Prostitution Bible Quotes

I especially loved the Old Testament. Even as a kid I had a sense of it being slightly illicit. As though someone had slipped an R-rated action movie into a pile of Disney DVDs. For starters Adam and Eve were naked on the first page. I was fascinated by Eve's ability to always stand in the Garden of Eden so that a tree branch or leaf was covering her private areas like some kind of organic bakini. But it was the Bible's murder and mayhem that really got my attention. When I started reading the real Bible I spent most of my time in Genesis Exodus 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. Talk about violent. Cain killed Abel. The Egyptians fed babies to alligators. Moses killed an Egyptian. God killed thousands of Egyptians in the Red Sea. David killed Goliath and won a girl by bringing a bag of two hundred Philistine foreskins to his future father-in-law. I couldn't believe that Mom was so happy about my spending time each morning reading about gruesome battles prostitutes fratricide murder and adultery. What a way to have a "quiet time." While I grew up with a fairly solid grasp of Bible stories I didn't have a clear idea of how the Bible fit together or what it was all about. I certainly didn't understand how the exciting stories of the Old Testament connected to the rather less-exciting New Testament and the story of Jesus. This concept of the Bible as a bunch of disconnected stories sprinkled with wise advice and capped off with the inspirational life of Jesus seems fairly common among Christians. That is so unfortunate because to see the Bible as one book with one author and all about one main character is to see it in its breathtaking beauty.

The suicide committed by Sampson was partly determined by the craftiness of Delilah and partly decided by the disobedience of Sampson. Satan uses crafty means to set traps for us, but by our obedience of the laws of God, the traps remain functionless.

The oldest human skull in existence has a hole in it from a spear. Prostitution is a much older profession than farming. The first son in the Bible was also a murderer. For thousands of years, human achievements were only possible through war—including civilization, art, religion, and even peace. Do you know what that means? About the human race? It means that from the very beginning human beings have been plotting to kill one another in order to live.

the story didn't make any sense the bible is full of these things. a lot of those old kings and leaders had many wives and concubines and Hosea the prophet was even married to a prostitute and it didn't stop him for being a holy man

Who dies best, the soldier who falls for your sake, or the fly in my whiskey-glass? The happy agony of the fly is his reward for an adventurous dive in no cause but his own. Gorged and crazed, he touches bottom, knows he's gone as far as he can go, and bravely sticks. I sleep on. In the morning I pour new happiness upon the crust of the old, and only as I raise the glass to my lips descry through that rich brown double inch my flattened hero. I drink around his death, being no angler by any inclination, and leave him in the weird shallows. The glass set down, I idle beneath the fan, while beyond my window-bars a warm drizzle passes silently from clouds to leaves. How to die? How to live? These questions, if we ask the dead fly, are both answered thus: In a drunken state. But drunk on WHAT should we all be? Well, there's love to drink, of course, and death, which is the same thing, and whiskey, better still, and heroin, best of all—except maybe for holiness. Accordingly, let this book, like its characters, be devoted to Addiction, Addicts, Pushers, Prostitutes and Pimps. With upraised needles, Bibles, dildoes and shot glasses, let us now throw our condoms in the fire, unbutton our trousers, and happily commit THIS MULTITUDE OF CRIMES.

The Bible does not spin the flaws and weaknesses of its heroes. Moses was a murderer. Hosea’s wife was a prostitute. Peter rebuked God! Noah got drunk. Jonah was a racist. Jacob was a liar. John Mark deserted Paul. Elijah burned out. Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal. Thomas doubted. Moses had a temper. Timothy had ulcers. And all these people send the same message: that every human being on earth, regardless of their gifts and strengths, is weak, vulnerable, and dependent on God and others.

Judges 11:1–12:15 Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.” —Letter to John Norvell, 14 June 1807 [Works 10:417--18]

You would rather die than be a governess? It’s not prostitution, for heaven’s sake!” Charlotte gaped, and Emily, pale and stricken as she was, stifled a giggle. “I shudder to think where you learned of such things,” Charlotte said, standing. “The Bible,” Anne snapped. “Allow me to recommend it to you.” Good

Rahab is mentioned eight times in the Bible.  Five of those eight times, she is called “Rahab the prostitute.”  Does God seek to remind us of her shameful sin?  Surely not.   God loves to display His grace in the lives of restored sinners.  He longs to turn each of our lives into expressions of His immense grace and boundless love.

