Peculiar Bible Quotes

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

As with Jakobson, I queried Poston as to the source of Manson's philosophy. Scientology, the Bible, and the Beatles. These three were the only ones he knew. A peculiar triumvirate. Yet by now I was beginning to suspect the existence of at least a fourth influence. The old magazines I'd found at Barker, Gregg's mention that Charlie claimed to have read Nietzsche and that he believed in a master race, pus the emergence of a startling number of disturbing parallels between Manson and the leader of the Third Reich, led me to ask Poston: "Did Manson ever say anything about Hitler?" Poston's reply was short and incredibly chilling. A. "He said that Hitler was a tuned-in guy who had leveled the karma of the Jews.

In Exodus, chapter 14, Moses must lead the Jews out of Egypt and to safety by parting the Red Sea. This story teaches us a valuable lesson about how we must face the future. I want to draw your attention to two verses in particular. Exodus (14:15) reads: “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell the people of Israel to march forward.’” Exodus (14:16) reads: “Lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it.” The thing to note here is that Moses is instructed to raise his rod to divide the sea only after telling his people to march forth into the water. The Israelites were actually in the water, some of them up to their necks, and were told to keep marching before the water split. And yet no one complained or feared drowning because the message from God was very clear: walk first into the water and the ocean will split afterwards. Had the Israelites waited around for the waters to part, they would have been waiting a long time—perhaps forever. They had to bring about their own miracle, a truth we can deduce from the peculiar order of these two verses, which is no accident as there are no accidents in Scripture. To succeed at life and business, you too must face the future as the Israelites did at the Red Sea. Get moving now. Do not wait for the bridge. Cross now and the way through will present itself.

it is the peculiar privilege of the Church, to know what the   Divine judgments mean, and what is their tendency.

Anatole has been explaining to me the native system of government. He says the business of throwing pebbles into bowls with the most pebbles winning an election—that was Belgium’s idea of fair play, but to people here it was peculiar. To the Congolese (including Anatole himself, he confessed) it seems odd that if one man gets fifty votes and the other gets forty-nine, the first one wins altogether and the second one plumb loses. That means almost half the people will be unhappy, and according to Anatole, in a village that’s left halfway unhappy you haven’t heard the end of it. There is sure to be trouble somewhere down the line.

Mithras, who was "Mediator between God and man," [194:9] was called "The Saviour." He was the peculiar god of the Persians, who believed that he had, by his sufferings, worked their salvation, and on this account he was called their Saviour. [194:10] He was also called "The Logos." [194:11]

William Slothrop was a peculiar bird. He took off from Boston, heading west in true Imperial style, in 1634 or -5, sick and tired of the Winthrop machine, convinced he could preach as well as anybody in the hierarchy even if he hadn’t been officially ordained. The ramparts of the Berkshires stopped everybody else at the time, but not William. He just started climbing. He was one of the very first Europeans in. After they settled in Berkshire, he and his son John got a pig operation going—used to drive hogs right back down the great escarpment, back over the long pike to Boston, drive them just like sheep or cows. By the time they got to market those hogs were so skinny it was hardly worth it, but William wasn’t really in it so much for the money as just for the trip itself. He enjoyed the road, the mobility, the chance encounters of the day—Indians, trappers, wenches, hill people—and most of all just being with those pigs. They were good company. Despite the folklore and the injunctions in his own Bible, William came to love their nobility and personal freedom, their gift for finding comfort in the mud on a hot day—pigs out on the road, in company together, were everything Boston wasn’t, and you can imagine what the end of the journey, the weighing, slaughter and dreary pigless return back up into the hills must’ve been like for William. Of course he took it as a parable—knew that the squealing bloody horror at the end of the pike was in exact balance to all their happy sounds, their untroubled pink eyelashes and kind eyes, their smiles, their grace in crosscountry movement. It was a little early for Isaac Newton, but feelings about action and reaction were in the air. William must’ve been waiting for the one pig that wouldn’t die, that would validate all the ones who’d had to, all his Gadarene swine who’d rushed into extinction like lemmings, possessed not by demons but by trust for men, which the men kept betraying . . . possessed by innocence they couldn’t lose . . . by faith in William as another variety of pig, at home with the Earth, sharing the same gift of life. . . .

