Podcasts about hebrew old testament

Don't miss this special episode of Come, Follow Church History with Doctor Lynne Hilton Wilson about the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Join Lynne as you asks some hard questions about Jospeh's work on the Bible and the most significant verses he translated. Joseph Smith's translation (JST) of the Bible did not start with its original languages of Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) as technical translations do. In this way, the JST is more of a revision of certain passages. Many passages Joseph was inspired to add or change—especially in early chapters of Genesis. For other portions, the JST modernized the grammar or clarified the text. Some changes came from revelation after asking questions, and others from his own preferences and understanding.

Returning to Biblical RootsThe church today is returning to its biblical foundation with Christ as its head and believers as His body in the Earth. Jesus declared, "I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Satan's true fear isn't your church attendance but rather you functioning as Christ's body, standing in the supreme authority He has been given over all the Earth.The New Testament Greek word for church—"ekklesia"—appears approximately 120 times and literally means "the called out ones." What many don't realize is that this same word appears about 100 times in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament).This understanding reveals that God's design has always been for His people to operate as a unified body under Christ's headship. As Jesus has been given all authority, we as His church are called to stand in that authority—not merely gathering in buildings, but actively representing His kingdom as His "called out ones" in every sphere of life. The church isn't just something we attend; it's who we are as Christ's empowered representatives on Earth.

Wednesday, 27 November 2024   But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire. Matthew 5:22   “And I, I say to you that all the ‘being angry' to the brother of him groundlessly, he will be liable to the judgment. And whoever, if he shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,' he will be liable to the Sanhedrin. And whoever, if he shall say, ‘moronic,' he will be liable to the Gehenna of the fire” (CG).   In the previous verse, Jesus told His disciples that it was said to the ancients, “You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.” He now continues with the higher standard which was not perceived by the ancients, saying, “And I, I say to you.”   Jesus is making an authoritative statement (And I, I say to you) concerning the state of the heart that rests behind murder. If someone murders, it is because there is already something stirring in him, a murderous intent, that causes him to act.   This is why there is a difference within the Law of Moses between a manslayer who kills accidentally and a murderer. For the accidental manslayer, there was the provision of the city of refuge detailed in Numbers 35.   Jesus' introductory words of this verse form a teaching that expands upon what the ancients had taught. They simply cited the law and gave their evaluation. But Jesus is addressing the issue that leads to the act of murder. That is seen in the words, “that all the ‘being angry' to the brother of him groundlessly, he will be liable to the judgment.”   In these words, is one word not included in all manuscripts, eiké, groundlessly. In other words, some manuscripts (and thus translations based on those manuscripts) say something like, “But I say to you that everyone being angry with his brother will be liable to the judgment” (BLB).   Whether this word is original or not is hard to determine. Some find it contradictory to leave out the word and then have it recorded that Jesus was angry in Mark 3:5. However, being angry and being angry with one's brother is not necessarily the same thing. In the case of Jesus' words now, He is telling them that the state of anger that leads to the act of murder will make one liable to the judgment.   Jesus was angry, being grieved at the state of the hearts of those He was interacting with in Mark 3:5. This doesn't mean that He had murderous intent. In Ephesians 4:26, a verse citing words from the psalms, it uses the same word translated as angry here, “Be angry and do not sin.”   To suppose that simply being angry would make one liable to the judgment, there would then be a true contradiction in Scripture. Therefore, Jesus is not telling His hearers they cannot be angry. He is telling them that the state of anger towards a brother that could lead to murder is essentially murder, just as the act of coveting that leads to theft is essentially theft.   God is looking at the state of the heart. The actions that follow do not necessarily have to occur for there to be the imputation of sin. This is exactly the reason for the tenth commandment, coveting. We are not to allow our hearts to come to the state where we have the desire to do what may then be acted out. Understanding this, Jesus next says, “And whoever, if he shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,' he will be liable to the Sanhedrin.”   The vocative noun rhaka is Aramaic. It is found only here in the Bible and it signifies invoking a person as empty or foolish. It is etymologically similar to the word req, empty or vain, that is used in the Hebrew Old Testament. In Judges 9:4, the word is used to describe the worthless or vain followers of Abimelech.   It doesn't necessarily follow that Jesus is saying that the Sanhedrin would hold a trial for someone calling his brother Raca. Rather, He is still referring to the state of the heart. If someone calls his brother Raca, it is because he has murderous intent in his heart. If he acts out that intent, he will be liable to the Sanhedrin for having committed murder. That is then supplemented by His next words, “And whoever, if he shall say, ‘moronic,' he will be liable to the Gehenna of the fire.”   The Greek word is the adjective móros. Being an adjective, it refers to the state of a moron, he is moronic. Like calling a brother Raca which can lead to a trial for murder, calling a person moronic will have the same effect. In being a murderer, he can expect not just temporal judgment, but eternal judgment as well. It is the state of the heart that leads to the act that God is evaluating.   As for Gehenna, it is from the Greek geenna. It describes a valley that lies west and south of Jerusalem. Because of the things that occurred there, it became synonymous with the final place of judgment where punishment is eternally meted out to the lost. The name itself is derived from gay [gahee], a valley, and Hinnom, an Old Testament proper name of a person believed to be a Jebusite.   Life application: The state of the heart is being evaluated by God. As noted in the previous commentary, David did things that were violations of the law. And yet, his heart was tender enough to acknowledge his wrongdoings and to be convicted for doing them.   God understands our limitations, and He is aware of our pressure points. We face trials, and our hearts fail in one way or another. But is our heart callous and uncaring when we do wrong, or is it tender enough to feel remorse and a desire to act differently?   Ultimately, God wants our hearts to acknowledge that we have sinned, even if it was only intent that was wrong in His eyes. From there, we can then say, “I know that I cannot save myself. I have been wicked in my heart, sinned in my actions, and I NEED JESUS. I believe that God sent Him to take my place in punishment and to restore me to Him.”   For those who think that law observance will take care of their sinful hearts and wayward actions, they are sorely deceived. This is what Jesus is trying to tell the people. To this day, so many will not pay heed. We don't need more law. We need God's grace in the giving of Jesus.   Lord God, understanding the words of Jesus concerning the state of our hearts, we can truly see how greatly we need Him to save us. We fall infinitely short of Your glorious perfection, and without Him, we stand condemned. But because He has come, we can have full restoration with You. Thank You for the wonderful assurance we possess because of Your grace, poured out upon us through Jesus. Amen.  

Psalm 68 Worksheet Psalm 68 is tied for the tenth longest Psalm in the Psalms (with Psalm 104). It is the _______________ Psalm in Book 2 of the Psalms (only Psalm 69 is longer). Another thing that makes Psalm 68 difficult is that in the original Hebrew ________________ words occur that don't occur anywhere else in the Hebrew Old Testament! The theme that seems to tie Psalm 68 together is praising God for past victories and anticipating future deliverances. Many scholars believe there are references to the ______________________ of the covenant being brought to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6) and then into battle against the Amorites (2 Sam. 11). Names of God: Elohim occurs _______________ times! Lord (Adonai) occurs 6 times. Yah in verse 4 is short for Yahweh; LORD (Yahweh) is in verse 16; The God (Ha'El) occurs twice. The Almighty (El Shaddai) is in verse 14; LORD God (Yahweh Elohim) is in verse 18. GOD the Lord (Yahweh Adonai) is in verse 20; God of our salvation (El Mo-shaw-aw) is in verse 20. < Highlights of the Psalm: No matter how courageous we are we need like David in verses 1-2 to appeal to God to rise up and deal with enemies we are fighting _________________________ we are His people. Remembering past deliverances and appreciating victories to come, verses 3-4 picture a grateful people praising the Lord! Verse 4 makes me think of ________________'s vision in chapter 7 of the Son of Man coming on the clouds! Now when there is war and you lose some soldiers to death, what do you have back on the home front? We also know that there is an epidemic of _______________________ in our day – look at God's beautiful statement in verse 6 – “God sets the solitary in families.” In Israel the tribes took care of their own; churches are called to do the same! Starting in verse 7 David rehearses God's history since the Exodus of ________________________ for their needs, even in the wilderness. God marching through the wilderness may be an illusion to the Ark going out with the people as they moved and defended themselves from attacks. Mount Sinai holds a special role for Israel because there the ___________________ was given, including the Can anyone tell me what italicized words mean in your translation? There is beautiful poetic image given as David makes His point in verses 15-16. He could just say that Mount Zion (Jerusalem) had a special role in God's plan for Israel as it became the home of the Ark . Instead, he pictures Bashan and other “trans-Jordan” mountain peaks being ____________________ of Sinai and Zion for their special roles in God's plans. The Lord is among God's human and angelic warriors (verse 17) now in Zion (Jerusalem) as He was at Sinai, in the holy place that contains the Ark. You can see David anticipating the coming ________________ home for the Ark of the Covenant. Verse 18 makes us think of David receiving tribute from defeated foes in His day. Do you remember how Paul later uses this verse in Ephesians 4:8? No wonder verse 19 says that God loads us with benefits, including salvation (v. 19) and escape from death (v. 20). But God will wound His enemies (v. 21), including those critics from Bashan (v. 22-23). In verses 24-27 David pictures the great day when the Ark finally came to its resting place in Jerusalem amidst much fanfare and praise. Why do you think David mentions the four specific tribes he does in verse 27. In verses 29-32 David anticipates future worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, with hints of Christ's future millennial ________________________ from Jerusalem sprinkled in. Kings will bring presents to you – The Queen of Sheba did that after Solomon finished the Temple, and we are told others did. Verse 32 calls for the Kingdoms of the earth to join in in praising this God of Israel AND the kingdoms of the earth – the Messiah King of Israel will be the King of the world. No wonder that verse 33 brings back the idea of Him _________________________ on the very Heaven of heavens!

Friday, 20 September 2024   Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'” Matthew 4:10   “Then Jesus, He says to him, ‘Withdraw, you, Satan! For it has been written, “The Lord your God you shall worship, and Him alone you shall serve”'” (CG).   The previous verse recorded the words of the Traducer saying that he would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory if He would fall down and worship him. With that said, Matthew continues with, “Then Jesus, He says to him, ‘Withdraw, you, Satan!'”   The words include a new verb, hupagó. It comes from hypó, under and ágō, lead away. Thus, it gives the sense of to retire or withdraw. HELPS Word Studies notes that it is “to lead away under someone's authority.” It is clear, then, that Jesus has authority over Satan. He retained that authority and did not cede it to him.   Jesus has been tempted three times, the first was to His fleshly needs, making stone into bread. The second was the pride of life, casting Himself from the winglet of the temple, the third was the lust of the eyes, having seen and been offered every earthly desire that could be imagined.   However, He resisted the temptations, prevailing where Adam failed. Now, in His victory over these things, He instructs Satan to withdraw. This is also the first use of the word Satan in the New Testament. It is derived from the Hebrew word satan, an adversary or opponent. In the Hebrew Old Testament, when the word is preceded by a definite article, it would indicate the archenemy of God, Satan.   Along with His dismissal of Satan, He again cites Scripture, saying, “For it has been written.”   Jesus again relies on the words of Scripture to defend against the temptations levied against Him. This time, He will cite from the Greek translation of Deuteronomy 6:13, saying, “The Lord your God you shall worship, and Him alone you shall serve.”   The Hebrew reads, “You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name.” Rather than “fear,” the Greek says “worship,” using the same word as Satan said to Jesus in verse 9. However, one Greek text also translates the word as fear.   The word of God clearly stated that obedience in spiritual matters belonged to the Lord God alone. Any worship of or serving another in such ways was to be rejected. In His actions, Jesus prevailed, not falling to the human temptations set before Him.   Life application: The things that Jesus was tempted with are not wrong in and of themselves. There is nothing wrong with bread. Rather, it was the way in which Jesus was tempted to make the bread that was inappropriate.   There is nothing wrong with bungee jumping off a high bridge (although that has led to disaster at times). In Jesus' case, casting Himself from the highpoint of the temple would have tested God's promise concerning the Messiah already recorded in Scripture.   And there is nothing wrong with having worldly goods or being a ruler in some capacity in the world. However, Jesus was tempted by those things in a way that would have violated His allegiance to His Father.   Unfortunately, there are people who take things to extremes unintended in Scripture, sequestering themselves away or refraining from particular things because they have misunderstood the context of what is being said in Scripture.   We live in this world, and we are to interact with it and with others in a manner that any human would as long as our devotion to God is maintained. As long as our faith is in Him and our lives are lived in accord with that faith, God will be pleased with how we conduct our affairs.   This is a beautiful world that has been created and structured for man to enjoy. God is glorified through our proper enjoyment of it, meaning when we thank Him for the blessings that come through our conduct as we interact with it.   Glorious God, it is a joy and a delight to live in this world and experience the innumerable things You have set here for us to experience. May we do so with the mind that You are God and that what we participate in is from Your open hand of grace. May we never let anything in creation take our eyes off of You. Instead, may we consider You as we enjoy what You have given us. Amen.

