preachers, and hypocritical jargon—­elements which are regarded as an exhaustive analysis of Methodism in many fashionable quarters. That would be a pity; for I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were anything else than Methodists—­not indeed of that modern type which reads quarterly reviews and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes, but of a very old-fashioned kind. They believed in present miracles, in instantaneous conversions, in revelations by dreams and visions; they drew lots, and sought for Divine guidance by opening the Bible at hazard; having a literal way of interpreting the Scriptures, which is not at all sanctioned by approved commentators; and it is impossible for me to represent their diction as correct, or their instruction as liberal. Still—­if I have read religious history aright—­faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords, and it is possible—­thank Heaven!—­to have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings. The raw bacon which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may carry it to her neighbour’s child to “stop the fits,” may be a piteously inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost. Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth beneath our sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the loftier sorrows of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of heroes riding fiery horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery passions.

When I shared her story with the other leaders that evening, one of them commented, “That just goes to show that intellectually, a person can have all the head knowledge of the Bible and Christianity, but sometimes people stop short of truly knowing Jesus.

Introduction This book is devoted to the blessed Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Daily working together as unified Godhead for our best interest. Would be incomplete without Jesus direct love bestowed upon me, through a perpetual act of faith in God. Fully trusting Jesus to lead me into a carefully laid-out plan. Dedicating this book to my children: Faith is 6, Christian 11, Christina 12 years old. Izzabella, my niece, is also featured in the story, Sally Saved Three Times. These Children are the inspiration for the characters in the stories. Added some personal experiences acquired during my childhood. Appreciate the support of my Mom, Dad, brother, Jacob, for being here for me the last five years. They helped me through hard circumstances when I needed them the most. Thank You! My second family is at the Erie Wesleyan Methodist Church on the corner of 29th and Liberty. They covered my life with prayer; great friends from the Lord; Supporting me on my journey towards my heavenly home. I am also thankful for Mike Lawrence who encouraged me to keep writing. Thanks, brother! This spectacular close friend of mine wrote the Forward of this book. He is God-given for moral support and prayer. Friends forever from Erie, Pennsylvania! There are scripture references, along with Bible lessons featured in each story. These short stories are ideal for devotions or bedtime stories. Suitable for parents and grandparents to read to children, grandchildren. Forward It is rare today to find Christians who are in love with doing the Lord's service. Many would sit to the side and let others bush-wack the path, but Bryan has always been the one who delights in making the way clear for others. His determination, commitment to producing these writings was encouraging to watch come to fruition. Take time now see for yourself how God is directing these works to provide something sincere, pure, innocent for families to enjoy. A pleasant respite from a sin-sick world. So, please, feel free to find a quiet place today and enjoy them alone or with your family. This body of work calls upon us to take time to be holy. I believe with all my heart that this is the authors intent, the Lord's plan, my hearts prayer that they bless you as much as they have blessed me. May God bless the time and energies sacrificed by the author in its production. Sincerely in Christ, Michael Lawrence. When writing with Shirley Dye on messenger about editing the book, she commented that this book would be a blessing to many people. That is my solemn humble prayer. Short Story Content 1. Mr. B.G. (My Testimony) 2. Trevor Wins Three Times 3. Winning The Man ON Rock-Hill 4. Sally Saved Three Times 5. Jonathan and Family Find God 6. Upright and Prideful Key Text, (Matthew 18:3), “And (Jesus) said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

For those seeking an alternative to Jordan Peterson’s dark vision of the world, questionable approach to truth and knowledge, and retreat to religion, they will find the answer in Bertrand Russell, whose essays on religion seem to, at times, be speaking directly to Peterson himself. Here’s the final paragraph from Russell’s essay Why I Am Not a Christian: "WHAT WE MUST DO We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world—its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is, and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create. Russell wishes to replace fear, religion, and dogma with free-thinking, intelligence, courage, knowledge, and kindness. To believe something because it is seen to be useful, rather than true, is intellectually dishonest to the highest degree. And, as Russell points out elsewhere, he can’t recall a single verse in the Bible that praises intelligence. Here’s Russell in another essay, titled Can Religion Cure Our Troubles: Mankind is in mortal peril, and fear now, as in the past, is inclining men to seek refuge in God. Throughout the West there is a very general revival of religion. Nazis and Communists dismissed Christianity and did things which we deplore. It is easy to conclude that the repudiation of Christianity by Hitler and the Soviet Government is at least in part the cause of our troubles and that if the world returned to Christianity, our international problems would be solved. I believe this to be a complete delusion born of terror. And I think it is a dangerous delusion because it misleads men whose thinking might otherwise be fruitful and thus stands in the way of a valid solution. The question involved is not concerned only with the present state of the world. It is a much more general question, and one which has been debated for many centuries. It is the question whether societies can practise a sufficient modicum of morality if they are not helped by dogmatic religion. I do not myself think that the dependence of morals upon religion is nearly as close as religious people believe it to be. I even think that some very important virtues are more likely to be found among those who reject religious dogmas than among those who accept them. I think this applies especially to the virtue of truthfulness or intellectual integrity. I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organised beliefs.

In effect, the Evangelist is saying to the Roman world: Caesar is neither the beginning of the gospel (or good news) for the world, nor God’s son; Messiah Jesus is. As such, Mark’s opening words directly challenge the Roman emperor cult (see comments on Mark 15:39 below) and offer a powerful apologetic in support of the Christian movement and its faith in Jesus.

Matthew’s Gospel reflects the difficulty that Jews had in understanding their distinctiveness in God’s program along with the inclusion of Gentiles. Jesus’ ministry to Jews throughout his ministry was a fulfillment of the promises to Israel of messianic blessings (see comments on 10:5–15, 23). But throughout his ministry Jesus had increasingly revealed that now was the time to include Gentiles as well (see comments on 8:5–13; 10:16–22). This concluding commission of Jesus’ earthly ministry coheres with Jesus’ intention to include Gentiles, which is soon reemphasized in the book of Acts in his charge to the disciples before his ascension: “you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). During his earthly ministry Jesus’ followers struggled to comprehend how Israel could retain its distinctiveness in God’s program, yet include Gentiles in the kingdom that Jesus was establishing. And that difficulty remained in the early church. A significant breakthrough came with the vision from the Lord to Peter to go to the Gentile centurion Cornelius with the gospel (Acts 10:1–48). The early church continued to struggle with the inclusion of Gentiles (Acts 11:1–18; 15:1–6) until Peter and the other leaders of the church finally acknowledged that God’s intention was that the church was to be made up of disciples of all the nations, Jews and Gentiles alike (Acts 15:7–29).