The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class- leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,— sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,—leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

Noah Webster, responsible for an influential dictionary that helped establish the distinctive aspects of American spelling. Webster was alarmed by a series of biblical passages that he regarded as “offensive,” “unseemly,” and “distasteful.” Words to which he took particular exception include “piss,” “privy member,” “prostitute,” “teat,” “whore,” and “womb.

Many people place great pride on their works, but the words of Jesus apply to them just as much as they apply to murderers and prostitutes: "Unless you repent, you too will all perish" (Luke 13:3, 5). Some people think that as long as they are not like what they regard as the worst of sinners, then they will do fine. However, the Bible says that unless they repent, they will perish just like the worst of sinners. One can be saved and accepted by God only through the faith and repentance that he grants.

What is the denunciation with which we are charged? It is endeavoring, in our faltering human speech, to declare the enormity of the sin of making merchandise of men,—of separating husband and wife,—taking the infant from its mother, and selling the daughter to prostitution,—of a professedly Christian nation denying, by statute, the Bible to every sixth man and woman of its population, and making it illegal for ‘two or three’ to meet together, except a white man be present! What is this harsh criticism of motives with which we are charged?

Through reading the Bible, drunkards become sober, thieves become honest, prostitutes become pure, and drug addicts become clean. Anger, bitterness, and resentment yield to loving forgiveness, mercy, and graciousness. Selfish greed gives way to unselfish service. Crumbling marriages are rebuilt. Broken relationships are rekindled. Shattered self-esteem is restored. In God’s Word, the weak find strength, the guilty find forgiveness, the discouraged find new joy, and the despairing find hope. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible writers inspires those who read it.

no mystical writing incarnates the divine power and presence as does the Bible. Within that same tradition, no other book has more often been prostituted for purposes other than those for which it was intended. It has been used as a scientific treatise, a political weapon, a substitute for a liberal education, a justification for anything from an unjust war to the death penalty to the exclusion of those who are of a different point of view or philosophy. God’s word has been used throughout history to confirm and validate human words, becoming a verbal tower of Babel that divides rather than unites us in God. No other Judeo-Christian text demands more of the reader because it demands the humility to listen to God, not our own prejudices. The Bible, in short, demands that we abdicate our need to be gods.

In 2011 in Swansea, Wales, Colin Batley was found guilty of 35 charges relating to his role as the leader of a 'satanic cult' that sexually abused children and women, manufactured child abuse images and forced children and women into prostitution (de Bruxelles 2011). His partner and two other women were also convicted on related charges, with one man convicted of paying to abuse a victim of the group. The groups' ritualistic activities were based on the doctrine of Aleister Crowley, an occult figure whose writing includes references to ritual sex with children. Crowley's literature has been widely linked to the practice of ritualistic abuse by survivors and their advocates, who in turn have been accused by occult groups of religious persecution. During Batley's trial, the prosecution claimed that Crowley's writings formed the basis of Batley's organisation and he read from a copy of it during sexually abusive incidents. It seems that alternative as well as mainstream religious traditions can be misused by sexually abusive groups. p38

When a Christian is delivered from demons or curses, it does not mean that those spirits had been living in his spirit. The Holy Spirit occupies the spirit of the believer, but demons can harass, torment, and oppress the soul of the believer. The Holy Spirit possesses the believer, meaning He owns him. Demonic spirits seek to oppress the Christian by controlling a part of his life. Being tormented by demons does not mean that you are not saved. It does not mean that those spirits own you. Derek Prince, who is a powerful influence on my life in the area of deliverance, shared in one of his talks that the Greek word New Testament writers used for demonic possession is “demonized.” He would explain that being demonized does not mean ownership, but partial control. It means that demons seek to control one area of your life. They cannot have possession or ownership of your spirit. How do you know which area demons control? Usually, it is in the areas where you are not in control because some demon is dominating that area of your soul. When you get delivered, you get the control back. During deliverance, that part of your soul gets released. Maybe you are thinking, darkness and light cannot abide together. It does not say that in the Bible. Some think that the Holy Spirit and an evil spirit cannot dwell in the same vessel. Really? Says who? The Scripture that we get this from says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14). This verse does not say light and darkness cannot coexist. It says they should not exist together. Paul is telling us the way things should be, not what they cannot be. If you think Christians cannot be demonized, let me tell you, I have heard stories of when both light and darkness operated in the same person. For some examples, there was a fallen pastor who once preached holiness while frequently visiting prostitutes; a newly saved believer who habitually returned to drug abuse and suicidal attempts of self-destruction; a Christian leader who influenced many for the Gospel’s sake but ended up in jail for fraud and thievery.  Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” and then went on talking about how darkness and light should not have any fellowship together. If darkness and light cannot coexist, then Christians cannot date unbelievers. We know that this happens all of the time. It should not, but it does. The same thing happens with demonized Christians. They should not be under this demonic influence, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that this is not possible.