This is part 17 of the Read the Bible For Yourself. After reviewing the resources you can use to learn Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, we delve into the sources that translators use for their work. Next, we'll look at translation philosophies, including formal and dynamic equivalence. Lastly we'll cover the controversial issues of gender accuracy and translation bias. Over all, this episode should give you a nice introduction to a deep answer for what translations you should use and why. Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsxuNfkTt-U&list=PLN9jFDsS3QV2TrdUEDtAipF3jy4qYspM_&index=18 —— Links —— See other episodes in Read the Bible For Yourself Other classes are available here, including How We Got the Bible, which explores the manuscript transmission and translation of the Bible Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here —— Notes —— 17 How to Choose a Bible Translation Translation basics Fee & Stuart: “Your Bible, whatever translation you use, which is your beginning point, is in fact the end result of much scholarly work. Translators are regularly called upon to make choices regarding meanings, and their choices are going to affect how you”[1] “Every translation is a commentary” -Lee Brice The Bible is in three languages. Hebrew: Old Testament except the Aramaic part Nearly 99% of the OT (22,945 of 23,213 verses) Aramaic: half of Daniel and two passages in Ezra Daniel 2.4b-7.28; Ezra 4.8-6.18; 7.12-26 About 1% of the OT (268 of 23,213 verses) Greek: New Testament (all 7,968 verses) How to begin learning Hebrew or Greek Immersion program in Israel or Greece Whole Word Institute offers a 9-month program. In-person college class (usually 2 semesters) Local colleges, RTS offers an 8-week summer program. In-person classes at a Jewish synagogue or Greek church or community center Online program with live instructor Biblical Language Center, Liberty University, etc. Digital program with pre-recordings Aleph with Beth (YouTube), Bill Mounce's DVD course, etc. How to improve your existing knowledge of Hebrew or Greek Reading group in-person or online Read a portion each week together. Daily dose of Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic Daily YouTube videos of one verse each (email list) Read every day. Read the Bible; read devotionals; read comic books (Glossa House produces great resources) Watch modern Hebrew and Greek shows. Izzy is like Netflix for Israel/Hebrew Greece has lots of channels streaming online. Translation process (1 Timothy 2:5 example) Greek New Testament (NA28)Εἷς γὰρ θεός, εἷς καὶ μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων, ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς Literal translationOne for god, one and mediator of god and men,man Christ Jesus Finished translationFor (there is) one God, and (there is) one mediator between God and mankind, (the) man Christ Jesus. New Testament critical editions Nestle Aland 28th Edition (NA28) based on the Editio Critica Maior (ECM), which employs the coherence based genealogical method (CBGM) Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) prioritizes trusted physical manuscripts over the CBGM. Old Testament critical editions Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) and the partially completed Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) print the Leningrad Codex in the main text, but include alternative readings in the footnotes. Hebrew Bible Critical Edition (HBCE) by Ronald Mendel is a project of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) to develop a critical edition. Resources to see decisions about alternative readings NET Bible (accessible here) New Testament Text and Commentary by Philip Comfort A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger Formal equivalence translation philosophy Fee & Strauss: “If the Greek or Hebrew text uses an infinitive, the English translation will use an infinitive. When the Greek or Hebrew has a prepositional phrase, so will the English…The goal of this translational theory is formal correspondence as much as possible.”[2] Ron Rhodes: “Formal equivalence translations can also be trusted not to mix too much commentary in with the text derived from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. To clarify, while all translation entails some interpretation, formal equivalence translations keep to a minimum in intermingling interpretive additives into the text.  As one scholar put it, ‘An essentially literal translation operates on the premise that a translator is a steward of what someone else has written, not an editor and exegete who needs to explain or correct what someone else has written.'”[3] Dynamic equivalence translation philosophy Ron Rhodes: “Dynamic equivalence translations generally use shorter words, shorter sentences, and shorter paragraphs. They use easy vocabulary and use simple substitutes for theological and cultural terminology.  They often convert culturally dependent figures of speech into easy, direct statements.  They seek to avoid ambiguity as well as biblical jargon in favor of a natural English style. Translators concentrate on transferring meaning rather than mere words from one language to another.”[4] Formal vs. dynamic comparison Formal Equivalence Dynamic Equivalence Formal Correspondence Functional Equivalence Word for Word Thought for Thought Literal Readable Transparent to Originals Replicates Experience Transfer Interpretation Interpretation Built In Accurate Easy to Understand Formal equivalence Bibles ESV: English Standard Version NASB: New American Standard Bible LSB: Legacy Standard Bible NRSV: New Revised Standard Version HCSB: Holman Christian Standard Bible Gender Accuracy[5] “Man” used to mean “men and women” “Men” used to mean “men and women” “he” used to mean “he or she” Translations are changing with the changes in the English language so that female readers recognize the relevance of scripture to them See Eph 4:28; Mat 11:15; etc. Combatting bias To combat bias, look at translations from different thought camps. Evangelical: NIV, NLT, ESV, NASB, NET, CSB, HCSB, LEB MSG, Passion, Amplified, LSB, CEV, TEV/GNT, NCV, NIrV Jewish: JPS, KJB, Stone, Robert Altar, Shocken Catholic: NABRE, NAB, RNJB, NJB, JB, Douay-Rheims Mainline: NRSV, NEB, RSV, ASV, KJV Unitarian: REV, NWT, Diaglott, KGV, Buzzard, NEV Review If you can, learn the biblical languages so you can read the actual words of scripture rather than depending on a translation. Translations of the New Testament depend on the Greek critical text known as the Nestle Aland 28th edition (NA28). Translations of the Old Testament depend on the Leningrad Codex, which is printed in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) and the partially complete Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ). In addition, translators of the Old Testament are expected to look through the footnotes and commentary in these resources to judge readings from other sources. Over generations, textual critics have developed strategies and computer tools to more closely approximate the original text. As a result, newer critical texts contain reconstructions of an older stage of the text. Translation is the art of rendering a source text into a receptor language accurately. Formal equivalence translations focus on transparency to the source text and a minimum of added interpretation. Dynamic equivalence translations focus on readability in the receptor language. They seek clarity over ambiguity. Formal equivalence translations are safer, because they leave it up to the reader to figure out what a text means. However, they can contain awkward English and be difficult to read. Gender accuracy refers to the translation practice of including the feminine when a hypothetical singular masculine pronoun can refer to either sex or when masculine plurals include both genders. Bias is intrinsic to translation, especially with reference to doctrines that are widely held by committee members. The best way to expose and combat bias is to check translations from different thought camps. Although evangelical translations are better known, checking Jewish, mainline, Catholic, and unitarian translations provides a helpful corrective. [1] Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 23. [2] Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss, How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), p. 26. [3] Ron Rhodes, The Complete Guide to Bible Translations (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2009), p. 30.  Quotation from Leland Ryken, Choosing a Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005), p. 27. [4] Ron Rhodes, The Complete Guide to Bible Translations (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2009), pp. 32-33. [5] For a much deeper dive into this interesting topic, see session 15 from How We Got the Bible: Gender in Bible Translation, available on lhim.org or on YouTube.