The history of the Jews is…intensely peculiar in the fact of having given the Western world its concept of origins and monotheism, its ethical traditions, and the founder of its prevailing religion, yet suffering dispersion, statelessness, and ceaseless persecution, and finally in our times nearly successful genocide, dramatically followed by fulfillment of the never-relinquished ream of return to their homeland. Viewing this strange and singular history one can not escape the impression that it must contain some special significance for the history of mankind, that in some way, whether one believes in divine purpose or inscrutable circumstance, the Jews have been singled out to carry the tale of human fate.

The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible--for she often read aloud when her husband was absent--soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (she had given me no reason to fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters...Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her [reading] instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.... Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect of his words, on me, was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences--cold and harsh--sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man. "Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave." I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. This was just what I needed; and got it at a time, and from a source, whence I least expected it.... Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife.... That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence.

The Bible sees a peculiar virtue in powerlessness, appropriate to a people which has seldom possessed power, and suffered much from its exercise; but it also sees virtue in achievement, and achievement as the sign of virtue, especially of those once weak and lowly. Both Joseph and Moses had no rights of birth, and narrowly survived vulnerable childhoods or youth; but both had the God-endowed qualities to bring them to greatness by their own efforts.

My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ's name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit's work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, "We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost." And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; not unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion, and to all gainsayers we reply, "We have not so learned Christ.

Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. 15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

That peculiar feeling—it was only a feeling, you couldn’t describe it as an activity—that we used to call “Church.” The sweet corpsy smell, the rustle of Sunday dresses, the wheeze of the organ and the roaring voices, the spot of light from the hole in the window creeping slowly up the nave. In some way the grown-ups could put it across that this extraordinary performance was necessary. You took it for granted, just as you took the Bible, which you got in big doses in those days. There were texts on every wall and you knew whole chapters of the O.T. by heart. Even now my head’s stuffed full of bits out of the Bible. And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. And Asher abode in his breaches. Followed them from Dan until thou come unto Beersheba. Smote him under the fifth rib, so that he died. You never understood it, you didn’t try to or want to, it was just a kind of medicine, a queer-tasting stuff that you had to swallow and knew to be in some way necessary. An extraordinary rigmarole about people with names like Shimei and Nebuchadnezzar and Ahithophel and Hash-badada; people with long stiff garments and Assyrian beards, riding up and down on camels among temples and cedar trees and doing extraordinary things. Sacrificing burnt offerings, walking about in fiery furnaces, getting nailed on crosses, getting swallowed by whales. And all mixed up with the sweet graveyard smell and the serge dresses and the wheeze of the organ.

Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use his own words, further, he said, "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;" "he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it." "if you teach that nigger—speaking of myself—how to read the bible, there will be no keeping him;" "it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave;" and "as to himself, learning would do him no good, but probably, a great deal of harm—making him disconsolate and unhappy." "If you learn him now to read, he'll want to know how to write; and, this accomplished, he'll be running away with himself." Such was the tenor of Master Hugh's oracular exposition of the true philosophy of training a human chattel; and it must be confessed that he very clearly comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of master and slave.

it would have been absurd in the Evangelist to say that the   Speech was always with God, if he had not some kind of subsistence   peculiar to himself in God. This passage serves, therefore, to refute   the error of Sabellius; for it shows that the Son is distinct from the   Father.

It is a great provocation to God for us to question his presence, providence, or promise, especially for his Israel to do it, who are so peculiarly bound to trust him.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

Biblical nationalism was different from Germany’s secular nationalism. The former was God-centered rather than culture-or race-centered. Being a product of God’s promise and law, it had to remain self-critical and repentant. Old Testament characters like Moses, Daniel, Nehemiah, and several of the prophets powerfully exhibited this peculiar, repentant nationalism.

Now, when I read back through my journals of those rocky times, I wonder why my family didn’t just put me in a strait- jacket and check me into someplace called Sunnydale or Happy Hills. Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away. What’s especially peculiar to me as I think back on this time in my life is the fact that I never stopped to realize my depression and frustration might stem from a spiritual problem. I’ve told you before I’ve been a Christian almost my entire life. I’d studied the Bible and attended church and all those other things good Christians do. But none of it seemed to matter anymore.