A lady says to a priest, “Father, I have a problem. I have these two talking female parrots, but they only know how to say one thing.” “What do they say?” the priest asks “They only know how to say, ‘Hi, we are prostitutes. Do you want to have some fun?’” “That’s terrible! But I have a solution to your problem. Bring your two talking female parrots over to my house and I will put them with my two male talking parrots. I have taught my birds to pray and read the Bible. My parrots will teach your parrots to stop saying that terrible phrase and your parrots will learn to pray and worship.” “Thank you, Father, that’s very helpful.” The next day, the lady brings her parrots to the priest’s house. The two male birds are holding rosary beads and praying in their cage. The lady puts her females in with them and the birds immediately say, “Hi, we are prostitutes! Do you want to have some fun?” One male parrot looks over to the other one and screams, “Frank! Put the Bibles away, our prayers have been answered!

The Congo is not just blood and gore. It also has an incandescent, raw energy to it, a dogged hustle that can be seen in street-side hawkers and besuited ministers alike. This charm is not unlike that of America’s mythical Wild West, full of gunslingers, Bible-thumpers, prostitutes, street urchins, and rogue businessmen. This is the paradox of the Congo: Despite its tragic past, and probably in part due to the self-reliance and ingenuity resulting from state decay, it is one of the most alive places I know.” — Jason Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters

The power of the Bible is most evident in its ability to change lives. It can transform a wealthy Italian playboy into a saint (Saint Francis of Assisi). By its amazing grace, it can transform a debauching, murderous slave trader into a humble abolitionist (John Newton). It can transfigure prostitutes into women of virtue, cowards into rocks of the church, and the proud into the meek.

The Parable of the Two Sons 28[†] h “What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in  i the vineyard today.’ 29And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he  j changed his mind and went. 30And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you,  k the tax collectors and  l the prostitutes go into  m the kingdom of God before you. 32For John came to you  n in the way of righteousness, and  o you did not believe him, but  p the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward  j change your minds and believe him.

the prostitute Rahab helps Israelite spies and earns protection from the destruction of the city: God knocks its walls flat as Joshua’s army marches outside, blowing trumpets and shouting. Joshua leads a successful military campaign to clear idol-worshipping people—Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—from the land.

Summing Up One must read biblical commands and prohibitions in terms of their underlying forms of moral logic. The moral logic underpinning the negative portrayal of same-sex eroticism in Scripture does not directly address committed, loving, consecrated same-sex relationships today. Although Scripture does not teach a normative form of gender complementarity, the experience of complementarity itself may be helpful and important in both heterosexual and same-sex relationships, even if complementarity is not construed along hard-wired gender lines. The stories of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19) and the Levite’s concubine (Judg. 19) focus on the horror of rape and the ancient abhorrence of the violation of male honor in rape. As such, they help to explain Scripture’s negative stance toward the types of same-sex eroticism the Bible addresses, but they do not directly address the case of committed and loving same-sex relationships. The prohibitions in Leviticus against “lying with a male as with a woman” (18: 22; 20: 13) make sense in an ancient context, where there were concerns about purity, pagan cults, the distinctiveness of Israel as a nation, violations of male honor, and anxieties concerning procreative processes. However, these prohibitions do not speak directly to committed and consecrated same-sex relationships. Nor are they based on a form of moral logic grounded in biology-based gender complementarity. The references to same-sex eroticism found in two New Testament vice lists (1 Cor. 6: 9 and 1 Tim. 1: 10) focus attention on the ancient practice of pederasty—the use of boy prostitutes in male-male sex. As such, they also do not address committed and mutual same-sex relationships today. There are many more questions to be explored, but this book has attempted to focus on core issues involving the interpretation of Scripture, as the church continues to wrestle with a multitude of questions that arise outside the heterosexual mainstream.

How was it possible, wondered the abolitionist, to have, men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution.