Rabbi Leopold Cohn, D.D. (1862 – 1937)OCTOBER 4, 2012 BY H B CENTZFrom Rabbis meet Jesus the Messiah – a collection of 24 biographies and testimonies of Rabbis encounters with Jesus the Messiah© Messianic Good News.Life began for Leopold Cohn in the little town of Berezna, in the eastern part of Hungary. At the age of seven a great calamity befell the young lad; he lost both of his parents in the same year and was left to shift as well as he could for himself. In later years he often recalled how those days of terrible loneliness and bitter struggle for existence taught him to trust in God with all of his heart. It seems natural, then, to find young Cohn, after his confirmation at the age of thirteen, determined to enter upon a course of study with a view to becoming eventually a Rabbi and leader among his people. That he gave good account of himself as a student we conclude from the fact that at the age of eighteen, he graduated from the Talmudical academies with a record of high scholarship and with commendations as a worthy teacher of the Law.Following the completion of his formal studies and the subsequent receipt of “smikha” or ordination, Rabbi Cohn contracted a very happy marriage and, in keeping with the custom of the time, became installed in his wife's paternal home, there to devote himself to the further study of the sacred writings.Through the years of almost ascetic religious study and devotion, the burning problems of his people, the problems of the exile and of the promised but long delayed redemption through the coming of the Messiah, had become deeply etched upon the Rabbi's spirit, and now that he had obtained leisure and could follow the call of his heart, he gave himself to earnest prayer and research in the hope of finding their solution.A part of his morning devotions was the repetition of the twelfth article of the Jewish creed, which declares, “I believe with a perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and though He tarry, yet will I wait daily for His coming.”The regular use of this affirmation of faith fanned to a flame the desire of his heart for the fulfilment of God's promises and the speedy restoration of scattered Israel, until no longer satisfied with the formal prayers, he began to rise up in the midnight watches and sit on the bare ground to mourn over the destruction of the temple and to implore God to hasten the coming of the Deliverer.“Why does the Messiah tarry? When will He come?” These were questions which continually agitated the young Rabbi's mind. One day, while poring over a volume of the Talmud, he came upon the following citation: “The world will stand six thousand years. There will be two thousand years of confusion, two thousand years under the law, and two thousand years of the time of the Messiah.” With quickened interest he turned for light on the passage to the writings of Rashi, the foremost Jewish commentator, but the explanation he found there seemed to him to be of little help. “After the second two thousand years,” it read, “the Messiah will come and the wicked kingdoms will be destroyed.” When he turned away from the ponderous volumes, the solution of his problem appeared to him to have become more difficult than ever. According to Talmudical reckoning the Messiah should long since have come; yet, there was the exile, still the bitterest fact of Jewish life, to be accounted for. “Can it be possible,” he asked himself, “that the time appointed by God for the coming of the Messiah has passed and the promise has not been fulfilled?” Sorely perplexed, Rabbi Cohn decided to begin a study of the original predictions of the Prophets, but the very contemplation of the act filled him with fear, for, according to the teaching of the Rabbis, “Cursed are the bones of him who calculates the time of the end.” And so it was that with trembling hands, expecting at any moment to be struck by a bolt from heaven, but with an eagerness irresistible, he opened the book of the prophet Daniel and began to read.When he reached the ninth chapter, light began to dawn upon him. He had struck a mine of hitherto concealed truth, covered up by the commentaries of the revered doctors of the law.From the twenty fourth verse of the chapter before him he deduced without difficulty that the coming of the Messiah should have taken place 400 years after Daniel received from the Divine messenger the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. The scholar, accustomed to the intricate and often veiled polemical treatises of the Talmud, now found himself strangely captivated by the clear and soul satisfying declarations of the Word of God, and it was not long before he began to question in his mind the reliability of the Talmud, seeing that in matters so vital it differed from the Holy Scriptures.It was not an easy nor a pleasant matter for Rabbi Cohn, leader of a Jewish community, daily gaining in popularity among his people, to entertain doubts concerning the authority of the Talmud. Quite apart from the disquietude that it brought to his own soul, he felt that doubt was heretical in a man of his position and in some mystical way injurious to the welfare of Israel. And yet, every moment of sober contemplation brought him face to face with the question, “Shall I believe God's Word, or must I shut my eyes to truth?” In the midst of the conflict thus produced in his heart, there was one prayer that rose to his lips more often than any other: “Open Thou mine eyes, O Lord, that I maybe hold wondrous things in Thy law.”Without being fully conscious of it, Rabbi Cohn was travelling toward a parting of the ways. A crisis was inevitable; and it broke upon him one “Chanukah.” It was the season of the Feast of Dedication and, as was his custom, he planned to preach to his people on the meaning of the feast. He had not intended to refer in his sermon either to his doubts about the Talmud or to his late discoveries in the prophecy of Daniel, but when he arose to speak some of his deepest thoughts welled up within him and would not be denied articulation. The effect of his words upon the congregation became immediately evident.Whispers grew to loud protests, and before the sermon progressed very far the service broke up in an uproar. That day initiated a series of petty persecutions which robbed the life a of the young Rabbi of its joy and made his ministry difficult to the point of impossibility.The New Testament was as yet an unknown book to Rabbi Cohn, and consequently it never entered his mind to look there for the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophetic predictions. In a vortex of soul, casting about for a course of action, he decided to seek advice from a fellow Rabbi in a distant town, a man his senior by many years, for whose learning and piety he entertained a very high regard. “Surely,” he thought, “my problem is not a new one. Others must have puzzled over it and found some satisfactory answer, else how could they continue to study and teach the Talmud.” But here again his hopes were destined to be dashed to the ground. When Cohn had hardly finished the unburdening of his troubled soul, the Rabbi whose help he travelled so far to seek began to lash him with his tongue and to pour upon him a veritable stream of insult and vituperation. “So you have set out to find the Messiah to uncover the inscrutable? You are hardly out of the shell and already you have the temerity to question the authority of the Talmud! The teachings of our masters are no longer good enough for you? You talk for all the world like the renegades across the sea, about whom I have recently read in a Vienna paper, who claim that our Messiah has already come. Better go back to your post, young man, and count yourself happy that you have not yet been deprived of it. And take my warning, if you persist in these unholy ideas, you will one day end your Rabbinate in disgrace and probably wind up among those apostates in America.”Disappointed and crushed, Rabbi Cohn took his leave. But in spite of his utter humiliation, a new thought was beginning to form in his mind, and with it he seemed to see a glimmer of new hope in the far distance. America! The Land of freedom! The haven of the persecuted! There he would continue his investigation.March 1892 found Rabbi Cohn in the city of New York, warmly welcomed by his countrymen, many of whom had known him personally at home. Rabbi Kline of the Hungarian Synagogue, who had preceded him to America, and to whom he had a letter of recommendation, received him with much kindness and even offered him a place of temporary service in his synagogue while awaiting a call to a suitable congregation.On a Saturday, soon after his arrival, Rabbi Cohn went out for the customary Sabbath afternoon stroll. As had become his habit, he was meditating upon the subject of the Messiah. But in the midst of his musings, as he was passing by a church located in one of the Ghetto streets, his attention was arrested by a sign written in Hebrew and announcing “Meetings for Jews.” He hardly knew what to make of the strange combination: A church with a Cross upon it, and meetings for Jews!While he stood in front of the church absorbed in thought, a countryman of his seized him by the arm and said in a voice charged with fear. “Rabbi Cohn, better come away from this place.” The Rabbi was startled, but at the same time his sense of inquiry was aroused. Just what was there about that church with the Hebrew sign upon it? “There are apostate Jews in that church,” he was told with bated breath, “and they teach that the Messiah has already come.” At the sound of these words Rabbi Cohn's pulse quickened. They teach that the Messiah has already come! Could these be the people referred to by that Rabbi whom he had visited before leaving Hungary? This was something worth finding out.As soon as he could take leave of his companion, and after making sure that he was not being observed, he quickly retraced his steps to the church. But he had hardly set foot inside the door when a sight met his eyes that compelled him to turn back. The speaker on the platform was bareheaded, and so was the audience. As it would have been to any orthodox Jew, that was to Rabbi Cohn the height of sacrilege.On the way out, however, he thought that he should explain to the sexton his reason for leaving, and from him he received the suggestion that even if he could not stay for the service, he would nevertheless be welcome if he called for a private interview with the minister at his home.On the following Monday, although still somewhat affected by his Saturday's experience, Rabbi Cohn plucked up enough courage to present himself at the minister's address. He entered the house with many misgivings, but the impression made upon him by the gracious personality of the minister, a Christian Jew, and by the fact that the man was, like himself, a trained Talmudist and in addition the scion of a famous Rabbinical family, very soon put him completely at ease. Before he realised what he was doing, he found himself relating to his new found friend the story of his Messianic quest.Near the close of the interview, noting that his visitor was completely unacquainted with its contents, the minister handed him a copy of the New Testament in Hebrew and asked him to study it at his leisure. Receiving with eager hands the book which was destined to transform his life and ministry, and being anxious to examine it, Rabbi Cohn opened the volume and turned to the first page, and there his eyes fell upon the first lines of the Gospel by Matthew, “This is the book of the generation of Yeshua the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”The feeling which these words awakened in him beggar description. It seemed to him that he had finally reached the goal of his long quest. The sacrifices he had made, the separation from wife and children he had endured, the days he had spent in agonizing prayer all those things were about to bear their fruit and receive their reward. The problem which neither he nor those he consulted with could solve was now answered by a book, and that book was in his hands. Surely such a book must have come to him by the will of Heaven. God had finally answered his many prayers, and now, he was sure, He would help him to find the Messiah.Taking leave of his kindly host, Rabbi Cohn ran as fast as he could to his room and, locking the door, gave himself to a study of the precious volumes his pearl of great price. “I began reading at eleven o'clock in the morning,” he wrote later in reflecting upon the events of that momentous day, “and continued until one o'clock after midnight. I could not understand the entire contents of the book, but I could at least see that the Messiah's name was Yeshua, that He was born in Bethlehem of Judah, that He had lived in Jerusalem and communicated with my people, and that He came just at the time predicted in the prophecy of Daniel. My joy was boundless.”But had he been able to look into the future, Rabbi Cohn would have seen other days of sorrow in store for him. Narrow and toilsome is the path of faith in a world of unbelief. His first rude shock came the very next morning, when he tried to share his discovery with Rabbi Kline, who but recently had offered to assist him in finding a charge. “You are a wild dreamer,” shouted his Rabbinical colleague when he had heard Cohn's story. “The Messiah whom you say you found is none other than the Jesus of the Gentiles. And as for this book,” he said, tearing the New Testament from Cohn's hands, “a learned Rabbi like you should not even handle, much less read this vile production of the apostates. It is the cause of all our sufferings.” And with these words he threw the book to the floor and trampled upon it with his feet.Fleeing from this unexpected outburst of wrath, Rabbi Cohn felt himself once more a raging sea of conflicting thoughts and emotions. “Can it be possible that Yeshua the Messiah, the son of David, is the Jesus whom the Gentiles worship?” To believe upon such an one would indeed be an act of rank idolatry!The days which followed were filled for him with heartache and melancholy thoughts. But gradually he succeeded in freeing himself from the clutches of despair and began to study his problem anew in the light of the Holy Scriptures. When he turned to God's lamp of truth, he found light.The prophetic vision of the suffering Messiah began to penetrate his mind as he read and re-read the fifty third chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, but yet he was a long way from finding peace of soul. The solemn questions that now stared him in the face were, “What if Yeshua and Jesus are the same persons? How shall I love the hated one? How shall I defile my lips with the name of Jesus, whose followers have tortured and killed my brethren through many generations? How can I join a community of people so hostile to those of my own flesh and blood?” These were indeed questions troublesome enough to rob any man of his peace. And yet, above all the raging storm, there was a still, small voice that kept speaking to his heart and saying, “If He is the Messiah predicted in the Scriptures, then surely you must love Him, and no matter what others have done in His name, you must follow Him.”Still halting between two opinions, Rabbi Cohn decided to fast and to pray until God clearly revealed to him what to do. When he began his supplications, he had in his hands a Hebrew Old Testament. Being wholly absorbed in prayer, he was startled when the volume fell from his hands to the floor, and when he bent down to retrieve the sacred book, he saw that it had opened at the third chapter of the prophecy of Malachi, which begins with the words, “Behold I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Angel of the Covenant whom ye delight in: behold He has already come, saith the Lord of Hosts.” Now his entire being was electrified to attention and his every sense of perception awakened. For a moment he felt that the Messiah stood by his side, pointing him to the words, “He has already come.” Stricken with a feeling of awe, he fell on his face, and out of his innermost parts came words of prayer and adoration. “My Lord, my Messiah Yeshua. Thou art the One in whom Israel is to be glorified, and Thou art surely the One who hast reconciled Thy people unto God. From this day on I will serve Thee no matter what the cost.”And as if indirect answer to his prayer a flood of light filled his understanding, and to his unspeakable happiness he no longer found it difficult to love his Lord, although he was sure now that it was Jesus whom he was addressing. In that hour he knew that he had become a new creature in the Messiah.Consulting no longer with flesh and blood, Cohn began to proclaim to all his friends and acquaintances that the, rejected Jesus was the true Messiah of Israel, and that not until the Jews as a people accepted Him could they find peace with God. The first reaction of his friends was one of amused indulgence. “Rabbi Cohn is mentally confused,” they said, “due to his long separation from his loved ones.” But when his perseverance and earnestness of appeal challenged their attention, they branded him as a traitor to his people and began to persecute him bitterly. Some even thought that it would be a pious act to remove him from among the living. Such are the ways of zeal void of the knowledge of God!When Cohn's countrymen settled down to the inevitable acceptance of the fact of his conversion, they proceeded to dispatch letters to his wife and friends at home, to inform them about his “apostasy.” As a result, all communications between him and his wife were soon completely stopped.In the meantime the Jews of New York were in an uproar over the act of the once honoured Rabbi. There is no way of estimating what harm fanatical persecution would have inflicted upon him had he remained long in New York. But very fortunately the minister who gave him his first New Testament learned about his plight and came to his aid. A group of friends was rallied, who undertook to give shelter and protection to Cohn; but when it became plainly evident that in New York his life would be daily in dire danger, arrangements were made for his secret departure to Scotland, that he might have opportunity to study and gather strength in a friendly environment.In the city of Edinburgh, in Scotland, Cohn found a cordial welcome among the people of the Barklay Church. It was well that he was now among friends, for he had another battle ahead of him and another enemy to overcome, an enemy more subtle and dangerous than all those he had left behind in New York. Approaching the day of his baptism, he felt that he would have to face the supreme test of his life, and that arrayed against him would be Satan and all the powers of hell. Many things, he knew, were in the balance for him. In a spiritual way he expected to gain much from a resolute and open confession of his faith in the Messiah, but on the human side he was in danger of losing all that he counted dear in life his wife, children, friends, position, dignities, in fact, everything.For some days prior to his baptism, even until the very hour of his solemn public commitment to the Messiah, Cohn lived under a cloud of gloomy forebodings. Prayer, to which he resorted often, brought him only temporary relief. But on the morning of his baptism, when he reached the church, he felt strengthened and cheered, as if the clouds had been dispelled by the very presence of the Messiah whom he was so eager to confess. Later on he came to know how the prayers of many friends had supported him in the hour of battle and of glorious victory. Indicative of these was a letter he received from Dr. Andrew A. Bonar, the venerable pastor of the Finnieston Church in Glasgow, which read, “My people and I were praying for you at our Service this morning.” In this way Cohn cut loose from the life he once lived, in order to give himself anew to the service of his people. He was no longer a Rabbi of the law, but a messenger of the Messiah, and he carried in his heart the secret of Israel's salvation.Thus far we have dealt at length with Rabbi Cohn's spiritual pilgrimage, because therein is to be found the secret of this truly great man's life and work. The Doctor Leopold Cohn of the after years, the erudite scholar, the brilliant preacher, the faithful pastor and tireless missionary, can be understood only in the light of the quest of his youth, when as a rising light in the Rabbinical profession he counted nothing too dear to be sacrificed on the altar of truth and devoted to the cause of his people's redemption.The exigency of space compels us now to draw the curtain upon that period of Cohn's life which embraces his residence and labour in Scotland and his reunion with his wife and children. How his family came to share his faith in the Messiah could well be told, and indeed deserves to be told, in a separate story. That they did so, is but an added testimony to the sincerity and uprightness of the man.We take up the story again at the point of Cohn's return with his family to New York in the fall of 1893. The time elapsed between this and his first arrival in New York had changed the man not at all in his essential character. He was the same passionate pilgrim after truth, except that now he had his bearings and the goal was no longer to him a matter of speculation. He had drunk at the fountain of living water. “I know whom I have believed” was now as truly his slogan as once it had been St. Paul's.For the former Rabbi there was only one calling in life to serve God, and only one thing worth doing to make known the way of God's salvation in Jesus the Messiah. And so, upon landing again in New York, he set about immediately to establish contact with the masses of his Jewish brethren.To secure a platform for the proclamation of the Gospel he opened a little mission in Brownsville. Being a man of practical sense, he devoted himself not alone to preaching, but also to the alleviation of the many needs that he found in the lives of immigrant Jews who were then crowding into New York by the thousands. It strikes one with pungent tragedy that at his first attempt to serve his people in the name of the Messiah, he stood very much alone. While his work as a preacher did not lack popularity, the Jewish community as a whole still looked upon him with hostile eyes, and Christians, who should have upheld his busy hands, rallied to his aid altogether too slowly.Before he went very far with his mission project, his wife's jewellery, a token of former affluence, had to be sacrificed in order to provide the rent for the humble meeting hall. And there came days when the larder of the missionary's little family was quite bare of provisions and when the children had to be sent to school half fed. Those must have been heartbreaking days, sufficient to crush the stoutest of spirits; but Cohn carried on undaunted, trusting himself and his beloved to God, who had called him out of darkness into His marvellous light.Persecution must also have been a sore trial to the sensitive spirit of the young missionary; but if there were scars inflicted by cruel tongues and hands, those were known alone to God. Cohn never complained, but remained always bright and hopeful. There is on record an incident related by Dr. Cohn many years ago to an intimate group, in order to illustrate the text: “The disciple is not greater than his Lord.” “One afternoon,” he said, “I went to deliver a New Testament at a house where it had been requested. But when I arrived there, a powerful man fell upon me, first battering me with his fists and then jumping upon me with his feet. Finally he took hold of my ears, and lifting my head, he began to knock it repeatedly against the hard floor, all the while intoning in Hebrew, ‘These ears which heard from Sinai that we must have no strange gods, and which now listen to the Christian idols, must be pulled out,' and emphasizing each mention of the words ‘pulled out' with a terrible jerk.” From this experience Cohn went home with blood on his face, but that was the blood of one who suffered for the truth's sake and it became the seed of a great work.But perhaps the sorest trials which he had to suffer came from the side of people who were ostensibly of like mind with him. “False brethren” such characters were dubbed by the apostle Paul, and no better description for them has been found yet.When Dr. Cohn was already established in his work, with a large congregation of Jews whom he had won to the faith of the Messiah rising up around him to call his name blessed, there were found men of sufficient temerity to impugn his motives and to question the sincerity of his faith. Fortunately there were others, men of unimpeachable character, who knew the real worth of Dr. Cohn and stood with him and for him to the end of his life. It is noteworthy that in 1930, at a time when the severest attacks were being levelled upon him, Wheaton College in Illinois, a Christian educational institution of first rank, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.Dr. Leopold Cohn passed away on December 19, 1937. His funeral service, held at the Marcy Avenue Baptist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., and conducted by the ministerial association of which he had been a life long member, drew a large attendance of friends and admirers, both Jews and Christians. Of the many beautiful tributes paid to his memory perhaps the most revealing and intimate will be found in the following brief address delivered by Hugh R. Monro, LL.D., a prominent business executive of New York, who had known Dr. Cohn and associated with him for a period of nearly forty years:“I am glad this evening to bear a simple word of tribute to this valiant soldier of Christ who was my friend for many years. As far as I have been able to draw from the remarks that have been given tonight, I think that my acquaintance extended over a period almost as long as that of any of the speakers, nearly forty years. I treasure this fellowship as one of the inspiring things which have come into my life, one of the real influences. I owe a great debt to this true soldier of the Cross. He was indeed a soldier, for, as several have indicated, he knew what strife was, what warfare was, on behalf of the Lord. There are probably not many in this audience who know how acute the suffering of this servant of Christ was in his early ministry, the anguish that he went through over a period of years.It is one of the phenomena of the spiritual history of this city and it is hard to account for it. I can hardly think of a parallel in the religious history of this country. To find an exact parallel I should have to go abroad to a celebrated case in France, in which one of his own people was concerned a generation ago. The simple fact is that his life was inconstant peril for years in his early ministry. He was the victim of assault more than once. How strange this is when we think of the gentleness of his spirit, and his humility, and his one passion, and that to serve others. Yet for some reason this violent opposition not only on the part of his own people, but on the part of some Gentiles, developed, and for many years he was hounded and haunted night and day by opposition, by obstacles, by vilest slander and misrepresentation. It sounds like a chapter out of the dark ages. Perhaps some day that history will be written. I think there would be a value in the record. We live in days of such indulgence and softness, we know little of what our forefathers had to pass through, the things that put fight into them and iron in their blood. But Leopold Cohn knew all about it. Another impression I have, and that was his singular poise and stamina. Leopold Cohn knew his Bible as few men know theirs. He was steeped in its teaching. He had a full-orbed message. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians there is a list of the endowments that are given to the saints of God, fruits of the Spirit. In the Epistle to the Ephesians there is a catalogue of God's gifts to His Church. And when our Lord ascended on high He gave gifts unto men, and these gifts were prophets, apostles, pastors, evangelists, and teachers. Now I can think of our beloved brother right in the midst of that catalogue. He was in truth a gift of our Lord to the Church. He had the true spirit of the under-shepherd. He had a passion for souls. He had a keen responsiveness to the voice of the Spirit. How unstintingly did he labour during all these years in this very community.Starting amidst discouraging circumstances, and with only a few kindred spirits behind him to share his afflictions and persecutions, the work which he founded is reaching out, as has been observed, to almost all quarters of the globe. Our Lord is a great Vindicator. He has a way of seeing his children through, and he has a way of settling accounts and squaring things. What a satisfaction and joy it is to realise as we meet here tonight that even while still in the flesh he knew his Lord's vindication. He had led him out into this large and wealthy place. So I salute this true soldier of the Cross. I would like to lay some worthy tribute upon this casket. He has fought a good fight. He has finished his course. He has kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up that crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give him, and not to him only, but to all those that love His appearing.”Those who knew Dr. Cohn will remember him best for his humility of spirit. Like Moses, the great emancipator of Israel, Dr. Cohn “knew not that his face was aglow after talking with God.” Therein lay his greatness.Taken from ‘When Jews face Christ', copyright – Dr. Henry Einspruch.Republished by permission. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit awolinsky.substack.com