Classical education was only half the old system of European education--below it and above it there was the religious education that was common to the whole people, and the higher theological education that was peculiar to the clergy, who provided the majority of the teachers in both the other departments of education. Now the lowest level of this structure, which has been least studied and least regarded, was the most important of them all. It is true that it differed considerably in different parts of Europe, but for the religious rather than material reasons. In Protestant Europe it was founded on the Bible and the catechism, whereas in Catholic Europe it was based on the liturgy and on religious art and drama and mime, which made the Church the school of the people. But in either case it provided a system of common beliefs and moral standards, as well as the archetypal patterns of world history and sacred story which formed the background of their spiritual world.

in “the more” and not in the standards of my culture, not in the standards of my religious tradition, not in myself and how “well” I’m doing. To use Christian language once again, the primary fruit of centering in “the more,” according to St. Paul, are the four gifts of the spirit: peace, joy, freedom, and love. Now, who wouldn’t want a life filled with those things? And I see those fruits of the spirit to be the fruits of the spiritual life, in all of the major religious traditions. So, no, I don’t see this as peculiar to Christianity. I see Christianity as the revelation of a universal path, rather than its being the revelation or disclosure of a unique path.

Southerners’ claims that slavery was ordained by God “represented not just a deeply held conviction, but a sound ideological strategy for an evangelical age, a posture designed to win support both at home and abroad.”20 Proslavery clergymen bestowed “divine sanction on the South’s peculiar institution,” using the Bible and natural law to marry slavery to Christianity. Southern intransigence regarding its slave- based economy encompassed government, economics, and human rights.21 It brought the South into conflict with Northern ideas of free labor and capitalism. But the conflicts were based on a common religion, the same God, Bible, and understanding of America’s role in the world, being chosen by God to spread the Christian faith

Southerners’ claims that slavery was ordained by God “represented not just a deeply held conviction, but a sound ideological strategy for an evangelical age, a posture designed to win support both at home and abroad.”20 Proslavery clergymen bestowed “divine sanction on the South’s peculiar institution,” using the Bible and natural law to marry slavery to Christianity. Southern intransigence regarding its slave- based economy encompassed government, economics, and human rights.

Polytheistic Greek mythology includes some stories that tell of intervention by Zeus in human affairs but others that tell of Zeus’s life among his fellow gods. In the Bible, God, being the only god, does not have that second kind of action through which to present himself. But the peculiarity of God’s character does not end there. God could conceivably engage in some kind of demonstrative action that would serve his own self-presentation apart from any interaction with man: miraculous displays, cosmic disruptions, the creation of other worlds. But in fact he refrains from all such activity. Not only does he lack any social life among other gods but he also lacks what we might call a private life. His only way of pursuing an interest in himself is through mankind.

The language of the Apostle well agrees with this view;   for he says that he was declared by power, because power, peculiar to   God, shone forth in him, and uncontestably proved him to be God; and   this was indeed made evident by his resurrection.

Being such a common practice, sacrifice was familiar to everyone. Greeks, Jews, and Romans might compare the peculiarities of their respective rituals, but they never needed to explain their basic significance.2 One scholar has observed that, throughout the ancient world, “there is a complete lack of any attempt to define sacrifice in literature spanning approximately two thousand years. It never occurred to anyone that explanation or definition was necessary. Sacrifice was assumed and played an essential part in everything which claimed to be a religion.

No twenty-year-old girl who’s as pure as me should ever have to worry about random boys who leave freshly cut flowers in her garbage can or peculiar messages written on wrinkled pages of ripped-up Bible. But for the last three weeks since graduation, it’s been nothing but cryptic messages and budded roses awaiting me in the trash every morning.

The whole thing boils down to this paradox: if you are going to be a hero then you must give a gift. If you are the average man you give your heroic gift to the society in which you live, and you give the gift that society specifies in advance. If you are an artist you fashion a peculiarly personal gift, the justification for your own heroic identity, which means that it is always aimed at least partly over the heads of your fellow men. After all, they can't grant the immortality of your personal soul. As Rank argued in the breathtaking closing chapters of Art and Artist, there is no way for the artist to be at peace with his work or with the society that accepts it. The artist's gift is always to creation itself, to the ultimate meaning of life, to God. We should not be surprised that Rank was brought to exactly the same conclusion as Kierkegaard: that the only way out of human conflict is full renunciation, to give one's life as a gift to the highest powers. Absolution has to come from the absolute beyond. As Kierkegaard, Rank showed that this rule applied to the strongest, most heroic types-not to trembling and empty weaklings. To renounce the world and oneself, to lay the meaning of it to the powers of creation, is the hardest thing for man to achieve-and so it is fitting that this task should fall to the strongest personality type, the one with the largest ego. The great scientific world-shaker Newton was the same man who always carried the Bible under his arm.

An apostle is a prime-minister in the kingdom of Christ, immediately called by Christ, and extraordinarily qualified; his work was peculiarly to plant the Christian church, and confirm the Christian doctrine.