The Bible is relevant and real, and the people who inhabit its pages are people who have faced what you and I face. Life has disappointed them, others have disappointed them, and they have disappointed themselves. Just like us. Remarkably, amazingly and delightfully, these people are the people God uses. The disappointed ones. Sneaky and snarly people who often acted before they thought, who failed to act when they should have and sometimes didn’t act at all. Yet they were called friends of God. The man who named the people of Israel, Jacob, was a mama’s boy. The one who became brave enough to stand up to his wealthy adopted family and side with the oppressed immigrant workers, Moses, lived with a stubborn insecurity. Rahab, a woman whose circumstances led to her prostituting herself, became the one who helped establish a country for the “pure and holy” people of God. King David, famous for his devotion to God, gave into his voracious sexual appetites and passion. These are the ones God calls friends: people like the great prophet Elijah who struggled with depression, fear and a weird streak of pride that caused him to do an ugly power play over the fate of two little boys. Jonah, the prophet to the ancient city of Nineveh, who didn’t want to go because of his racism. John the Baptist, who would today likely be holed up in Idaho somewhere, living off his produce and writing treatises against the government and church.

I  am  a  woman  who  can  say  I  am  enough  and  I  am worthy.  I  found  myself  by  helping  others  in  the  midst of  my  own  pain.  We  can  only  give  ourselves  over  to Him  without  borders,  and  without  holding  back,  just like  I  am  each  day  asking  Him  for  direction  and  for strength.  When  I  look  at  the  women  in  the  Bible, Tamar  seduced  her  husband’s  father  and  got pregnant  with  his  child,  Rehab  was  a  prostitute, Bathsheba  cheated  on  her  husband  and  had  a child  by  David  and  Mary  Magdalene  was  an adulterous  woman,  yet  Jesus  looked  into  their  souls and  gave  them  a  powerful  story,  that  still  today can  be  an  example  to  us  all.  

Don’t forget to pray for yourself. We are at war. We are up against lot of spirits these days. Spirit or lies, deception, hypocrisy, seduction, lust, prostitution, anger, hate, fame, rape, depression, judgement, substance abuse, revenge, cheating, lashing, entitlement, resentment and spirit of disappointment. Ephesians 6:12 2 Corinthians 10:3-4

The Bible Is Full of Hypocrites It’s not just modern people who struggle to live consistently with what they believe. The Bible reveals again and again the timeless tension of humanity grappling with hypocrisy. Moses, the prophet of Israel, doubted God and resisted God’s call on his life. Abraham and Isaac, two of the three great patriarchs of Israel, both put their wives in harm’s way in order to protect themselves. Jacob, the third great patriarch, was a liar. Joseph, who would later save Israel from ruin, arrogantly taunted his brothers. David, the man after God’s own heart and author of most of the Psalms, committed adultery and murder. Solomon, the son of David and the wisest king of his time, was a womanizer. Rahab, a hero of the faith who protected and hid the Israelite spies, was a prostitute. Many of the great kings such as Asa and Hezekiah, who “did right in the eyes of the LORD,”[8] flirted with idolatry and finished poorly. That’s just the Old Testament. I can allow my hypocrisy to be brought into the light by God and others. In the New Testament, we also see plenty of hypocrisy. Thomas initially refused to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Paul admitted to “all kinds of covetousness.”[9] Peter had an abrasive personality. Peter and Barnabas fell into old patterns of elitism and exclusion, retreating relationally from their Gentile brothers and sisters. The Corinthian church, affectionately referred to by Paul as “saints” and daughters and sons of the Father, also bore some rotten fruit. They judged one another, created major divisions over minor doctrines, committed adultery, filed lawsuits against one another, had more divorces than healthy marriages, paraded their “Christian liberty” before those with a sensitive conscience, and slighted the poor, disadvantaged, and disabled in their midst.

The prostitutes of Satan, can't think for themselves, believe in anything they are told, interpret the Bible according to what someone else tells them to see, and assume that everyone else that isn't within their eyesight is inferior and doesn't deserve compassion. Satan rejoices on their blood and awaits for them in hell.

Hosea was the prophet whom God commanded to marry a prostitute.

the numerous other crimes for which the Bible prescribes death as punishment: contempt of parents (Exodus 21:15, 17; Leviticus 24:11); trespass upon sacred ground (Exodus 19:12–13; Numbers 1:51; 18:7); sorcery (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27); bestiality (Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 20: 15–16); sacrifice to foreign gods (Exodus 22:20; Deuteronomy 13:1–9); profaning the sabbath (Exodus 31:14); adultery (Leviticus 20:10; Deuteronomy 22: 22–24); incest (Leviticus 20:11–13); homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13); and prostitution (Leviticus 21:19; Deuteronomy 22: 13–21).