17 How to Choose a Bible Translation – Notes Download Translation basics Fee & Stuart: “Your Bible, whatever translation you use, which is your beginning point, is in fact the end result of much scholarly work. Translators are regularly called upon to make choices regarding meanings, and their choices are going to affect how you”[[Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 23.]] “Every translation is a commentary” -Lee Brice The Bible is in three languages. Hebrew: Old Testament except the Aramaic part Nearly 99% of the OT (22,945 of 23,213 verses) Aramaic: half of Daniel and two passages in Ezra Daniel 2.4b-7.28; Ezra 4.8-6.18; 7.12-26 About 1% of the OT (268 of 23,213 verses) Greek: New Testament (all 7,968 verses) How to begin learning Hebrew or Greek Immersion program in Israel or Greece Whole Word Institute offers a 9-month program. In-person college class (usually 2 semesters) Local colleges, RTS offers an 8-week summer program. In-person classes at a Jewish synagogue or Greek church or community center Online program with live instructor Biblical Language Center, Liberty University, etc. Digital program with pre-recordings Aleph with Beth (YouTube), Bill Mounce's DVD course, etc. How to improve your existing knowledge of Hebrew or Greek Reading group in-person or online Read a portion each week together. Daily dose of Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic Daily YouTube videos of one verse each (email list) Read every day. Read the Bible; read devotionals; read comic books (Glossa House produces great resources) Watch modern Hebrew and Greek shows. Izzy is like Netflix for Israel/Hebrew Greece has lots of channels streaming online. Translation process (1 Timothy 2:5 example) Greek New Testament (NA28) Εἷς γὰρ θεός, εἷς καὶ μεσίτης θεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρώπων, ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς Literal translation One for god, one and mediator of god and men, man Christ Jesus Finished translation For (there is) one God, and (there is) one mediator between God and mankind, (the) man Christ Jesus. New Testament critical editions Nestle Aland 28th Edition (NA28) based on the Editio Critica Maior (ECM), which employs the coherence based genealogical method (CBGM) Tyndale House Greek New Testament (THGNT) prioritizes trusted physical manuscripts over the CBGM. Old Testament critical editions Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) and the partially completed Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) print the Leningrad Codex in the main text, but include alternative readings in the footnotes. Hebrew Bible Critical Edition (HBCE) by Ronald Mendel is a project of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) to develop a critical edition. Resources to see decisions about alternative readings NET Bible (accessible at org) New Testament Text and Commentary by Philip Comfort A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament by Bruce Metzger Formal equivalence translation philosophy Fee & Strauss: “If the Greek or Hebrew text uses an infinitive, the English translation will use an infinitive. When the Greek or Hebrew has a prepositional phrase, so will the English…The goal of this translational theory is formal correspondence as much as possible.”[[Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss, How to Choose a Translation for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), p. 26.]] Ron Rhodes: “Formal equivalence translations can also be trusted not to mix too much commentary in with the text derived from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. To clarify, while all translation entails some interpretation, formal equivalence translations keep to a minimum in intermingling interpretive additives into the text.  As one scholar put it, ‘An essentially literal translation operates on the premise that a translator is a steward of what someone else has written, not an editor and exegete who needs to explain or correct what someone else has written.'”[[Ron Rhodes, The Complete Guide to Bible Translations (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2009), p. 30.  Quotation from Leland Ryken, Choosing a Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005), p. 27.]] Dynamic equivalence translation philosophy Ron Rhodes: “Dynamic equivalence translations generally use shorter words, shorter sentences, and shorter paragraphs. They use easy vocabulary and use simple substitutes for theological and cultural terminology.  They often convert culturally dependent figures of speech into easy, direct statements.  They seek to avoid ambiguity as well as biblical jargon in favor of a natural English style. Translators concentrate on transferring meaning rather than mere words from one language to another.”[[Ron Rhodes, The Complete Guide to Bible Translations (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2009), pp. 32-33.]] Formal vs. dynamic comparison Formal Equivalence Dynamic Equivalence Formal Correspondence Functional Equivalence Word for Word Thought for Thought Literal Readable Transparent to Originals Replicates Experience Transfer Interpretation Interpretation Built In Accurate Easy to Understand Formal equivalence Bibles ESV: English Standard Version NASB: New American Standard Bible LSB: Legacy Standard Bible NRSV: New Revised Standard Version HCSB: Holman Christian Standard Bible Gender Accuracy[[For a much deeper dive into this interesting topic, see session 15 from How We Got the Bible: Gender in Bible Translation, available on lhim.org or on YouTube.]] “Man” used to mean “men and women” “Men” used to mean “men and women” “he” used to mean “he or she” Translations are changing with the changes in the English language so that female readers recognize the relevance of scripture to them See Eph 4:28; Mat 11:15; etc. Combatting bias To combat bias, look at translations from different thought camps. Evangelical: NIV, NLT, ESV, NASB, NET, CSB, HCSB, LEB MSG, Passion, Amplified, LSB, CEV, TEV/GNT, NCV, NIrV Jewish: JPS, KJB, Stone, Robert Altar, Shocken Catholic: NABRE, NAB, RNJB, NJB, JB, Douay-Rheims Mainline: NRSV, NEB, NKJ, RSV, ASV, KJV Unitarian: REV, NWT, Diaglott, KGV, Buzzard, NEV Review If you can, learn the biblical languages so you can read the actual words of scripture rather than depending on a translation. Translations of the New Testament depend on the Greek critical text known as the Nestle Aland 28th edition (NA28). Translations of the Old Testament depend on the Leningrad Codex, which is printed in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) and the partially complete Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ). In addition, translators of the Old Testament are expected to look through the footnotes and commentary in these resources to judge readings from other sources. Over generations, textual critics have developed strategies and computer tools to more closely approximate the original text. As a result, newer critical texts contain reconstructions of an older stage of the text. Translation is the art of rendering a source text into a receptor language accurately. Formal equivalence translations focus on transparency to the source text and a minimum of added interpretation. Dynamic equivalence translations focus on readability in the receptor language. They seek clarity over ambiguity. Formal equivalence translations are safer, because they leave it up to the reader to figure out what a text means. However, they can contain awkward English and be difficult to read. Gender accuracy refers to the translation practice of including the feminine when a hypothetical singular masculine pronoun can refer to either sex or when masculine plurals include both genders. Bias is intrinsic to translation, especially with reference to doctrines that are widely held by committee members. The best way to expose and combat bias is to check translations from different thought camps. Although evangelical translations are better known, checking Jewish, mainline, Catholic, and unitarian translations provides a helpful corrective. The post 17: How to Choose a Bible Translation first appeared on Living Hope.

*Not really EVERYTHING but it sure made you look! Disclaimer: Any views or opinions presented in this podcast are personal and belong to the content creator. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual. Disclaimer: The passage of Scripture read out loud in the beginning of each podcast episode will be in Hebrew followed by the direct translation in English from the Complete Jewish Study Bible. Come listen to something different. Welcome Honduras!