Eng Seng was asked how many people were singing on Christmas eve. He replied that it was dark and even though there was light in the sky, he could not see people singing. He said the bible said there were angels singing and he supposed the angels were singing on Christmas eve! ...He was asked who organised the singing. He replied that, like what was stated in the bible, he followed a star and he supposed the others too followed the star. No one organised the singing. On spotting a dead moth on the floor, Eng Seng remarked to the officer partly in Hokkien: "By the way, er, you suay (bad luck) already. Moths die on the floor. You suay, I also suay, got to see you on New Year's Day." The officer asked if he believed in those things and he replied, "Yeah, moths live outside. Why come in to die!" No amount of questioning from the officer could elucidate any intelligent response from my brother! The officer was frustrated...brought him to see his superior. The minute the door to the superior's office was opened, Eng Seng exclaimed: "Wa tua liap liao! (So big shot already!)" The superior officer asked: "Do I know you?" He replied "Tua liap liao, how you know me small fly?" After a few more senseless comments, the superior officer told the officer to take him away. He was allowed home.

Jesus was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled at Lazarus’s death. He even wept (vv. 33–35). It is not the weeping people but the tomb that evoked these intense emotions of aversion and sorrow.6 He was staring death in the face. Calvin comments, “Christ does not come to the sepulcher as an idle spectator, but like a wrestler preparing for the contest. Therefore no wonder that he groans again, for the violent tyranny of death that He had to overcome stands before His eyes.

It’s good to want to be physically fit. I want to be spiritually fit also. That means taking time to read my Bible. And you know what? It’s a great read. Our pastor commented one Sunday that there’s good stuff in there, and he’s right. Being spiritually fit also means making time for prayer and for service to others.

Biblical commentators [say that] the first six days of Genesis were six 24-hour days. This means that whoever was in charge recorded the passage of 24 hours per day. But who was there to measure the passage of time? Until Adam appeared on day six, God was watching the clock. And that is the key.

Commenting on the crew’s Christmas Eve reading from Genesis, he looked down at the justices of the Supreme Court—a court barely seven years removed from having ruled prayer in the classroom unconstitutional—and said, “But now that I see the gentlemen in the front row, I’m not sure we should have read from the Bible at all.

To the Cedar Falls legalists, if God’s word could come that way 10,000 years ago, there was no reason to believe it couldn’t come that way now. So when Vicki decided her family would follow Old Testament law and stop eating unclean meat like pork and oysters (“The Lord says, ‘Don’t eat it’—He knows it’s got trichonomas and isn’t good for your body,” Vicki wrote to a friend), no one in the group thought she’d come about the decision from anywhere but Scripture and His divine will. There would be anywhere from four to ten people at the Weavers’ house, sometimes as often as four nights a week. Randy led the Bible study most of the time, but everyone read chapters and commented on what they might mean. Vicki was clearly the scripturalist and scholar of the group. It was as if she had memorized the whole thing, from Genesis to Revelation, Acts to Zechariah. They read only the King James Version of the Bible, because Vicki said other translations weren’t divinely inspired and were pagan-influenced. By 1981, the Old Testament books were opening up for Randy and Vicki, not as outdated stories, but as the never-ending law of the Maker. He was opening their eyes to what was happening now, in the United States, just as Hal Lindsey had foretold. The forces of evil (the Soviet Union, the U.S. government, Jewish bankers) were ready to strike at any time against American people. From Ezekiel, they read: “Son of man [Christian Americans], set thy face against Gog [the grand conspiracy] … “Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company [their Bible study group] that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword [somewhere in the American West], and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains [the Rockies] of Israel [the United States], which have been always waste [the desolate mountains of Montana? Colorado?

November 30 Familiar Well acquainted with; knowing by frequent use One of the reasons we lose our joy and the freshness and newness of things is familiarity. That simply means we get so accustomed to something we no longer see how special it is. It’s like the mother who started reading the Bible to her young son. A few weeks later they were reading from the Gospel of John. When she read John 3:16, her son commented, “Oh, I know this. This is an old one.” Being familiar with a Scripture can do that to us. We can know it so well we feel we know all there is to know about it. It’s the same with the blessings and joys we experience in life. We need to make an effort not to take those things for granted. If we will determine to daily be in awe of God, His Word and His Presence in our lives, we will avoid the trap of familiarity. Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [one of] all His benefits. PSALM 103:2

One such “mild attack” was a translation change in the Bible that largely went unnoticed by most people, yet many, including certain scholars, fell “hook, line, and sinker” for it. When the word “dragon” was changed to “jackals” (or something else other than dragons), precious few comments were given for the change. That is, this change was done with little defense or rebuttal against it!

Adam Clarke (1762–1832) was a respected Wesleyan/Methodist pastor, biblical scholar, and commentator whom I’ve referenced many times over the past years. Adam Clarke actually mentioned “dragons” several times in his Bible commentary. However, in Ezekiel 29:39 he clarifies what he really means by “dragon,” saying: The great dragon hattannim should here be translated crocodile, as that is a real animal, and numerous in the Nile; whereas the dragon is wholly fabulous. The original signifies any large animal.

The Hebrew word owph, that we normally translate as “bird” in Genesis 1 and Genesis 7, means creatures with wings. This obviously includes birds (the predominant type here) but also other winged creatures — such as bats, flightless birds, flying reptiles, etc. For example, ostriches and bats are included under this word owph in Leviticus 11. Most commentators recognize that Genesis 7:3 (see above), “seven each of the birds of the air,” is tied to the backdrop of clean creatures in Genesis 7:2 (see above). Verse 2 lists all animals coming onboard the ark in two categories — clean and unclean — and how many of each. When verse 3 immediately after that lists 7, it is discussing a subgroup of the clean animals, otherwise, verse 2 is in error. However, contextually, this doesn’t mean all winged/flying creatures came by 7 but instead limited to 7 of the clean ones. Pteranodons and pterodactyls are not among the clean creatures defined per the Bible (Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14). For instance, Leupold writes: In v. 3 the idea of “the birds of the heavens” must, of course, be supplemented by the adjective “clean,” according to the principle laid down in v. 2.24 Likewise, Dr. John Gill, who agrees when discussing the birds, writes: That is, of such as were clean; seven couple of these were to be brought into the ark, for the like use as of the clean beasts, and those under the law.