Christ, in the council and covenant of grace and peace, asked many things of his Father, which were granted; he asked for the persons of all the elect to be his bride and spouse, and his heart's desire was given him, and the request of his lips was not withheld from him: he asked for all the blessings of grace for them; for spiritual life here, and eternal life hereafter; and all were given him, and put into his hands for them, Ps 20:2; and here it is promised him, and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession; by "the Heathen", and "the uttermost parts of the earth", are meant God's elect among the Gentiles, and who live in the distant parts of the world; which are Christ's other sheep, the Father has given to him as his portion, and whom he has made his care and charge: as if it was not enough that he should be King of Zion, or have the government over his chosen ones among the Jews, he commits into his hands the Gentiles also; see Isa 49:6; and these are given him as his inheritance and possession, as his portion, to be enjoyed by him; and who esteems them as such, and reckons them a goodly heritage, and a peculiar treasure, his jewels, and the apple of his eye. These words respect the calling of the Gentiles under the Gospel dispensation; and the amplitude of Christ's kingdom in all the earth, which shall be from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth.

Even the God of the Bible uses different names for himself in different instances to communicate his different attributes. While this is not familiar to modern readers and can cause difficulty in keeping all the names and identities straight, I have chosen to employ that peculiar technique as a way of incarnating the ancient worldview and mindset. So reader be warned to watch names carefully and expect them to be changing on you even when you are not looking.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 

We have also an Indian legend which relates that a courtesan named Bindumati, turned back the streams of the river Ganges. [56:5] We see then, that the idea of seas and rivers being divided for the purpose of letting some chosen one of God pass through is an old one peculiar to other peoples beside the Hebrews, and the probability is that many nations had legends of this kind.

TIT2.11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,  TIT2.12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;  TIT2.13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;  TIT2.14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. TIT2.15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

And now, if ye really hearken to My voice, then ye have kept My covenant, and been to Me a peculiar treasure more than all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;

If the bare possibility of his Lord’s death had plunged this loving and gloomy heart in despondency, what dark despair must have preyed upon it when that death was actually accomplished! How the figure of his dead Master had burnt itself into his soul is seen from the manner in which his mind dwells on the print of the nails, the wound in the side. It is by these only, and not by well-known features of face or peculiarities of form, he will recognise and identify his Lord. His heart was with the lifeless body on the cross, and he could not bear to see the friends of Jesus or speak with those who had shared his hopes, but buried his disappointment and desolation in solitude and silence. His absence can scarcely be branded as culpable. None of the others expected resurrection any more than himself, but his hopelessness acted on a specially sensitive and despondent nature. Thus it was that, like many melancholy persons, he missed the opportunity of seeing what would effectually have scattered his darkness.

Now, nowhere does one find these kind of semantics more confounding and stupefying than when one picks up some peculiar heading in a newspaper which talks about “the Islamic Nation.” Islam is NOT a nation. It has never been a nation. Look it up in a dictionary. You can have Islamic “nations” with State-Churches. In these cases, the nation (or country) is the State (political), and the church is Islam (a religion). So if you taught in the schools anything that Moslems believe, you would be “joining Church and State.” All Islamic nations are Church-States. But if you pray or read the Bible, you wouldn’t be joining anything to anything.

Our missionary activity, our church activity, and everything we do ought to flow from the theologian and the exegete—the man who opens up his Bible and has only one question: What is Thy will, Oh God? We are not to send out questionnaires to carnal people to discover what kind of church they would attend! A church ought to be seeker friendly, but the church ought to recognize there is only one Seeker. His name is God!—and if you want to be friendly to someone, if you want to accommodate someone, accommodate Him and His glory, even if it is rejected by everyone else. We are not called to build empires. We are not called to be excessive. We are called to glorify God. And if you want the Church to be something other than a peculiar people[14](Ti 2:14; 1Pe 2:9), then you want something God does not want.

This is the great divide on how we approach the Bible. Does it express the heart and mind of a divine person, or is it merely a record of human religious experience?

The Sabbath is a token between God and His people. It is a holy day, given by the Creator to man as a day upon which to rest, and reflect upon sacred things. God designed it to be observed through every age as a perpetual covenant. It was to be regarded as a peculiar treasure, a trust to be carefully cherished.—Our High Calling, p. 343.

The notion of the Promised Land is peculiar to Israelite religion and, for the Israelites and the Jews later, it was the most important single element in it. It is significant that the Jews made the five early books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, into the core of their Torah or belief, because they dealt with the Law, the promise of the land, and its fulfilment.