What did Jesus do when he died on the cross? The answer to that question is the heart of the gospel. It's the most important thing that we could know about God — and the good news about the heart of the good news is that God has made it clear to us in the Scriptures. At the cross, we know that … “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” — Galatians 3:13. For our sake, “[God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” — 2 Corinthians 5:21. “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God…” — 1 Peter 3:18. The theological term for this is “substitutionary atonement.” It means that Jesus died for us, in our place. That is the main fact of the cross that we must understand and cling to, and when we do — when we cling to substitution as the main fact of the cross — then we can begin to see that it wasn't the only fact of the cross. Jesus was mainly our substitute, but he was also our example. One way to say it is that … Jesus as our substitute means he went to the cross so that we wouldn't have to. Jesus as our example means he went to the cross so that we would join him there. Both are true — and in today's passage, the call is that we join him there. In Philippians 2, verses 5–11, Paul shows us the example of Jesus, and he tells us to be like him.And I don't think we could overstate just how amazing these verses are. Most commentators say that this is the most important passage in Philippians — the first part of the letter flows into it, and the second part of the letter flows out of it. One commentator says that not only is this passage the centerpiece of Philippians, but it's the centerpiece of the entire New Testament!So I just wanna say: I'm so glad that God saved me and let's me do what I get to do right now. I can't believe I get to show you the things I get to show you today. There are three things I want us to see. They are three truths about the example of Jesus. Let's pray and we'll get started:Father, thank you for all of this, for this morning and this moment. Give us, now, eager hearts to receive what you have for us. By your Spirit and his power, show us the glory of Jesus. Help us to see him more clearly than ever before. In his name, amen. Three truths about the example of Jesus:1) The example of Jesus is practical.When I say “practical” I mean that it's immediately relevant. And this is important to keep in mind because by verse 6, the theological depth of this passage is overwhelming. Paul is mining the mystery of how Jesus thought in his pre-incarnate existence as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. So this is deep! There's a lot here!Which means we have to be careful that we don't lose sight of the forest for the trees. Because what Paul says here about Jesus is meant to serve a direct purpose — which is what he's just been talking about in verses 3 and 4: the topic is humility. We saw this last week, verse 3: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit…” That word “conceit” is extra special; it's the Greek word kenodoxia, which means literally empty glory — some English translations put it as “vain conceit.” Acting like you've got something when really it's a big bag of nothing. Empty glory. You get the idea. Remember that word.“Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”Then in verse 4, Paul just restates that same idea:“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”Paul is describing humility here, and it's humility for the sake of what? … You remember? Real church unity.We see the topic of unity in verses 1 and 2 and it goes back to the end of Chapter 1. Bringing It All TogetherPaul exhorts this church to be united, to have real church unity, which is not unity for its own sake. This is Holy Spirit unity that displays that we're living as citizens of heaven worthy of the gospel of Christ — Chapter 1, verse 27. So just for a second here, I want to bring together this passage with the end of Chapter 1. This is bringing together our last four weeks …First, our primary calling as a local church is to live together in this world as a witness to the all-satisfying value of Jesus … And that life together is manifest through real church unity … And though it's embattled unity from the outside and the inside, real church unity comes through humility — And if we want to know about humility, we look to Jesus. That's Paul's train of thought that leads us to verse 5. So we need to remember that the example of Jesus in verses 5–11 is meant to be practical. Jesus has modeled for us how to be humble, and being humble is absolutely necessary if people are going to get along. Good for MarriageThat's why this passage is my favorite passage to preach at a wedding (getting along is helpful if you're married). I've preached these verses maybe 20 times at weddings (which means some of you have had to hear it a lot). This is no joke. A few years ago there was one couple, I officiated their wedding at the beginning of the year, preached Philippians 2, and then I did three other weddings later than year where I also preached Philippians 2, and that couple was at all those weddings. By the fourth time, I saw the couple before the wedding started, and I went up to them and said, Look, I think God is trying to tell you something.Seriously. Young married couples listen up — also old married couples — and everybody in-between … you wanna know a secret to a good marriage? Learn humility. If I could be personal for just a minute, today is March 3, 2024 which means that as of today, I've been married to my wife for 17 years. And look, 17 years ago, I thought I was riding into our marriage on a white horse, but it wasn't long before Jesus told me that I was on his horse and I needed to get off. Humility changed my life and my marriage … and I'm not pretending to be the expert on humility [the expert on humility around here is David Mathis — bro wrote a book titled Humbled] — I'll just say that whatever I know about humility, I learned it from Jesus, and this is the passage.Philippians 2:5, “Have this mind — the mindset just described in verses 3–4 — have this humble mindset among yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.So get ready. We're about to learn humility from Jesus. 2) The example of Jesus shows us true humility.This is gonna be clear in the passage, but I think we could also just use our heads to figure out that if we want to learn about humility, we're looking at the right place. Just think with me here, theologically. Two questions:Who is the humblest person to ever live? [Jesus]When was Jesus his most humblest? [at the cross]So add this up: we know the humblest person to ever live AND we know when he was his most humblest, so then whatever we think about humility, it should be shaped by that — right?! Of course!And that's where Paul takes us, starting in verse 6. This is the humility of “Christ Jesus” …“… who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”The cross of Christ is the paragon of humility — and I hope we never think about humility again without thinking about the cross. (That's one of my little goals for this sermon.)The cross was the ultimate, definitive display of humility by the humblest person to ever live — and so let's see how Jesus got there. We're gonna work our way backwards from verse 8.The end of verse 8: “even death on a cross.” That's the lowest. But before Jesus got there, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. And before Jesus got to that obedience, he became human — but not just a human, he became a slave — And what led him to do that? Verse 6: “he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself.”The Headwaters And right there in verse 6, in that counting (that calculating) — that is the headwaters of Jesus's humility. Verses 7 and 8 flows from that counting in verse 6. So what does it mean? What does it mean to “not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”A lot of it has to do with that word “a thing to be grasped.” Let's focus in on that in verse 6, those words “to be grasped.”Now we know that Jesus is equal with God. He is God. The Bible teaches us that Jesus, God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, is eternally begotten of God the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and these three real persons are of one substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence, yet the essence is undivided.Jesus is God! That's who he is. That's his identity — so then what's it mean that he did not count that as something “to be grasped”? This word here is only used this one time in the entire Bible, and so we have to look around in classical Greek to see how it was used there to try to figure out what Paul is saying.Well the word could also be translated as “seize” or “take advantage of.” It means to seize or to take or to lay claim to something that's rightfully yours. Jesus didn't do that with his ‘God-ness' — his glory. He knew who he was, but he didn't take advantage of his identity, instead, he emptied himself. And that word “emptied himself” should send us back to verse 3, “vain conceit” (kenodoxia, empty glory). Part of the same Greek word in verse 3 that means “empty” is used here, but see here Jesus didn't have vain conceit, he didn't have “empty glory” — he emptied himself of the rights of his true glory. … There's a little play on words going on — Jesus didn't act like he had something but it was a big bag of nothing; Jesus had everything and he made himself nothing. He emptied himself of the truest glory of all.Jesus, being eternally God, his glory is immense and incomprehensible. He is almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute. He has always worked all things according to the counsel of his most righteous will, and he said: I don't have to seize that. I don't have to take advantage of the rights of my true glory, so … I'll become a man, I'll become a slave, I'll become obedient to the very end, suffering to the point of death, I'll even die on a cross.A cross — There could be no more extreme opposite to his glory. Nobody — not a single Jew and not a single Philippian shaped by the values of the Roman Empire — nobody would have ever thought that the man on the cross could be God. There was no category for that. Not for that kind of shame. When Jesus emptied himself to the point of death on a cross, he subjected himself to not only people not recognizing him as God, but he also subjected himself to everyone thinking the absolute worst of him, and he never tried to set the record straight. And that was actually the thing that they went for, if we can remember his cross.And we have to join him there, okay … the humblest man to ever live in his most humblest moment. It was three hours, from noon to 3pm on Good Friday. That was the humblest man's humblest moment, but was there a most humblest moment within that humblest moment? — I don't know — but, I can't help but think about what the onlookers said to him. That Is Who I Am!First I should tell you a story (and forgive me if you've heard this story before) … When I was in 5th grade I won an art contest, which was pretty cool because I won like $100 bucks and my art (it was a drawing) was gonna be displayed at this big county-wide event. There was gonna be a big exhibit, art everywhere, and my first place art was gonna be there front and center.So my mom and dad took me to this thing so they could see the picture I drew — they had not seen it yet. So we got there, and you could see the ‘first place area' at a distance, so we began to walk up toward my picture, and as we were walking up, the director of the exhibit was standing beside my picture talking to another kid my age — and as we got closer I realized that this kid was telling the director that my picture was his. The director guy was super interested and he was asking this kid all about certain details in the picture, and this kid was answering all his questions! But then I was standing there with my parents and it was my name under the picture. And so what do you think I did?With ever fiber of my being, I seized every possible fact I could to prove that the picture was mine. That's my picture! That's my name! That's my school! These are my parents — Dad, show ‘em your license! That is who I am! That's me! Don't deny me my glory! And I grasped for it. Do you remember what they said to Jesus at the cross? Radical Security in GodWe have to join him there.Behold the man upon a cross, My sin upon his shoulders; Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice Call out among the scoffers.What did we say? … “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (see Matthew 27:40). Which was not a request. It was a statement. The scoffers didn't just not recognize Jesus as God, they called him a fake. A liar. Prove to us, they said — Right now, prove to us who you are!And do you know what he could have done? We've read the Book of Exodus around here.We know what he could have done, but what did he do?He still did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but he emptied himself. He did not take advantage of his glory. He did not vindicate his identity, but … he yielded the vindication of his identity to God.And that's it. That's true humility. According to Jesus — the humblest person to ever live in his most humblest moment — he shows us that true humility is the faith-fueled refusal of self-vindication. Or to say it positively, Jesus shows us that true humility is radical security in God. Jesus was so confident that the Father would take care of him that he didn't need to “get his.” He didn't have to prove who he was, because he knew who he was and he knew the Father would make it plain at the right time. So Jesus yielded … and yielded … and yielded … until he was dead on a cross … a cross.Given the Name“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.”From the lowest possible low, death on a cross, to the highest possible high, God the Father says I'll tell you who he is. See, Jesus did not vindicate himself, but the Father vindicated him by raising him from the dead and declaring his name. THE NAME! The name above every name — and that name could only be one! It's the name Yahweh. Jesus is Yahweh. And then in verse 10 Paul quotes from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, Chapter 45. It's a high point in Isaiah when God is declaring his unrivaled supremacy over all nations. Listen to Isaiah 45:21. This is God speaking: “21 And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. 22 “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. 23 By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.'God says that about himself in Isaiah 45 and now here, in Philippians 2, Paul says that's about Jesus — “… at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”And any Jewish person hearing this would get the message, but Paul is also doing something else here.And this brings us to the third truth to see …3) The example of Jesus changes the way we see life in this world.Everybody focus on that sentence in verse 11, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” I want to make sure you see that word “Lord” in verse 11.Now the word “Lord” is a word that we use today, but I want us to think about it from the standpoint of this original audience in the First Century. Track with me:Anybody with a Jewish background would have heard the sentence “Jesus is Lord” to mean that Jesus is Yahweh. That's because the word “Lord” was the word substituted for the divine name “Yahweh” in the Old Testament. Out of reverence, Jewish people would not speak the name “Yahweh” but instead, whenever “Yahweh” shows up in the Scriptures, they would say the Hebrew word Adonai (“Adonai” it a title that means “Lord”). And so when the Greeks translated the Hebrew Old Testament, they put in their word for Adonai (Lord) which was Kyrios. So at this time, kyrios was the word Jewish people used for Yahweh. For Jews, Jesus is kyrios meant Jesus is Yahweh.But for everybody else, for all the Gentiles, the word kyrios (lord) meant something else — because “Lord” was the title used for the Roman Emperor, the Caesar. It is a well-documented fact by historians that people at this time called the Emperor Nero Lord. There's evidence from things written at this time and from things found, that in a Roman colony like Philippi, there would have been what was basically propaganda all throughout the city that said “Caesar is Lord.” Historians call this the “imperial religion.” Political loyalty to Rome meant you worshiped the Roman Emperor — you called him Lord. So for this little church at Philippi, as the Roman world around them was saying “Caesar is lord” — Paul says, No, Jesus is Lord. And you know what else? One day, everybody will know that. One day every knee will bow in all creation — every knee including Caesar's knee — will bow before Jesus, and every tongue — including Caesar's tongue — will confess, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”The one who died on a cross, the one who was mocked and despised, who was called a fake — he is actually the One to whom every creature must answer. Every single creature to ever live will bow to Jesus — Jesus who is Lord … Jesus who was the slave crucified … because he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. And we're supposed to be like him.We Don't Have to “Get Mine”And this changes everything. How could we ever look at this world the same?Especially if you're surrounded by a world, by a culture, that is antagonistic to your faith. What if it's a world that rejects you or even persecutes you, like the conflict that Paul and these Christians faced with the Romans. The Roman Empire had no idea who these Christians were and what that meant. And that's actually something we have in common with them. The surrounding world has never really understood who we are.I just was talking about this a couple of weeks ago with Pastor Mike Schumann. We were having lunch, and this place we were at was packed, and I was looking around and I said: Nobody in here knows that we are children of God, that one day we're gonna judge angels, that one day we're going to inherit the whole world, one day this restaurant is gonna be ours … and nobody in here knows.And what that means, at a very practical level, is that we don't have to go through this life always grasping to “get ours.” There might not be a more backwards way for a Christian to think than to have a kind of anxiety-driven, self-vindicating hustle mentality. A lot of times though we can see life this way. We can think about life the way Marshawn Lynch thought about football. Marshawn Lynch used to be the running back for the Seattle Seahawks, and once he was asked about his mentality on the football field, and he said: “I feel like on that field, there's no reason I can't run through you … I know I'm gonna get got, but I'm gon' get mine more than I get got, though.”I'm gon' get mine more than I get got. That might work for an NFL running back, but not for life, not for Christians.The example of Jesus means: I don't have to “get mine” — Because God is going to take care of me. We don't have to be afraid of going low, of being thought low. We don't have to fear the cross because we know Who we are — and we know where all of this is headed. That's what it means to be Easter people in a Good Friday World.And that was the witness of Kayla Rigney. Kayla walked through the valley of the shadow of death and she feared no evil because she was humble like Jesus, because she knew God would take care of her. See, Kayla is good Easter people. That's who we're called to be. That's the example of Jesus.Our radical security in God is our humility. And because of Jesus, like Jesus, we can be truly humble, to the glory of God the Father. And that's what brings us to this Table.The TableIf you're here today and you're not a Christian, I doubt any of this makes sense to you. You have to know Jesus first, and we get to know him by trusting him. And so I want to invite you to do that. If you've never put your faith in Jesus, would you put your faith in Jesus right now?For those of us who have trusted in Jesus, for those of us who hope in him, let's receive the bread and cup this morning and give him thanks. Jesus Christ is Lord! What a Savior!