The Bible assumes that we do not know instinctively how to talk with God but rather need some help with knowing how to do so. The Psalter is the Bible’s book of praise and prayer to provide the answer to those questions and meet that need. It is given to us so that we can “adapt and adjust our minds and feelings so that they are in accord with the sense of the psalms.”Eugene Peterson thus comments that the Psalms are where Christians have always learned to pray—till our age!

Michael Horton comments, “Created in God’s image yet fallen into sin, we have our identity shaped by the movement of this dramatic story from promise to fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

The texts of the Bible, of the Iliad and Odyssey, and of the Rig-veda and Avesta, as we have them, have been modified, edited, and redacted by compilers and redactors with varied motives and diverse points of view. Not so our Sumerian literature; it has come down to us as actually inscribed by the ancient scribes of four thousand years ago, unmodified and uncodified by later compilers and commentators.

The verb is present tense, “I do not know a man.” The passage does not say “I have pledged never to know a man” or “I will never know a man”; and (3) Even Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott recognizes that the idea of a vow of virginity, made popular by Augustine (four centuries after the time of Christ), cannot be made to fit the context. “However, the subsequent espousals can hardly be reconciled with this” is his comment.[8] Ott is correct: the idea of a “married virgin” as Keating puts it is an oxymoron. Matthew speaks of the time “before they came together,” which is what would really make no sense if there was no intention of entering into a real marital relationship. The idea of a married virgin is simply out of harmony with the Bible’s teaching concerning the nature of marriage (let alone Jewish custom of the day). As Paul taught (1 Cor. 7), there is a marital debt involved (v. 3)[9] that would preclude the idea of a married virgin: the man’s body is not his own, but is his wife’s, and vice-versa. Sexual relations are completely natural in the married state, and, in fact, are assumed if a true marriage exists. If a person wishes to be a virgin, she should remain unmarried.[10] The idea of a virgin entering into an engagement with a man, even though she intends to remain celibate, is simply an attempt to make the biblical evidence support a doctrine created long after the apostles had finished writing Scripture.

Wish there were a “good news” channel? I usually have news stations humming in the background to keep up with worldwide events, but that constant white noise is sometimes like a cloud descending on the home. I defined for Piper the term “pet peeve” a few years ago. “Got it, Mom,” she responded. “My ‘pet peeve’ then is Fox News.” Yikes. I turned the volume down after that one slapped me upside the head. From crazy politicians pushing treaties with terrorist nations to thugs trashing neighborhood Walgreens in the name of “free speech,” bad news is exhausting. Some days it would be nice just to hear about Joe Six Pack and his hardworking family and his kid who got an “A” in Algebra today. Jesus tells of weeds thrown by the enemy into a field of good seed. Those weeds remind me of all the bad news we hear about in the media. As the time draws nearer to the return of Jesus, the Bible says the hearts of man will become increasingly hardened and they will refuse to repent of their crimes (Rev. 9:21). Sorcery, murder, immorality, and theft will rise, while at the same time God’s followers are called to stand firm in righteousness. Both the good seed and the bad seed will grow to fullness, until the final harvest of the “wheat.” At the great harvest, according to the Word, the Lord will take up the weeds to burn them, while gathering the wheat unto Him. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, stand strong in the midst of weeds; mute the droning on and on of constant bad news; and anticipate that this era’s closing comments get very good for believers!

Inappropriate level of politeness – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person interjects an overly polite or unexpectedly kind or complimentary comment directed at the questioner when responding to a question. Example: Uncharacteristic use of “sir” or “ma’am” when responding to a particular question. Inappropriate question – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person responds with a question that doesn’t directly relate to the question that’s asked. Inconsistent statement – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person makes a statement that is inconsistent with what he said previously, without explaining why the story has changed. Interrogation – See Elicitation. Interview – A means of establishing a dialogue with a person to collect information that he has no reason to want to withhold. Invoking religion – A verbal deceptive behavior in which a person makes a reference to God or religion as a means of “dressing up the lie” before presenting it. Example: “I swear on a stack of Bibles, I wouldn’t do anything like that.” Leading question – A question that contains the answer that the questioner is looking for. Legitimacy statement – A statement within a monologue that is designed to explain the purpose or reasoning behind what the interrogator is conveying.

If I were the devil (please, no comment), one of my first aims would be to stop folk from digging into the Bible. Knowing that it is the Word of God, teaching people to know and love and serve the God of the Word, I should do all I could to surround it with the spiritual equivalent of pits, thorn hedges and traps, to frighten people off.

This is further underscored by Jesus' disciples' comment in Matt 16:14 that some think Jesus is John the Baptist (presumably raised from the dead; see Matt 14:1; see Mark 6:14) and is made even more clear by Jesus' clarification that “Elijah has already come, and they didn't recognize him. On the contrary, they did whatever they pleased to him. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” (Matt 17:12). The teachers of the Law insisted that Elijah had to come first (presumably on the basis of passages such as Mal 3:1–2), so that the time had not yet come

Matthew 8:26, NLT Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. Mark 4:39-40, NLT When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Setting the Scene Both Mark and Luke record the sequence of Jesus’ response to the impassioned plea of the disciples as miracle first, comment after. Matthew tells us Jesus questioned their faith and then spoke to the wind and waves. The order is probably not significant, since Jesus may have spoken with the men before and after the miracle. But Matthew, who was present in the boat, seems to capture more vividly the style Jesus usually used with his disciples. The thinking and the challenge came first, followed by the miracle. As we’ve already seen in the incident with the lame man lowered through the roof, Jesus said what needed to be said and then confirmed his words with a miracle (see Mark 2:1-12). Jesus asked a question and then made a statement: “Why are you afraid?” and “You have so little faith!” Fears deserve to be questioned. We ought to ask ourselves regularly, “Why am I afraid?” If we never doubt our fears, they will control us. As we have already learned this week, some fears are legitimate, and some fears are not. Sometimes we don’t need to be afraid. When we are with Jesus, we don’t have to fear. When fear is in control, faith is stifled. Acting fearfully is not acting faithfully. Jesus’ question wasn’t directed toward the disciples’ feelings but their actions. The problem arises when we give in to fear and make it the basis of our decisions—which is what the disciples were doing. They needed faith—as Jesus pointed out. Faith doesn’t ignore feelings; it simply refuses to obey them. Getting Personal What is your usual strategy for handling fear? To what degree are your choices determined by fear? When did you last act in faith in the face of fear? What was the outcome? Acknowledging fears can be an important first step in disabling their influence. The psalm writer had a great thought when he wrote, “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you” (Psalm 56:3, NLT). What you do before and after you are afraid can be as important as no longer being afraid. Talking to God In prayer today, identify areas of worry and fear. Thank God that he is aware of each one and that, in love, he is working to protect and preserve you.