So at the risk of being a broken record, was Paul condemning people born with same-sex attraction? No. Was he condemning any and all same-sex sex acts? No. Was he condemning sexual activity, engaged in by people of the same sex, that was either exploitive (such as pederasty) or economic (such as prostitution) in nature? It would sure seem so.

Sabbath-breaking Punished 32Now while the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man who was gathering wood on the Sabbath day.‡ 33Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation; 34and they put him in custody, because it had not been explained [by God] what should be done to him.‡ 35Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall certainly be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.”‡ 36So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the LORD had commanded Moses. 37The LORD said to Moses, 38“Speak to the sons of Israel and tell them to make for themselves tassels on the hems of their garments throughout their generations, and put a cord of blue on the tassel of each hem.‡ 39“It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, so that you do not follow after [the desires of] your own heart and eyes, [desires] after which you used to follow and play the prostitute,‡ 40so that you may remember to do all My commandments and be holy (set apart) to your God.‡ 41“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD your God.

Well, imagine a movie—a vast production with kings, fools, knights, ladies, peasants, preachers, prostitutes—every sort of person you find in the world. When the actors take off their costumes, they’re all equal. So it is with life. When death strips us of our roles, we’re all equals in the grave.

The heroine of this chapter, Rahab, the pagan prostitute, becomes a favorite figure in Jewish stories and is esteemed by Bible writers as well. She offers proof that God honors true faith from anyone, regardless of race or religious background. In fact, Rahab, survivor of Jericho, becomes a direct ancestor of Jesus.

In his disobedience, your brother is alive. You, in your resentful subservience, are dead. Do you think God wants mindless worshippers who can only follow instructions?

Judas. It's none of your business how other people spend their money.

Yes, I know. You don't understand—I love you because of what you did, not despite it.

Uriah is a good soldier—but a poor husband. He's not interested in spending time in bed with me. He'd rather be with his army friends. If my husband won't satisfy my needs, I have a right to have them satisfied by someone else.

Judas. It's none of your business how other people spend their money. Mary bought this expensive nard as an expression of her love. That love will be remembered for thousands of years.

Highlight – Leviticus 15:2 Rules About Sex Some of the rules regarding sex and bodily discharges mystify modern readers, but the Israelites took for granted that God had dominion over even the most private aspects of their lives. The Bible does not provide a detailed rationale for these regulations. Some relate to health and hygiene: Following the rules would help the Israelites avoid the venereal diseases that plagued their neighbors. Also, pagan religions commonly employed temple prostitutes, and God clearly intended for the Israelites to keep worship and sex separate.

9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.

referring to the end times nation that is rich and powerful, and that will fall in a moment as “The Daughter of Babylon,” the Bible also refers to this end times nation as: BABYLON THE GREAT. Those capital letters are as the words are set forth in Revelation 17:5. John refers to Babylon the Great as “a mystery.” In Revelation 14:8 we read: A second angel followed and said, “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”  Then in Revelation 17:1-2: “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries’ (referring three verses later to “a mystery, BABYLON THE GREAT” [capitalization in original]).

I think about it this way. Jesus hung out with the sinners, lepers, prostitutes, and all the other unclean people that everyone else shunned or stayed away from. He went and talked with them when no one else would go near them. Actually, that’s a really good way to piss off the Pharisees in the Bible…go talk to the unclean. But I think going to the unclean is the core of the Gospels, if not the whole New Testament? Jesus accepted people where they were at and he wasn’t afraid of them or what other people would think or say. He took care of them and talked with them. Then he usually forgave them and told them not to sin anymore and move on with their lives.

Once again, Jesus touches someone who shouldn’t be touched, for according to the law, contact with a corpse was also considered nonkosher and demanded a period of quarantine and ritual washing. In all three stories, the point isn’t just that Jesus healed these people; the point is that Jesus touched these people. He embraced them just as he embraced other disparaged members of society, often regarded as “sinners” by the religious and political elite—prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, Gentiles, the sick, the blind, and the deaf.

The book of Revelation is calling Christians to a cultural disengagement: we have woken up to find the prostitute in our beds and the beast raiding our possessions, and we seem to be okay with that.