We are slaves of Christ, our Master and Owner. We belong to Him. He owns us and all we have (Rom 6:22, 1Cor 7:22). His Spirit within is the seal of His ownership (1Cor 6:19,20, 2Cor 1:22, Eph 1:13, 4:30). There's a word for servant (diakonos), and another for slave (doulos), describing our relationship with God (Rom 1:1, Phil 1:1, Titus 1:1, Jas 1:1 2Pet 1:1, Jude 1:1, Rev 1:1). We miss the truth we are His slaves, because doulos is translated as servant, not slave, due to the stigma of human slavery. But this weakens its force. The difference is that although a servant works under his lord's authority, he belongs to himself, but a slave is owned by His master. Human slavery is evil, but in relationship to God, it's right, as He (1) created and (2) purchased us. If you accept His purchase of yourself, receiving Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you belong to Him. So, we must embrace the truth we are His slaves as well as sons, so every blessing He gives still belongs to Him. Then surrender and obedience becomes natural, setting us free from slavery to sin. When I say: “Jesus is my Lord (Kurios)” (Rom 10:9), it doesn't just mean He has the right to tell me what to do (as His servant), but also, He has absolute authority over my being - He owns me! In the Hebrew Old Testament, 2 words are equivalent to Kurios (1) Yahweh, and (2) Adonai (master, owner). Both are names for God, that were translated into Greek as Kurios (Lord), so when we say: “Jesus is Lord” it means He is Yahweh and my Owner. He owns me and all my blessings, so has the right to define my identity and future. All I have is given by Him, but I own nothing, for I am owned by Him. Once we realise He purchased us for Himself, we know as His slave we own nothing, not even the blessings, He richly gives us to possess. A submissive heart to God rejoices in this truth. Sin's essential nature is seen in man's original sin (Gen 3), rejecting God's ownership, not just of the garden (the blessing), but also of himself (v4-6), to establish himself in independence from God, by trying to own (control) everything himself (covetousness). Before, man was spiritually alive, living by God's life, enjoying His blessing. But by claiming ownership, he cut himself off from God, who is life (Gen 2:17). When you reject slavery to God, you are not free, but are a slave of sin, under satan's power. Instead of being a slave of a loving, gracious life-giving God, man put himself under the hand of an evil slave master, and suffers the curse (death). Jesus came to pay the price with His Blood to redeem us from slavery to sin and the hand of the enemy. When we receive Him as Lord and accept His Blood for us, He sets us free from that slavery, to become slaves of Christ - true liberty. We have a choice to be a slave of sin or God (Rom 6). To live a life of liberty, we must deny self-ownership. “If anyone desires to come (follow) after Me (Jesus), let him deny (ownership of) himself (his independent soul life), and take up His Cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save (own) his life will lose it (become a slave to sin), but whoever loses (surrenders control of) his life for My sake will find it (discover real life, under His grace). For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul (to sin)? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt 16:24-26). For God's life to flow freely in us, we must deny self-ownership, then we'll be free to possess all He wants to give. He wants to bless us with all things, but not so we use them to be independent, for if we act as if we own His blessing & blessings, we cut ourselves off from the Source of life. If we embrace the fact we are poor slaves who own nothing, and submit to His control of us and His blessing, and then we qualify to possess all things. Knowing my poverty makes me totally depend on God and His continual supply of life. Although poor in myself, I'm rich, for in His love, He provides all I need. We need to know God as both (1) El Shaddai and (2) Adonai to receive and abide in His river of grace. (1) El Shaddai is the mighty God, who supplies all our need, who is strong when are weak. When we realize we need Him continually, being poor (owning nothing) and weak (having nothing in ourselves), we turn to Him as our Source, calling on and trusting Him to fill us. As He faithfully continually fills us with Himself, we stay ever thankful for His abundant grace. This is the 1st key to receiving and abiding in His grace. (2) Adonai means Owner and Lord. Knowing He owns us and all He gives us, we surrender ourselves and His grace back to Him, so He has final control, and we live unto Him in obedience. This is the 2nd key to living under grace. Rather than holding on to the safety of the bank, we let go and trust His Spirit to flow through us and carry us along, releasing final control to God. Then all things will be ours and His plan for us will be fulfilled.

We are slaves of Christ, our Master and Owner. We belong to Him. He owns us and all we have (Rom 6:22, 1Cor 7:22). His Spirit within is the seal of His ownership (1Cor 6:19,20, 2Cor 1:22, Eph 1:13, 4:30). There's a word for servant (diakonos), and another for slave (doulos), describing our relationship with God (Rom 1:1, Phil 1:1, Titus 1:1, Jas 1:1 2Pet 1:1, Jude 1:1, Rev 1:1). We miss the truth we are His slaves, because doulos is translated as servant, not slave, due to the stigma of human slavery. But this weakens its force. The difference is that although a servant works under his lord's authority, he belongs to himself, but a slave is owned by His master. Human slavery is evil, but in relationship to God, it's right, as He (1) created and (2) purchased us. If you accept His purchase of yourself, receiving Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you belong to Him. So, we must embrace the truth we are His slaves as well as sons, so every blessing He gives still belongs to Him. Then surrender and obedience becomes natural, setting us free from slavery to sin. When I say: “Jesus is my Lord (Kurios)” (Rom 10:9), it doesn't just mean He has the right to tell me what to do (as His servant), but also, He has absolute authority over my being - He owns me! In the Hebrew Old Testament, 2 words are equivalent to Kurios (1) Yahweh, and (2) Adonai (master, owner). Both are names for God, that were translated into Greek as Kurios (Lord), so when we say: “Jesus is Lord” it means He is Yahweh and my Owner. He owns me and all my blessings, so has the right to define my identity and future. All I have is given by Him, but I own nothing, for I am owned by Him. Once we realise He purchased us for Himself, we know as His slave we own nothing, not even the blessings, He richly gives us to possess. A submissive heart to God rejoices in this truth. Sin's essential nature is seen in man's original sin (Gen 3), rejecting God's ownership, not just of the garden (the blessing), but also of himself (v4-6), to establish himself in independence from God, by trying to own (control) everything himself (covetousness). Before, man was spiritually alive, living by God's life, enjoying His blessing. But by claiming ownership, he cut himself off from God, who is life (Gen 2:17). When you reject slavery to God, you are not free, but are a slave of sin, under satan's power. Instead of being a slave of a loving, gracious life-giving God, man put himself under the hand of an evil slave master, and suffers the curse (death). Jesus came to pay the price with His Blood to redeem us from slavery to sin and the hand of the enemy. When we receive Him as Lord and accept His Blood for us, He sets us free from that slavery, to become slaves of Christ - true liberty. We have a choice to be a slave of sin or God (Rom 6). To live a life of liberty, we must deny self-ownership. “If anyone desires to come (follow) after Me (Jesus), let him deny (ownership of) himself (his independent soul life), and take up His Cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save (own) his life will lose it (become a slave to sin), but whoever loses (surrenders control of) his life for My sake will find it (discover real life, under His grace). For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul (to sin)? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt 16:24-26). For God's life to flow freely in us, we must deny self-ownership, then we'll be free to possess all He wants to give. He wants to bless us with all things, but not so we use them to be independent, for if we act as if we own His blessing & blessings, we cut ourselves off from the Source of life. If we embrace the fact we are poor slaves who own nothing, and submit to His control of us and His blessing, and then we qualify to possess all things. Knowing my poverty makes me totally depend on God and His continual supply of life. Although poor in myself, I'm rich, for in His love, He provides all I need. We need to know God as both (1) El Shaddai and (2) Adonai to receive and abide in His river of grace. (1) El Shaddai is the mighty God, who supplies all our need, who is strong when are weak. When we realize we need Him continually, being poor (owning nothing) and weak (having nothing in ourselves), we turn to Him as our Source, calling on and trusting Him to fill us. As He faithfully continually fills us with Himself, we stay ever thankful for His abundant grace. This is the 1st key to receiving and abiding in His grace. (2) Adonai means Owner and Lord. Knowing He owns us and all He gives us, we surrender ourselves and His grace back to Him, so He has final control, and we live unto Him in obedience. This is the 2nd key to living under grace. Rather than holding on to the safety of the bank, we let go and trust His Spirit to flow through us and carry us along, releasing final control to God. Then all things will be ours and His plan for us will be fulfilled.