by the Draft Committee. The present text makes clear exactly what the Council affirmed and denied. Obviously, those who signed the articles do not necessarily concur in every interpretation advocated by the commentary. Not even the members of the Draft Committee are bound by this, and perhaps not even Dr. Sproul, since his text underwent certain editorial revisions. However, this commentary represents an effort at making clear the precise position of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy as a whole. In the editing process, we strove to take account of the comments that were forwarded to us. In some cases, we could not concur with those who made comments, and therefore the

Sproul. These were discussed in a number of ways by groups of delegates from the Advisory Board and in various partial and plenary sessions at the summit. Furthermore, written comments were solicited and received in considerable numbers. A Draft Committee composed of Drs. Clowney,

commentators often pronounce with unerring confidence that a particular phrase is a pre-Pauline formula, when often the matter is far from clear.

Comme le Christianisme, l'Islam enseigne que Jésus n'a pas eu de père humain, qu'il est « Parole de Dieu », qu'il est né d'une Vierge et que lui et cette Vierge-Mère ont le privilège unique de ne pas avoir été « touchés par le diable » au moment de leur naissance, ce qui indique l'Immaculée Conception ; comme il est impossible même au point de vue musulman que tous ces privilèges incomparables n'aient une signification secondaire, qu'ils ne se soient produits qu'« en passant » et sans laisser de traces décisives, les chrétiens se demanderont comment les musulmans peuvent sans contradiction concilier cette sublimité avec la foi en un Prophète subséquent. Pour le comprendre, - tout argument métaphysique mis à part, - il faut tenir compte de ceci: le Monothéisme intégral comporte deux lignées distinctes, israélite l'une et ismaélienne l'autre ; or, alors que dans la lignée israélite Abraham se trouve pour ainsi dire renouvelé ou remplacé par Moïse, - la Révélation sinaïtique étant comme un second commencement du Monothéisme, - Abraham reste toujours le Révélateur primordiale et unique pour les fils d'Ismaël. Le miracle sinaïtique appelait le miracle messianique ou christique : c'est le Christ qui, à un certain point de vue, clôt la lignée mosaïque et clôt la Bible, glorieusement et irrévocablement. Mais ce cycle allant de Moïse à Jésus, ou du Sinaï à l'Ascension, n'englobe précisément pas tout le Monothéisme : la lignée ismaélienne, et toujours abrahamique, se situait en dehors de ce cycle et restait en quelque sorte disponible ; elle appelait à son tour un achèvement glorieux, de caractère non sinaïtique et christique, mais abrahamique et mohammédien, et en un certain sens « désertique » et « nomade »

The International Herald Tribune reported on April 21, 2006, that the “crumbling mud-brick buildings” in the area Hussein was trying to re-build in Babylon, “look like smashed sandcastles at the beach. The newspaper observed that Babylon had been “ransacked, looted, torn up, paved over, neglected and roughly occupied…soldiers had even used soil thick with priceless artifacts to stuff sandbags”. The Mayor of a nearby village, Hilla, told the newspaper that he still had hopes that Babylon could someday have “restaurants, gift shops, long parking lots…and maybe even a Holiday Inn.” Iraqi officials are quoted as saying they would still like to turn Babylon into “a cultural center and possibly even an Iraqi theme park.” In spite of this, one Bible commentator wrote recently, that it was “enormously significant” that the U.S. had agreed to invest $700,000 (that’s thousands, not millions or billions – enough to buy a couple of nice houses) into re-building Babylon as a ‘tourist attraction.’ He wrote that ancient Babylon would become “the wealthiest and most powerful city on the face of the planet.” In arriving at this conclusion he has interpreted the Bible’s Daughter of Babylon verses as applying to the site of ancient Babylon.

With sin gone, what need of a Savior? What need of theology? What need, finally, of a church? As Sweet comments, “With everything gone, there was little reason for people to stay.”65 Of course, it took a while for the churches to empty out; indeed, it is still happening. But the result should have surprised no one. The more shocking phenomenon is that evangelical churches in many cases are tracking a similar path. Consider how many “conservatives” enjoy Robert Shuller. That brand of “gospel” cannot last. Weigh how many presentations of the gospel have been “eased” by portraying Jesus as the One who fixes marriages, ensures the American dream, cancels loneliness, gives us power, and generally makes us happy. He is portrayed that way primarily because in our efforts to make Jesus appear relevant we have cast the human dilemma in merely contemporary categories, taking our cues from the perceived needs of our day. But if we follow Scripture, and understand that the fundamental needs of the race are irrefragably tied to the Fall, we will follow the Bible as it sets out God’s gracious solution to that fundamental need; and then the gospel we preach will be less skewed by the contemporary agenda. (What this means for our preaching, in practical terms, I will sketch in chapter 12.) To put the matter bluntly: If you begin with perceived needs, you will always distort the gospel. If you begin with the Bible’s definition of our need, relating perceived needs to that central grim reality, you are more likely to retain intact the gospel of God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a well-known theologian who suffered greatly for resisting Hitler’s Germany and was executed just twenty-three days before the Nazis surrendered. Bonhoeffer had much to say about biblical preaching: “Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic.… Do not defend God’s Word, but testify to it.… Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity.”28 Eric Metaxas added the comment, “He wished to impress upon his ordinands that when one truly presented the Word of God, it would undo people because it had the innate power to help them see their own need and would give the answer to that need in a way that was not larded over with ‘religion’ or false piety.’”29

A younger brother of Samuel, Jacob ben Meir, known as Rabbenu Tam was also a Tosafist of marked scholarship and pronounced mental analysis. He was born in 1100 and died 1171. While an exegete of the Bible, he did not come up to his brother Samuel in this particular, but far surpassed him in Talmudic interpretation. Grammatical studies engaged his attention to such an extent that he entered the breach between Menahem ben Saruk and Dunash with a work called, Hakhraot (decisions) in which he protected Menahem against the onslaughts of his critic.