It is not at all peculiar to contemporary man to “come of age”; it was found already in Eden. Adam and Eve revolted against the will of God in pursuit of individual preference and self-interest. But their revolt was recognized to be sin, not rationalized as philosophical “gnosis” at the frontiers of evolutionary advance.

But if, because He is not seen, His having risen at all is disbelieved, it is high time for those who refuse belief to deny the very course of Nature. For it is God's peculiar property at once to be invisible and yet to be known from His works, as has been already stated above.

Throughout the letter, the subject of persecution is never far away, whether it be potential, imminent, or incipient (1:6; 2:12, 19–20; 3:13–17; 4:12, 14; 5:8–10). The attacks are blamed not on Jews (although they may have been involved), but on pagans who are baffled and angry by the believers’ “peculiar” manner of life in opting out of so much of everyday practices. As a consequence, they slander Christians as wrong-doers (2:12; 3:16) and abuse them as renegades

Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:

It might seem somewhat peculiar or peripheral to argue that one crucial consequence of the resurrection is that Christianity is a singing faith.

3. The Ten Plagues. But if it was needful to make the Is´ra-el-ites willing to depart it was also needful to make the E-gyp´tian king and his people willing to let them depart; and this was accomplished by the plagues which fell upon E´gypt, showing Is´ra-el as under God's peculiar care and the gods of E´gypt powerless to protect their people.

The interest that this proposed journey excited in Scotland was very great. Nor was it merely the somewhat romantic interest attached to the land where the Lord had done most of His mighty works; there were also in it the deeper feelings of a Scriptural persuasion that Israel was still 'beloved for the fathers' sake.' For some time previous, Jerusalem had come into mind and many godly pastors were standing as watchmen over its ruined walls (Isaiah 62:6), stirring up the Lord's remembrancers. Mr. M'Cheyne had been one of these. His view of the importance of the Jews in the eye of God, and, therefore, of their importance as a sphere of missionary labour, were very clear and decided. ...In his preaching he not infrequently said on this subject, 'We should be like God in His peculiar affections; and the whole Bible shows that God has ever had, and still has, a peculiar love to the Jews.

To rest is a special kind of power […] It seems like anytime God is talking about salvation in the Bible, he makes a point to name rest. ‘I’ll refresh tired bodies’ (Jeremiah 31:25, MSG). ‘Find rest for your souls’ (Matthew 11:29). And, in Psalm 23:2, we have ‘He makes me lie down.’ What a peculiar answer to the valley of the shadow of death.

The powers of harmony and discord possess forms peculiar to themselves. In Astrological science, these forms are called angular and denominated aspects.

What is “HOLINESS”? 1 Peter 1: 15 -16 “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” Holiness is an experience that we go through after salvation. I also like to think of holiness as a person, the trinity all three equally working together for are best interest. Yes, holiness is a doctrine that is well documented in the Holy Bible both in the New and Old Testament. Holiness is reserved for the saints who are growing daily to please God. A separated or peculiar people. Holiness is a closer accountable interaction with Jesus through and through. To those who are sanctified another word meaning holiness. Early Methodist named it dying out, the death route, both are great words to describe that holiness is, a departure from the old man or women we used to be. A sacrificial time as we aspire to set aside those things that hinder our spiritual progress. For when we move higher in our daily walk with God we draw closer to our final departure to heaven a permanent holy place. Bought for us at the hand of Jesus Christ our mighty Lord. The architect of all that is HOLY! This is a quote that is going to be in the upcoming devotional. (Reflecting Jesus Devotional), on Amazon in a couple months.

Let’s follow the causal chain I’ve been linking together: the spread of a religious belief that every individual should read the Bible for themselves led to the diffusion of widespread literacy among both men and women, first in Europe and later across the globe. Broad-based literacy changed people’s brains and altered their cognitive abilities in domains related to memory, visual processing, facial recognition, numerical exactness, and problem-solving. It probably also indirectly altered family sizes, child health, and cognitive development, as mothers became increasingly literate and formally educated. These psychological and social changes may have fostered speedier innovation, new institutions, and—in the long run—greater economic prosperity.25

But the Cythereans venerated this goddess in consequence of learning her sacred rites from the Phoenicians." The Assyrian Venus, then--that is, the great goddess of Babylon--and the Cyprian Venus were one and the same, and consequently the "bloodless" altars of the Paphian goddess show the character of the worship peculiar to the Babylonian goddess, from whim she was derived. In this respect the goddess-queen of Chaldea differed from her son, who was worshipped in her arms. He was, as we have seen, represented as delighting in blood. But she, as the mother of grace and mercy, as the celestial "Dove," as "the hope of the whole world," was averse to blood, and was represented in a benign and gentle character. Accordingly, in Babylon she bore the name of Mylitta --that is, "The Mediatrix." Every one who reads the Bible, and sees how expressly it declares that, as there is only "one God," so there is only "one Mediator between God and man" (1 Tim.ii. 5), must marvel how it could ever have entered the mind of any one to bestow on Mary, as is done by the Church of Rome, the character of the "Mediatrix.