Hi folks, we're going to take a detailed look at Hebrews 1:6 today but, by way of review let's read the first six verses of Hebrews, chapter one, in the NIV, first. Hebrews 1:1-6 (NIV) In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. [3] The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. [4] So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. [5] For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father"? Or again, "I will be his Father, and he will be my Son"? [6] And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him."Now verse 6 in the NKJV is a little different.  Let's read that:Hebrews 1:6 (NKJV) But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM."There are two differences in this verse between the NIV and the NKJV.  One difference is the placement of the word again, and we'll discuss that shortly, and the other difference is that in the NKJV the phrase "LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM" is in all capital letters which means the translators are indicating that this phrase comes from the Old Testament.  The NASB does the same thing.  Personally, I find this helpful.But where is this phrase "LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM" in the Old Testament?  Scholars say that it is from Psalm 97:7 in the Septuagint.  Two scholars in particular have helped me here.  I'm referring to a Puritan, John Owen and his seven volume Commentary on Hebrews, and to John MacArthur and his Commentary on Hebrews.  And if you wish to, you can verify this for yourself.  If you search the NKJV of the Bible, you will not find the phrase "LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM" anywhere in the Old Testament.  You won't find it in the NIV either.  And that is because it is a quote from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, made by a group of about 70 rabbis, 270 years or so before Yeshua came into the world. Because the New Testament writers wrote in Greek, they often quoted Old Testament Scriptures from the Septuagint.  And if you search the English translation of the Septuagint electronically, yourself, in the widely available e-Sword program, you will find it in one place only, in Psalm 97:7.  The scholars of old had to really know their Bibles, including the Septuagint, in order to recognize that this phrase was quoted from Psalm 97:7 since these scholars didn't have the benefit of electronic searching which we have today.Modern translations such as the NIV translate Psalm 97:7 this way:Psalms 97:7 (NIV) All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols— worship him, all you gods!But that's not what Hebrews 1:6 says.  It says this, in the NIV:Hebrews 1:6 (NIV) And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him."The reason for the difference is that Hebrews 1:6 uses the Septuagint translation of the original Hebrew which reads like this:Psalms 97:7 (Brenton) Let all that worship graven images be ashamed, who boast of their idols; worship him, all ye his angels.Why the change from gods, meaning idols, in Psalm 97:7 in the Hebrew Bible to all God's angels in Hebrews 1:6?  In the Hebrew, in Psalm 97:7, the word we are interested in is Elohim, a plural word that usually refers to God, who has a plural nature, but it can also refer to false gods or idols.  It doesn't usually refer to angels.  The usual Hebrew word for angels is malachim.  In fact, in the Hebrew Bible, Elohim is only translated as angels in the NIV and NKJV one time, in Psalm 8:5, a very familiar verse to most Bible students.  Let's look at that verse in context:Psalms 8:4-5 (NIV) what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? [5] You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.This is a wonderful verse, and we'll look at it in detail when we get to chapter two because it is quoted there.However, here, in Hebrews 1:6, the word for angels, chosen by the authors of the Septuagint definitely seems to be the right translation.  Why is that? In order to answer that question, we need to know the context of the seventh verse of Psalm 97.  So, let's look at Psalm 97, in the Septuagint, to know what the Psalm is about.  When we do this, we see that this Psalm, except for the use of the word angels instead of gods, in the Septuagint version, is quite similar to frequently used English versions such as the NIV and NKJV.What is the message of Psalm 97, then?  It is a message very compatible with the return of the Lord, His second coming, in glory and in judgement.  Is this important to know in trying to interpret Hebrews 1:6?  It definitely is.  Let's read that verse once more:Hebrews 1:6 (NIV) And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him."And let's look at it in the NKJV:Hebrews 1:6 (NKJV) But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM."Now, what does again mean in this verse?  We mentioned earlier that the placement of again in this verse was not the same in the NIV as in the NKJV.  Please stick with me folks and you'll see the relevance of this in a moment.The word again can simply indicate repetition.  Is that what it means here?  If the answer is yes that would be as if the Holy Spirit was saying to us something like this, “I told you before and now I'm telling you again, when I brought Jesus into the world, I told all the angels to worship Him”.  That way of understanding this verse would lead us to conclude that the verse is referring to the Messiah's first coming.  That is what the NIV seems to suggest.Or does again in this verse refer to the future, i.e., Christ's second coming?  How can we tell which is correct?  Does again simply mean repetition here or does it refer to a future event?  If Psalm 97:7 comes from a Psalm that talks about the second coming then I think the word again in Hebrews 1:6 refers to the future which is what the NKJV seems to suggest.  Let's look at Psalm 97, the first 9 verses, in the Septuagint and see if it can help us answer this question:Psalms 97:1-9 (Brenton) For David, when his land is established. The Lord reigns, let the earth exult, let many islands rejoice. [2] Cloud, and darkness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the establishment of his throne. [3] Fire shall go before him, and burn up his enemies round about. [4] His lightnings appeared to the world; the earth saw, and trembled. [5] The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. [6] The heavens have declared his righteousness, and all the people have seen his glory. [7] Let all that worship graven images be ashamed, who boast of their idols; worship him, all ye his angels. [8] Sion heard and rejoiced; and the daughters of Judea exulted, because of thy judgments, O Lord. [9] For thou art Lord most high over all the earth; thou art greatly exalted above all gods.Isn't this an incredible Psalm!  It does not speak of the first advent.  It speaks of a return in glory and the judgement of unbelievers.  This is Jesus returning.  This is the Day of the Lord!  The angels will be with Him when He returns, and surely they will be worshipping Him.I think there's another part of Hebrews 1:6, that we need to comment on before we finish today's study and that is the phrase when God brings His firstborn into the world.  Because we have strong Scriptural evidence that this verse refers to the second coming, we can say that God is bringing His firstborn into the world again.  So firstborn here cannot refer to the virgin birth of Messiah in Bethlehem.  That happened at the first advent.  Firstborn here refers to something very much like only begotten which we talked about when we studied verse 4 of this chapter.  Since we know that Jesus is not a created being - He is God and has always existed – we know that firstborn does not refer to the birth of a created being as some would incorrectly say that this means.  No, firstborn here means of first importance, God's One and Only Son.  The King James version says it well:Hebrews 1:6 (KJV) And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.Remember verses 4 & 5 of this chapter that we studied recently?Let's read them again.  I think the NKJV is more helpful here:Hebrews 1:4-5 (NKJV) having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. [5] For to which of the angels did He ever say: "YOU ARE MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU"? And again: "I WILL BE TO HIM A FATHER, AND HE SHALL BE TO ME A SON"?The Name that Jesus inherited that was even higher than any name that He had before the cross, was the first begotten Son or as in this verse, Hebrews 1:6, firstborn which means of first importance.  It's a special Name, a title, and a title of the highest rank.  John MacArthur says it well; let me read what he says about this from his commentary on Hebrews:In this passage Christ is called the first-born. Here again, many sects and cults claim a proof-text to show that Jesus is a created being. “Look! He's firstborn! You see? He was born like all the rest of us!” A related supposed proof-text is Colossians 1:15, “And He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” But “first-born” (prōtotokos) has nothing to do with time. It refers to position. It is not a description but a title, meaning “the chief one.” The concept was associated with firstborn because the oldest son usually was heir to the father's entire estate.[1]Thanks for that, Dr. MacArthur.So, let's sum up Hebrews 1:6. I'm going to paraphrase it:When God again brings His Firstborn to earth, this time in glory and power and for judgement, all of God's angels will worship Him.As we close, we need to say, Wasn't the message of this verse just astounding? Folks, this message is good news!  Jesus is coming again.  Have you received Jesus as your Savior, Messiah, and Lord?  Have you accepted the precious gift of salvation?  If you have not, please do it today, with all your heart!  I want to see you in heaven with me!Thank you for listening and God bless you, my friends.This is Art Wolinsky, until the next time.[1] MacArthur, John F., Jr. Hebrews. Chicago: Moody Press, 1983. Print. MacArthur New Testament Commentary. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit awolinsky.substack.com

UNIVERSITY OF EXCELLENCE Prince HandleyPresident / Regent PRINCE HANDLEY PORTAL 1,000's of FREE ResourcesWWW.REALMIRACLES.ORG INTERNATIONAL Geopolitics | Intelligence | Prophecy WWW.UOFE.ORG MAKING DECISIONS … KNOW FOR SURE IF YOU'RE NOT SURE … DON'T You can listen to this message NOW. Click on the pod arrow at top left. Or, listen here >>> LISTEN NOW  Email this message to a friend. 24/7 release of Prince Handley teachings, BLOGS and podcasts > STREAM Twitter: princehandley Subscribe FREE to Prince Handley Teaching and Newsletter ____________________________________ DESCRIPTION This is a very important teaching. I want to share something with you that I have not only learned from experience … BUT also re-learned due to disobedience: by NOT obeying the directions of God. We are living during the Entrance of the EndTimes. More and more demonic activities are being manifested: in government, in the arts, in religion, and in media. Just look backwards for three years! Due to the sudden shift in the spiritual climate I am directed by God to warn you to make sure you use FAITH and PRAYER in your decision making. Also, to be sure of the decisions you are making: short and long term. Do NOT open yourself to demonic activity, oppression, or the results of making a decision which could subject you to attacks on your body, mind, spirit, relationships or your finances. Stay under the Anointing of God's Spirit … follow your heart as God leads you. ____________________________________ MAKING DECISIONS … KNOW FOR SUREIF YOU'RE NOT SURE … DON'T If you're NOT sure ... then don't!  Do NOT make rash decisions. This is one of the greatest lessons I have learned in life. Stay in the "peace" zone!!! When you feel pressured to do something ... if you do NOT have peace about it―WAIT―do NOT go forward. It is better to be at peace―to stay in the "peace zone" rather than to go ahead―even if it looks good! This can be a trick of the enemy to get you in bondage and mental duress. Pray about the situation. Do NOT let people, even friends, coerce you or persuade you to take action IF you do NOT have peace about the situation. I promised God one time that I would never do anything, or take action concerning anything, that I was NOT sure about.  If I had a question about the situation, or if I did NOT have peace, I promised God that I would NOT go forward. The reason I made this promise to God was that I got into a very difficult, and emotionally trying situation, as a result of a FAST―or, rash―decision that I made. Lots of times people are emotionally distressed because of such uncertain behavior: going ahead of God! For help with depression, study my teaching, "Healing Mental Disease and Depression." Nothing can bind you if you will follow your heart and listen to God. I am going to tell you WHAT to do if you are bound and have lost peace―that is, you have become emotionally disturbed―as a result of “going ahead of God.” First, PROMISE God that you will NEVER do anything again unless you have peace about it. That is, you will make NO rash decisions.God loves you, my friend, and He does NOT want you bound by unwise decisions and actions. He paid the GREATEST price―the gift of His Son, Messiah Yeshua―that you could be FREE! Second, ASK God to turn the situation around and smite Satan through it, and give you a BLESSING in spite of what you have done. Ask God for mercy. Read Micah Chapter 7, verses 7 thru 10 in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Old Testament). Third, give a GIFT to God. As a result of God turning this situation around, and for His mercy and kindness in restoring you, promise God AHEAD OF TIME that you will give him a certain, specific gift ... or that you will take a certain, specific action of love and/or sacrifice as a GIFT to Him. Fourth, THANK God ahead of time―and every day―for His deliverance that He is going to show you. He WILL show Himself strong in your behalf IF YOU are sincere.   I trust this teaching will help you, my friend. I learned the SECRET I have shared with you the HARD WAY. And through the years, I have seen the manifold mercies of God as a result of what He taught me―even through my RASH decisions―even decisions that looked good, or that other people thought were good, but that I did NOT have peace about when I made them.   Yes, stay in “the zone” where you experience continual freedom: the “peace zone.” Once there, stay there ... don't let anyone or anything get you out of the zone. And if you need some help with direction, here are some scriptures for you: Psalm 27:11 Jeremiah 42:3 I Kings 19:9-12 Isaiah 30:21 Now in additon I want you to learn HOW to follow your heart for those times when you NEED to make a decision BUT would like more assurance from God or His Holy Wordl Click on the links below: Follow Your Heart - Part 1 Follow Your Heart - Part 2 Follow Your Heart - Part 3 Decision Making 101 (Book by Prince Handley) I trust this teaching will help you, my friend. Now you go encourage, heal AND help others! Baruch haba b'Shem Adonai. Your friend,Prince HandleyPresident / RegentUniversity of Excellence OTHER RESOURCES: Prince Handley Videos and Podcasts Rabbinical & Biblical Studies The Believers' Intelligentsia Prince Handley Portal (1,000's of FREE resources) Prince Handley Books OPPORTUNITYIf you would like to partner with Prince Handley and help him do the Spirit exploits the LORD has assigned him, Click thIs secure DONATE or the one below. God will reward you abundantly on earth … and in Heaven! A TAX DEDUCTIBLE RECEIPT WILL BE SENT TO YOU ____________________

Jeff Miller is the lead facilitator of the Bible Translation Project of CBE International. They are working on a new translation of 513 verses in the Old and New Testament. A commentary is being developed related to the translation process. Let's pray for all translators as they seek to communicate in modern languages the eternal Word of God from the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament. Previously, Dr. Jeff Miller served as editor of Priscilla Papers, the academic journal of CBE International.He lives with his wife, Dana, in eastern Tennessee. He is committed to teaching the Bible, both at Milligan University where he is employed and in local congregations. He is also involved in worship ministry, primarily as a pianist. Links: Priscilla Papers https://www.cbeinternational.org/primary_page/priscilla-papers-academic-journal/Review of The Book of Eden by Bruce C. E. Fleming and Dr. Joy Fleming https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/book-eden-genesis-2-3-god-didnt-curse-eve-or-adam-or-limit-woman-any-way/ The Tru316 Foundation (www.Tru316.com) is the home of The Eden Podcast with Bruce C. E. Fleming where we “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16. The Tru316 Message is that “God didn't curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.” Once Genesis 3:16 is made clear the other passages on women and men become clear too. You are encouraged to access the episodes of Seasons 1-11 of The Eden Podcast for teaching on the seven key passages on women and men. Are you a reader? We invite you to get from Amazon the four books by Bruce C. E. Fleming in The Eden Book Series. https://amzn.to/48RJqdl Would you like to support the work of the Tru316 Foundation? You can become a Tru Partner here: www.Tru316.com/partner