As one writer comments: Mr. Pink's view of the Scriptures, of doctrine and of Christian practice was not the view of many of his contemporary evangelicals. Few men have traveled so widely and yet remained so uninfluenced by prevailing opinions and accepted customs. Independent Bible study convinced him that much of modern evangelism was defective at its foundation; when Puritan and Reformed books were being thrown out, he advanced the majority of their principles with untiring zeal.13 Another writer says that Pink has become more popular today because of the awakening of an interest in the truths he so faithfully presented in his writings.14 That statement certainly has a measure of truth to it, but one also wonders how much Arthur W. Pink was responsible for the above mentioned awakening of interest in these old truths of the past. The present writer has on file numerous letters from pastors, who attribute their theological journey from Arminian theology to Calvinistic theology to A. W. Pink and his influence upon them. These letters are small in number to those who have encountered Biblical truth in a personal way by the means of Pink's writings.

The Hebrew for the words “wild animals” and “hyenas” are not readily identifiable,[10] so the ESV translators simply guessed according to their anti-mythical bias and filled in their translations with naturalistic words like “wild animals” and “hyenas.” But of these words, Bible commentator Hans Wildberger says,   “Whereas (jackals) and (ostriches), mentioned in v. 13, are certainly well-known animals, the creatures that are mentioned in v. 14 cannot be identified zoologically, not because we are not provided with enough information, but because they refer to fairy tale and mythical beings. Siyyim are demons, the kind that do their mischief by the ruins of Babylon, according to [Isaiah] 13:21. They are mentioned along with the iyyim (goblins) in this passage.[11]

•A candidate running for president in 2012 referred to higher education as “mind control” and “indoctrination.” He ran again in 2016.         •A former Governor and 2012 presidential contender blamed the separation of church and state on Satan. He also sought to solve his state’s drought problem by asking its citizens to pray for rain. He ran again in 2016.         •A 2012 presidential contender claimed, “there’s violence in Israel because Jesus is coming soon.”         •A Georgia congressman claimed that evolution and the Big Bang Theory were “lies straight from the pit of Hell,” adding “Earth is about 9,000 years old and was created in six days, per the Bible.” He’s a physician, and a high-ranking member of the House Science Committee.         •From another member of the House Science Committee: “Prehistoric climate change could have been caused by dinosaur flatulence.”         •From the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee: “Global warming isn’t real, God is in control of the world.”         •A former Speaker of the House -- a born-again Christian, and convicted felon – declared, “One thing Americans seem to forget is that God wrote the Constitution.”         •The Lt. Governor of a southern state claimed that Yoga may result in satanic possession.         •A Southern senator claimed, “video games represent a bigger problem than guns, because video games affect people.”         •A California state representative proudly stated: “Guns are used to defend our property and our families and our freedom, and they are absolutely essential to living the way God intended for us to live.”         •Another California representative suggested that abortion was to blame for the state’s drought.         •From a Texas representative: “The great flood is an example of climate change. And that certainly wasn’t because mankind overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”         •An Oklahoma representative said: “Just because the Supreme Court rules on something doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s constitutional.”         •From another Texas representative: “We know Al Qaeda has camps on the Mexican border. We have people that are trained to act Hispanic when they are radical Islamists.”         •A South Carolina State representative, commenting on the Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage said, “The devil is taking control of this land and we’re not stopping him!

He had never publicly supported or criticized the Ku Klux Klan. He had never defended, opposed, or even acknowledged the legacy of racial oppression in the South. He had never commented on the Jim Crow laws in Texas or preached on what the Bible might have to say about racial injustice. It would have been almost unthinkable for him to express an opinion about such matters. This was true first because his concentrated and only objective was to win souls to Jesus so they could be saved from a fiery eternity in the pit of a literal Hell. And secondly it was true because to do so—in the prevailing atmosphere of Texas and the fundamentalist movement nationally—would subject him to the most bitter and withering attacks from his own constituency. John R. Rice could not possibly offer a critique of racial oppression in the white South without destroying his own ministry and undercutting his movement’s support for The Sword of the Lord.

«Nous sommes la descendance d’Abraham et nous n’avons jamais été esclaves de personne. Comment peux-tu dire: ‘Vous deviendrez libres’?» 34«En vérité, en vérité, je vous le dis, leur répliqua Jésus, toute personne qui commet le péché est esclave du péché.

A believer twists the Bible to fit his or her lifestyle. A follower works to make his or her lifestyle resemble the teachings of the Bible. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction. (2 Peter 3:16)

•    Be an intentional blessing to someone. Devote yourself to caring for others. Even when your own needs begin to dominate your attention, set aside time daily to tune in to others. Pray for their specific needs and speak blessings to those you encounter each day. Make them glad they met you.     •    Seek joy. Each morning ask yourself, “Where will the joy be today?” and then look for it. Look high and low—in misty sunbeams, your favorite poem, the kind eyes of your caretaker, dew-touched spiderwebs, fluffy white clouds scuttling by, even extra butterflies summoned by heaven just to make you smile.     •    Prepare love notes. When energy permits, write, videotape, or audiotape little messages of encouragement to children, grandchildren, and friends for special occasions in their future. Reminders of your love when you won’t be there to tell them yourself. Enlist the help of a friend or family member to present your messages at the right time, labeled, “For my granddaughter on her wedding day,” “For my beloved friend’s sixty-fifth birthday,” or “For my dear son and daughter-in-law on their golden anniversary.”     •    Pass on your faith. Purchase a supply of Bibles and in the front flap of each one, write a personal dedication to the child or grandchild, friend, or neighbor you intend to give it to. Choose a specific book of the Bible (the Gospels are a great place to start) and read several chapters daily, writing comments in the margin of how this verse impacted your life or what that verse means to you. Include personal notes or prayers for the recipient related to highlighted scriptures. Your words will become a precious keepsake of faith for generations to come. (*Helpful hint: A Bible with this idea in mind might make a thoughtful gift for a loved one standing at the threshold of eternity. Not only will it immerse the person in the comforting balm of scripture, but it will give him or her a very worthwhile project that will long benefit those he or she loves.)     •    Make love your legacy. Emily Dickinson said, “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” Ask yourself, “What will people remember most about me?” Meditate on John 15:12: “Love each other as I have loved you” (NIV). Tape it beside your bed so it’s the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see in the morning.     •    “Remember that God loves you and will see you through it.