The crisis of word and truth is not, however, in all respects peculiar to contemporary technocratic civilization. Its backdrop is not to be found in the mass media per se, as if these sophisticated mechanical instruments of modern communication were uniquely and inherently evil. Not even the French Rèvolution, which some historians now isolate as the development that placed human history under the shadow of continual revolution, can adequately explain the ongoing plunge of man’s existence into endless crisis. Why is it that the magnificent civilizations fashioned by human endeavor throughout history have tumbled and collapsed one after another with apocalyptic suddenness? Is it not because, ever since man’s original fall and onward to the present, sin has plummeted human existence into an unbroken crisis of word and truth? A cosmic struggle between truth and falsehood, between good and evil, shadows the whole history of mankind. The Bible depicts it as a conflict between the authority of God and the claims of the Evil One. Measured by the yardstick of God’s holy purposes, all that man proudly designates as human culture is little but idolatry. God’s Word proffers no compliments whatever to man’s so-called historical progress; rather, it indicts man’s pseudoparadises as veritable towers of Babel that obscure and falsify God’s truth and Word.

The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God.  It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind; and afterward the history of one peculiar nation, certainly the most extraordinary nation that has ever appeared upon the earth.

Now it may seem to be a peculiar trait, but the truth is that most people will not grant favors just to please others. If I ask you to render a service that will benefit me, without bringing you some corresponding advantage, you will not show much enthusiasm in granting that favor; you may refuse altogether if you have a plausible excuse for refusing.

Now it may seem to be a peculiar trait, but the truth is that most people will not grant favors just to please others. If I ask you to render a service that will benefit me, without bringing you some corresponding advantage, you will not show much enthusiasm in granting that favor; you may refuse altogether if you have a plausible excuse for refusing. But if I ask you to render a service that will benefit a third person, even though the service must be rendered through me; and if that service is of such a nature that it is likely to reflect credit on you, the chances are that you will render the service willingly.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:  1PE2.10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

it is that the city of God has a peculiar ministry to the earthly city, as Hart once more beautifully observes: “Whereas the story of violence simply excludes the Christian story of peace, the Christian story can encompass, and indeed heal, the city that rejects it: because that city too belongs to the peace of creation, the beauty of the infinite, and only its narrative and its desires blind it to a glory that everywhere pours in upon it.

It proves nothing against inspiration, as some have asserted, that the writers of the Bible have each a different style. Isaiah does not write like Jeremiah, and Paul does not write like John. This is perfectly true,—and yet the works of these men are not a whit less equally inspired. The waters of the sea have many different shades. In one place they look blue, and in another green. And yet the difference is owing to the depth or shallowness of the part we see, or to the nature of the bottom. The water in every case is the same salt sea.—The breath of a man may produce different sounds, according to the character of the instrument on which he plays. The flute, the pipe, and the trumpet, have each their peculiar note. And yet the breath that calls forth the notes, is in each case one and the same.—The light of the planets we see in heaven is very various. Mars, and Saturn, and Jupiter, have each a peculiar colour. And yet we know that the light of the sun, which each planet reflects, is in each case one and the same. Just in the same way the books of the Old and New Testaments are all inspired truth, and yet the aspect of that truth varies according to the mind through which the Holy Ghost makes it flow. The handwriting and style of the writers differ enough to prove that each had a distinct individual being; but the Divine Guide who dictates and directs the whole is always one. All is alike inspired. Every chapter, and verse, and word, is from God.

Mere Christian hermeneutics is about reading the Bible in that peculiar eschatological space that defines and generates Christian culture: the presence of Christ in the power of his Spirit.

When the churches of Galatia were starting to drift away from the gospel of Jesus, Paul wrote to them and said, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Gal. 3:1). This “portrayal” came with words, not pictures. But it was so real, and so vivid, that Paul said it was an appeal to their eyes—​​​“before your eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed.” They saw the peculiar glory of Christ in the preaching of the gospel.