13:4–7 In the previous comments (vv.1–3), the focus is on the emptiness produced when love is absent from ministry. In these verses, the fullness of love is described, in each case by what love does. Love is action, not abstraction. Positively, love is patient with people and gracious to them with generosity. Negatively, love never envies, or brags, or is arrogant, since that is the opposite of

Comment fonder notre crédibilité si, à notre époque de relativisme, nous collaborons avec des hommes dont les ouvrages et le discours établissent très clairement qu’ils ne croient rien (ou presque) du contenu de la Bible?19

The Isaac stories open (cf. v.11) with a final statement regarding the line of Ishmael, consisting of a genealogy of the twelve leaders of Ishmael’s clan, a report of the length of his life, and a report of his death. The number twelve appears again to be a deliberate attempt to set these individuals off as founders of a new and separate people (see comment on 22:20 – 24). The descendants of Ishmael continue to play a part in Genesis (28:9; 36:3; 37:27 – 28; 39:1).

The Ten Commandments As Interpreted by Robin Palmetier 1. Don’t lie. Unless it’s to the police. 2. Don’t cheat your customers. Robin always made sure her dime bags were just a bit larger than any other dealers’ in the area, insuring loyalty in her clientele. 3. Always be polite. Especially to people who don’t like you, as it will piss them off. 4. Don’t steal from anyone. Anyone meaning people, leaving corporations and the IRS fair game. 5. Don’t kill. This one was also on the Bible’s list but, like many Christians, Robin had a long list of exceptions to this rule. It was okay to kill sexual predators (unless they were born-again while serving time), liberal commentators, and anyone described as a "bad guy" by the greatest journalist and political leader of all time, Box News commentator Malcolm Wright. Unless, of course, Mr. Wright happened to be talking about one of her personal friends, which, on occasion, he had. 6. Do not take the Lord’s name in vein. Shit, fuck, cock, pussy, bitch, bastard and their ilk were just fine. Goddamn’s and Jesus Christ’s were no-no’s. 7. Always repay a favor with a favor. Someone does something nice for you, do something nice right back. Being in someone’s debt is a dangerous thing. 8. Affirm that every word in the Bible is true, except the parts that clearly aren’t. Like that thing about eating shellfish—though supposedly an abomination on par with adultery, murder, poly-cotton blends and paying interest on a mortgage—it could not possibly be God’s will. Robin loved scallops and knew the good Lord would not wish to deny her this pleasure. 9. Discuss all decisions with God directly and listen closely to his advice. Sadly, when Praline tried this himself he got nothing but an extended silence, while his mother always seemed to get very detailed instructions. 10. Always remember your mama loves you.

This motivation was at work in both Christian and non-Christian circles. We know this because ancient authors actually tell us so. For example, a commentator on the writings of Aristotle, a pagan scholar named David, indicated: “If someone is uninfluential and unknown, yet wants his writing to be read, he writes in the name of someone who came before him and was influential, so that through his influence he can get his work accepted.

Many at first appeared to receive the warning; yet they did not turn to God with true repentance. They were unwilling to renounce their sins. During the time that elapsed before the coming of the Flood, their faith was tested, and they failed to endure the trial. Overcome by the prevailing unbelief, they finally joined their former associates in rejecting the solemn message. Some were deeply convicted, and would have heeded the words of warning; but there were so many to jest and ridicule, that they partook of the same spirit, resisted the invitations of mercy, and were soon among the boldest and most defiant scoffers; for none are so reckless and go to such lengths in sin as do those who have once had light, but have resisted the convicting Spirit of God. PP 95

More than a century later, Athanasius Kircher published his Arca Noë in 1675, with lavish illustrations depicting a rectangular ark of biblical proportions. Kircher ark depiction In 1707, a German Bible had an image of Noah’s ark that also had been carefully considered. Famed Baptist commentator Dr. John Gill included it in his commentary on Genesis in 1748–63.4 The John Gill ark depiction

But if we see happiness in our Bibles, isn’t it self-evident that it’s a God-centered and God-honoring happiness, not a general, secular one? Don’t all Bible readers know that when Scripture speaks of peace, hope, justice, and love, it routinely attaches deeper and more Christ-centered meanings to those words than our culture does? One commentator says that makarios “is a deeper word than ‘happy,’ implying that deep and lasting joy that comes only as a gift from God.”[30] How does using blessed instead of happy convey a deep and lasting joy to readers? Arguably, to the great majority of people, it conveys no joy or happiness at all.

12.14 This day shall be to you one of remembrance: The Torah affirms the central importance of remembering. It may be credited with the invention of collective memory. There are six commandments of remembrance in the Torah: 1. The Sabbath “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy” (Exodus 20: 8). 2. The Exodus “You shall not eat anything leavened with it . . . so that you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt as long as you live” (Deuteronomy 16: 3). 3. Receiving the Law at Sinai “So that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes . . . and make them known to your children and your children’s children, the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb. . . .” (Deuteronomy 4: 9-10) 4. Amalek “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey after you left Egypt, how, undeterred by fear of God he . . . cut down all the stragglers in your rear” (Deuteronomy 25: 17-19). 5. The Golden Calf and other incidents in which the Israelites angered God “Remember, never forget, how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the wilderness” (Deuteronomy 9: 7). 6. God’s punishment of Miriam for speaking ill of Moses “Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the journey after you left Egypt” (Deuteronomy 24: 9—the verse alludes to Miriam and Aaron’s negative comments against Moses in Numbers 12: 1-9).

You know, if you ever dump that bible humper, I really think we’d hit it off,” Kid comments as we walk. I take the opportunity to smack him in the back of the head.

Rather, I agree with Bible commentator Adolf Jülicher that parables have a single point, and the rest is narrative scenery.

pierce. The understanding of this Hebrew verb is problematic. Traditionally translated “pierce,” this Hebrew verb occurs only here, and can only be translated here as “pierce” if it is emended. As it stands, it indicates that the psalmist’s hands and feet are “like a lion” (see NIV text note), which some commentators have interpreted to mean that the psalmist’s hands and feet were trussed up on a stick as a captured lion would be. Unfortunately, despite all the lion hunting scenes that are preserved and described, no lion is shown being transported this way. If a verb is desirable here, a suitable candidate must be found among the related Semitic languages. The most likely one is similar to Akkadian and Syriac cognates that have the meaning “shrink” or “shrivel.” Akkadian medical texts speak of a symptom in which the hands and feet are shrunken. Although Mt 27 uses several other lines from this psalm (e.g., Mt 27:35, 39, 43, 46), Mt 27 is of no help here, because it does not refer to this verse. Since Matthew omits it, he likely did not read the psalm as referring to the piercing of hands and feet.

We are not the first to go this way. In the Jewish tradition, there's a long history of faithful wondering. It's summarized in the midrash, ancient commentaries of the rabbis that contain their speculations about what lies off the page of Scripture, about all the details that didn't make the main scroll. "Midrash" means "study" or "searching out." In the Jewish rabbinical tradition, this type of learning has always been a group effort. "Through communal reading of Scripture with homiletical commentary and translation, community was formed, reformed and advanced," writes Rabbi Burton Visotzky, midrashic expert and Hebrew Bible scholar. "Midrash was to the Rabbis of old the primary means of hearing God's voice speak through the Word of Scripture." Midrash was never meant to concretize one particular understanding of a particular verse or a particular part of Scripture. While it sought to uncover ancient truths, it was also relentlessly open to contextualizing the sacred text for a new generation. "Earlier comments were passed on, modified, retold, so that the Bible became a patchwork quilt of text, with a verse of Scripture at the center and the various interpretations of the verse radiating outward to form the fabric," Visotzky says. "This quilt of scriptural interpretation offered warmth to all who sheltered under it.

Ramayana, Mahabharat, Vedas, Upanishads and rest of Hindu stuffs I have already read and completely finished when I was very early itself but due to so much exploration, I have forgot so many things but my subconscious always shows right way. and whatever is hidden is not for against Hinduism it is a tool against what is actually wrong or bhramastra. Other than Hindu stuffs, I have also read Tamil stuffs, Telugu stuffs, kannada stuffs in many way But I dont comment on them just because of the reasons mentioned below. Buddha, Mahavir stuffs I like but not 100% comfortable. Bible and Kuran also I have read but not completed yet so I can not comment on it completely. Other than these I have also read Latin American, Mayan, Egyptian, illuminati or in any other words about secret societies, Australian aboriginal, unidentified or uncontacted species, Peru, submerged civilizations, ancient gods, Hinduism in ancient time, anchorwat, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro and rest of the things also I have read already but I can not comment on it without solid proofs or at least without talking with those people.

During school recess when I was in second grade, I was swinging on the monkey bars with a couple of girlfriends, and one of the girls said to me, “You’re too fat to swing like me.” It hurt at the time, but I kept playing and forgot about her comment. It didn’t really affect me, and it wasn’t something I shared with my mom when I got home that day. Twenty years later, as I was writing a Bible study on finding freedom from body-image issues and telling my story of a six-year battle with anorexia, I remembered that moment on the monkey bars. And I realized that she was the voice I’d heard for years. It was her words that had started my doubts and fears and worries about my body, and one of her words that I shaped my identity around—fat. Now, it was my choice to believe her words, and I was the one who wrapped myself in those lies for so long. However, it amazed me how such a simple sentence, spoken when I was very young, dramatically affected my life. Words matter.

It is impossible for us to indwell this Story and not assume that narrative’s perspective. Again, that perspective is God’s perspective. It is not our perspective; it is God’s perspective. It is God’s perspective on us, not our perspective on others. Bible readers, especially pastors (and commenters on blogs), inevitably begin to think like God about ourselves and others.

Buy a Ring doorbell if you live in a shitty neighbourhood. Your package will still get stolen but you can post the video on the Ring app and an old lady named Janet will leave a comment about people having no respect for other people’s property since they stopped teaching the Bible in schools.

Commenting on Genesis 1:19–20, Henri Blocher notes, “The French philosopher Condillac (1715–80) held that science was simply an advanced state of language. Language in any case is the form and condition of science, and in language the act of naming is the first and indispensable operation.”52 To name something is to call it out from the flux of the world as a figure, not just a background; it is to recognize in it the dignity of identity. This is the task and the privilege that God sets before Adam.

Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy. —FRANK SINATRA

Vittoria was watching him. “Do you believe in God, Mr. Langdon?” The question startled him. The earnestness in Vittoria’s voice was even more disarming than the inquiry. Do I believe in God? He had hoped for a lighter topic of conversation to pass the trip. A spiritual conundrum, Langdon thought. That’s what my friends call me. Although he studied religion for years, Langdon was not a religious man. He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches, the strength religion gave so many people . . . and yet, for him, the intellectual suspension of disbelief that was imperative if one were truly going to “believe” had always proved too big an obstacle for his academic mind. “I want to believe,” he heard himself say. Vittoria’s reply carried no judgment or challenge. “So why don’t you?” He chuckled. “Well, it’s not that easy. Having faith requires leaps of faith, cerebral acceptance of miracles—immaculate conceptions and divine interventions. And then there are the codes of conduct. The Bible, the Koran, Buddhist scripture . . . they all carry similar requirements—and similar penalties. They claim that if I don’t live by a specific code I will go to hell. I can’t imagine a God who would rule that way.” “I hope you don’t let your students dodge questions that shamelessly.” The comment caught him off guard. “What?” “Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories . . . legends and history of man’s quest to understand his own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are staring up at the work of God’s hand?” Langdon took a long moment to consider it. “I’m prying,” Vittoria apologized. “No, I just . . .” “Certainly you must debate issues of faith with your classes.” “Endlessly.” “And you play devil’s advocate, I imagine. Always fueling the debate.” Langdon smiled. “You must be a teacher too.” “No, but I learned from a master. My father could argue two sides of a Möbius Strip.” Langdon laughed, picturing the artful crafting of a Möbius Strip—a twisted ring of paper, which technically possessed only one side. Langdon had first seen the single-sided shape in the artwork of M. C. Escher.

Among Bible scholars one of the most common interpretations is that being created in the image of God means being given the special role of “representing . . . God’s rule in the world.”8 The Torah’s view is that people are God’s “vice-regents” and “earthly delegates,”9 appointed by God to rule over the world. One traditional Jewish commentator, R. Saadia Gaon (882–942), anticipated this understanding of Genesis, arguing that being created in the image of God means being assigned to rule over creation (Saadia Gaon, commentary to Gen. 1:26).

when we are doers of the word and not hearers only, we shall think much less of self, and esteem others better than ourselves

The early experience of Elisabeth Elliot, widow and biographer of a martyred missionary husband, strikingly illustrates this. Confident of God’s guidance, she went to an Ecuador tribe to reduce their language to writing so that the Bible might be translated for them. The only person who could or would help her was a Spanish-speaking Christian who lived with the tribe, but within a month he was shot dead in an argument. She struggled on with virtually no help for eight months more. Then she moved to another field, leaving her full file of linguistic material with colleagues so that they could carry on where she had left off. Within a fortnight she heard that the file had been stolen. No copy existed; all her work was wasted. That, humanly speaking, was the end of the story. She comments: I simply had to bow in the knowledge that God was his own interpreter. . . . We must allow God to do what he wants to do. And if you are thinking that you know the will of God for your life and you are anxious to do that, you are probably in for a very rude awakening because nobody knows the will of God for his entire life. (Quoted from Eternity, January 1969, p. 18) This is right. Sooner or later, God’s guidance, which brings us out of darkness into light, will also bring us out of light into darkness. It is part of the way of the cross.

Later, she said that life would have been much easier and more spiritually rewarding for her if, instead of channeling her energy and time to discredit Alphonsine and Anathalie, she’d stopped for a moment and really listened to the messages. After one apparition, Marie Claire commented that one of Our Lady’s greatest sorrows during her many visits to Kibeho was that not enough people truly listened to the loving advice and counsel she offered through her visionaries. Too many individuals came to the village simply to witness a miracle, and while their eyes and ears searched the heavens for a supernatural event, their hearts failed to hear the messages Mary repeated again and again: love God, love and be kind to each other, read the Bible, follow God’s commandments, accept the love of Christ, repent for sins, be humble, seek and offer forgiveness, and live the gift of your life how God wants you to—with a clean and open heart and a clear conscience.

a stone was cut out without hands…’—This ‘stone without hands’ comment certainly sounds like an airplane to me. That this ‘stone’ was ‘cut without hands,’ shows that it was a symmetrical and polished type of shape, with arms. If it were just any raw rock or ‘millstone,’ Daniel would have simply called the object

Instead of focusing primarily on one short passage or chapter from the Bible, I shall cite a handful of passages at length and offer some brief comments along the way so that you can hear Paul’s argument with slightly different emphases, emphases that insist that the Good News about Christ and his cross, what the Bible calls “the gospel,” calls out people, gathers them together, and transforms them. Any so-called Christianity that does not incorporate this reality into its vision is not worthy of the name it carries.

Commenting on these passages, Mark Gornik, a theologian, pastor, and community developer in the United States, says, “Here then from both James and Paul is a central witness drawn from all of Scripture: God has sovereignly chosen to work in the world by beginning with the weak who are on the ‘outside,’ not the powerful who are on the ‘inside.’”9 The claim here is not that the poor are inherently more righteous or sanctified than the rich. There is no place in the Bible that indicates that poverty is a desirable state or that material things are evil. In fact, wealth is viewed as a gift from God. The point is simply that, for His own glory, God has chosen to reveal His kingdom in the place where the world, in all of its pride, would least expect it, among the foolish, the weak, the lowly, and the despised.

Jewish people commonly addressed God as “our heavenly Father” when they prayed, although such intimate titles as “Abba” (Papa) were rare (see comment on Mk 14:36).

TIMOTHY AND THE PAROUSIA. 1 TIM. 6:14: - [I give thee charge] ‘that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in his times he shall show,’ etc. This implies that Timothy might expect to live until that event took place. The apostle does not say, ‘Keep this commandment as long as you live;’ nor, ‘Keep it until death;’ but ‘until the appearing of Jesus Christ.’ These expressions are by no means equivalent. The ‘appearing’ [έπιφάνωια] is identical with the Parousia, an event which St. Paul and Timothy alike believed to be at hand. Alford’s note on this verse is eminently unsatisfactory. After quoting Bengel’s remark ‘that the faithful in the apostolic age were accustomed to look forward to the day of Christ as approaching; whereas we are accustomed to look forward to the day of death in like manner,’ he goes on to observe: - ‘We may fairly say that whatever impression is betrayed by the words that the coming of the Lord would be in Timotheus’s life-time, is chastened and corrected by the καιρόις ίδίοις [his own times] of the next verse.’ dldl In other words, the erroneous opinion of one sentence is corrected by the cautious vagueness of the next! Is it possible to accept such a statement? Is there anything in καιρόις ίδίοις to justify such a comment? or is such an estimate of the apostle’s language compatible with a belief in his inspiration? It was no ‘impression’ that the apostle ‘betrayed,’ but a conviction and an assurance founded on the express promises of Christ and the revelations of His Spirit. No less exceptionable is the concluding reflection: - ‘From such passages as this we see that the apostolic age maintained that which ought to be the attitude of all ages, - constant expectation of the Lord’s return.’ But if this expectation was nothing more than a false impression, is not their attitude rather a caution than an example? We now see (assuming that the Parousia never took place) that they cherished a vain hope, and lived in the belief of a delusion. And if they were mistaken in this, the most confident and cherished of their convictions, how can we have any reliance on their other opinions? To regard the apostles and primitive Christians as all involved in an egregious delusion on a subject which had a foremost place in their faith and hope, is to strike a fatal blow at the inspiration and authority of the New Testament. When St. Paul declared, again and again, ‘The Lord is at hand,’ he did not give utterance to his private opinion, but spoke with authority as an organ of the Holy Ghost. Dean Alford’s observations may be best answered in the words of his own rejoinder to Professor Jowett: - ‘Was the apostle or was he not writing in the power of a spirit higher than his own? Have we, in any sense, God speaking in the Bible, or have we not? If we have, then of all passages it is in these which treat so confidently of futurity that we must recognise His voice: if we have it not in these passages, then where are we to listen for it at all?