THE HEALING AND MIRACLES PODCASTINCLUDES FULL WRITTEN TEXTwith Prince HandleyREAL MIRACLES WEBSITE 15 YEARS OF HEALING & HEALTH SUBJECTS IF YOU'RE NOT SURE … THEN DON'T KNOW FOR SUREYou can listen to the above message NOW. CLICK ON THE POD ARROW AT TOP LEFTOR LISTEN HERE >>> LISTEN NOW 24/7 release of Prince Handley teachings, BLOGS and podcasts > STREAM Twitter: princehandley Subscribe FREE to Prince Handley Teaching and Newsletter ________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This is a very important teaching. I want to share something with you that I have not only learned from experience … BUT also re-learned due to disobedience: by NOT obeying the directions of God.   We are living during the Entrance of the EndTimes. More and more demonic activities are being manifested: in government, in the arts, in religion, and in media. Just look backwards for three years!   Due to the sudden shift in the spiritual climate I am directed by God to warn you to make sure you use FAITH and PRAYER in your decision making. Also, to be sure of the decisions you are making: short and long term. Do NOT open yourself to demonic activity, oppression, or the results of making a decision which could subject you to attacks on your body, mind, spirit, relationships or your finances. Stay under the Anointing of God's Spirit … follow your heart as God leads you.   In this teaching I am going to share with you several ways you can find deliverance IF you have made a BAD decision and also HOW to make the RIGHT decision by listening to God and following your heart. ________________________________________ IF YOU'RE NOT SURE … THEN DON'TKNOW FOR SURE If you're NOT sure ... then don't! Do NOT make rash decisions. This is one of the greatest lessons I have learned in life. Stay in the "peace" zone!!! When you feel pressured to do something ... if you do NOT have peace about it―WAIT―do NOT go forward. It is better to be at peace―to stay in the "peace zone" rather than to go ahead―even if it looks good! This can be a trick of the enemy to get you in bondage and mental duress. Pray about the situation. Do NOT let people, even friends, coerce you or persuade you to take action IF you do NOT have peace about the situation. I promised God one time that I would never do anything, or take action concerning anything, that I was NOT sure about. If I had a question about the situation, or if I did NOT have peace, I promised God that I would NOT go forward. The reason I made this promise to God was that I got into a very difficult, and emotionally trying situation, as a result of a FAST―or, rash―decision that I made. Lots of times people are emotionally distressed because of such uncertain behavior: going ahead of God! For help with depression, study my teaching, "Healing Mental Disease and Depression." Nothing can bind you if you will follow your heart and listen to God. I am going to tell you WHAT to do if you are bound and have lost peace―that is, you have become emotionally disturbed―as a result of “going ahead of God.” First, PROMISE God that you will NEVER do anything again unless you have peace about it. That is, you will make NO rash decisions.God loves you, my friend, and He does NOT want you bound by unwise decisions and actions. He paid the GREATEST price―the gift of His Son, Messiah Yeshua―that you could be FREE! Second, ASK God to turn the situation around and smite Satan through it, and give you a BLESSING in spite of what you have done. Ask God for mercy. Read Micah Chapter 7, verses 7 thru 10 in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Old Testament). Third, give a GIFT to God. As a result of God turning this situation around, and for His mercy and kindness in restoring you, promise God AHEAD OF TIME that you will give him a certain, specific gift ... or that you will take a certain, specific action of love and/or sacrifice as a GIFT to Him. Fourth, THANK God ahead of time―and every day―for His deliverance that He is going to show you. He WILL show Himself strong in your behalf IF YOU are sincere. I trust this teaching will help you, my friend. I learned the SECRET I have shared with you the HARD WAY. And through the years, I have seen the manifold mercies of God as a result of what He taught me―even through my RASH decisions―even decisions that looked good, or that other people thought were good, but that I did NOT have peace about when I made them. Yes, stay in “the zone” where you experience continual freedom: the “peace zone.” Once there, stay there ... don't let anyone or anything get you out of the zone. And if you need some help with direction, here are some scriptures for you: Psalm 27:11 Jeremiah 42:3 I Kings 19:9-12 Isaiah 30:21 Now in additon I want you to learn HOW to follow your heart for those times when you NEED to make a decision BUT would like more assurance from God or His Holy Wordl Follow Your Heart - Part 1 Follow Your Heart - Part 2 Follow Your Heart - Part 3 Decision Making 101 I trust this teaching will help you, my friend. Now you go encourage, heal AND help others! Baruch haba b'Shem Adonai. Your friend,Prince HandleyHealing and Miracles Copyright © 2023 by Prince HandleyAll Rights Reserved. ____________________Prince Handley Podcasts and Videos Rabbinical & Biblical Studies The Believers' Intelligentsia Prince Handley Portal(1,000's of FREE resources) Prince Handley Books OPPORTUNITY If you would like to partner with Prince Handley and help him do the Spirit exploits the LORD has assigned him, Click thIs secure DONATE or the one below. God will reward you abundantly on earth … and in Heaven! A TAX DEDUCTIBLE RECEIPT WILL BE SENT TO YOU ____________________

Max Harwood discusses accessibility vs. accuracy in different translations of Scripture, and the Greek Old Testament vs. the Hebrew Old Testament. Have a question about Orthodox Christianity? Submit it here: https://forms.gle/RNvnj8G4ALctqWhb6 Max Harwood attends Holy Nativity Orthodox Church in Langley, BC, Canada. He has an Undergrad in Biblical Studies (Columbia Bible College) and a Masters in Theology (Orthodox School of Theology, University of Toronto).

God Reveals His Nurture Today we are going to look at one of my favorite words in the Bible – the great Hebrew word Hesed, which the ESV often translates as “steadfast love!” Read Exodus 34:1-9 The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and _____________, slow to ____________, and abounding in steadfast ______________ and truth, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the sins of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. -Exodus 34:6-7 God will reveal more of Himself to those who are growing in their relationship with Him. The word abounding is the word Rab (H7227a), which occurs 414x in the Old Testament. It is often translated much, many, great, or abounding. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love (Hesed) surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. -Psalm 32:10 How does God want us to think about Him when we think about His name? As the God who ABOUNDS in steadfast love (Hesed)! The word Hesed (H2617) occurs 249 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. The ESV usually translates it as “steadfast love.” The CSV usually translates it as “faithful love.” The KJV and others usually translate it mercy, lovingkindness, or goodness. One Jewish scholar translated it as grace. Surely goodness and mercy (Hesed) shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. -Psalm 23:6 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness/ truth. -Lam. 3:23 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness/ truth forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. -Proverbs 3:3 Who perfectly embodied God's Hesed (steadfast love, grace) and Emet (faithfulness, truth)? Jesus And the Word (Jesus) became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as the of the only Son of the Father, full of (abounding in) grace and truth. -John 1:14 What special times will God's steadfast love matter to you? When you have sinned Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. -Psalm 51:1 When you love those who have sinned against you with a Godlike love. And I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. -Hosea 2:19-20 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. -Hosea 6:6 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness (HESED), and to walk humbly with yout God. -Micah 6:8 When you are reaching out to those who don't yet know God. And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; FOR I KNEW that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.” -Jonah 4:2 He (Jesus) is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always live to make intercession for them. -Hebrews 7:25

It was in the fulness of time, the PERFECT TIMING that Christ came. The fulfillment of prophecies from thousands of years earlier, including the 5500-year prophecy that ancient Judaism and the early Christians believed was given to Adam when he and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden.The world was ready for the spread of the Gospel - a Roman Empire characterized by peace, roads built and a unifying language (Greek) - and the Jews had a Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, that fit into all of this - the Messianic prophecies contained within and a chronology that pointed to the time of Christ as the fulfillment of the 5500-year prophecy. The later Rabbis removed 1500 years out of their Hebrew Old Testament (that became the Masoretic text) to discredit the Septuagint (LXX). Why? To discredit the belief that Jesus of Nazareth was/is the promised Jewish Messiah!In Acts 13, we meet a "false prophet" and interestingly, that term is used and abused by many Christians today who have little idea what the New Testament and the earliest Christians believed false prophets to be. Today, misusing OT passages that NO LONGER APPLY because they are a part of the Old Covenant that ended/passed away, Christians often think (I call it "the Myth of the False Prophet") that if a Christian prophetic person/prophet misses a prophetic word or gets it wrong that that makes them a "false prophet". Unfortunately, that is NOT what a false prophet is in the New Testament.Beyond the New Testament, the earliest Christians had ways that they "tested" for false prophets - IF ONLY WE USED THEIR TESTS TODAY! In short, if $$$ was involved, the so-called 'prophet' was to be rejected! Supernatural ministry was not linked to finances in the early church. OH, THE WISDOM!!! And if any supernatural ministry today is charging money (requiring $$) for their supernatural ministry, then RUN from it!!! Should those in supernatural ministry (prophetic, healing, deliverance) be supported??? ABSOLUTELY. But not "for" their the use of their gifts!!! Charging $$$ for supernatural ministry was considered a serious sin in the early church. So we delve into all of these topics - the timing of Christ's 1st coming, false prophets vs. true prophets today and ultimately end by discussing the prophetic times in which we are currently living. What is God saying? 

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 917, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: biblical numbers 1: The number of days it took God to create the universe and everything in it (not resting). 6. 2: The number of days Jesus fasted in the desert. 40. 3: This many friends of Daniel were thrown into the fiery furnace but saved by God. 3. 4: The number of Hebrew Old Testament books named for specific women. 2 (Ruth and Esther). 5: In Genesis 35 Joseph had this many brothers (including half brothers). 11. Round 2. Category: the civil war years 1: War was raging when this holiday was 1st observed nationally, on the last Thursday in November 1863. Thanksgiving. 2: This 4-word motto was first stamped on U.S. coins during the war, in 1864. In God We Trust. 3: U.S. diplomat Charles Francis Adams. this president's son, sought to keep the British neutral. John Quincy Adams. 4: In 1861 Army Surgeon Bernard Irwin earned the 1st Medal of Honor in Hostilities vs. Chiricahua Apaches in this future state. Arizona. 5: "Little Women" author who became famous when letters she wrote as a Civil War nurse were published in 1863. Alcott. Round 3. Category: 1959's bestsellers 1: In a Paul Gallico title, "Mrs. 'arris Goes to" this European city. Paris. 2: At No. 1, this Leon Uris book left the other works of fiction behind. Exodus. 3: This book by Pasternak was No. 2 in the fiction bestseller rack. Doctor Zhivago. 4: "Twixt Twelve and Twenty" was an advice book by this "April Love" singer. Pat Boone. 5: Please "state" the name of this James Michener book, No. 3 on Publishers Weekly's list for the year. Hawaii. Round 4. Category: michelle 1: Graceful skating champ Michelle Kwan was born in and trains in this state known more for surf than ice. California. 2: Get "Up Close and Personal" with this "Catwoman" who was Miss Orange County in 1978. Michelle Pfeiffer. 3: This actress whose middle name is Michelle slays me as TV's vampish Buffy. Sarah Michelle Gellar. 4: Wins at the Sara Lee Classic and the Oldsmobile Classic make Michelle McGann a seasoned pro in this sport. Golf. 5: The lovely and talented Michelle Forbes played Ensign Ro on this "Trek" incarnation. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Round 5. Category: "t"3 1: The Holy Bible is made up of the "Old" and "New" ones. testaments. 2: Gouverneur Morris was responsible for much of the wording of this in 1787. the Constitution. 3: It's the lever pilots use to control the power and speed of many planes. throttle. 4: To create an opera, you need a composer and this person who writes or adapts the text. librettist. 5: While not an M.D., this person can still diagnose eye problems and prescribe glasses. optometrist. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

There is arguably no greater story in Biblical and Church History that the collection, translations, canonization, and preservation (or as you shall see the attempts to corrupt the text) of the Old Testament Scriptures. Everyone is the product of a "Tradition" and we will look at some of them.The main question that is looked at is why there are differences between the Masoretic Text (MT) and the Septuagint (LXX) of the Old Testament. The New Testament writers quote the LXX 80-90% of the time and most often their quotations do NOT match what we find in our Old Testaments. Why is that? How did the MT and the LXX become different?What about the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) - which contained mostly Hebrew and some Aramaic Old Testament scrolls and fragments? They are more than 1000 years OLDER than the extant MT manuscripts we possess (from around 1000AD).What you will learn is that the rabbis "attempted" to corrupt/change/alter the Hebrew Bible by tampering with Messianic prophecies that clearly pointed to Jesus as their Messiah. The timing of His coming, the nature and scope of His Mission, and even His very identity.But thank to God's sovereignty and to the work of Textual Criticism, we can know what the Original Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures contained!God preserved His Word and often did so in an unusual manner. To think a translation into another language (i.e. the Greek Septuagint from nearly 300 years BEFORE Christ) reveals the original Hebrew better than the MT Hebrew text that was only canonized around AD100 (400 years later). To think that God would use the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (from 1947 to 2017) to in many cases confirm that it was the LXX that reflected the Hebrew original Tanakh better than the existing Hebrew Tanakh.This evidence flies in the face of what many of us were taught in our seminaries and Bible colleges. I for one was told that the Masoretic Text (MT) that my Old Testament was based upon (I was using the NASB) was meticulously preserved and copied. The memo I got was that I could "trust" my Old Testament and that because it was translated from the MT, it was as closer to the original Hebrew than any other textual tradition could provide. This is simply a MYTH. The Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls end up "correcting" the MT text in many places where the actual text of the Hebrew was modified by Rabbi Akiba and others between AD90-AD110 - close to 100 years AFTER Christ. To think we would trust unbelieving rabbis who rejected Jesus as their Messiah who were doing all they could to stop the growing Christian movement! And in this podcast, I provide a number of actual examples of where they altered and changed their Hebrew Bible from its original.Thankfully, God has preserved for us the Old Testament. And for the first time in history, a critical text of the Hebrew Old Testament is being worked on. It is called The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition (HBCE) which so far only has the book of Proverbs completed. We have had a critical text of our Greek New Testament now for more than 150 years. By comparing ALL of the extant Greek manuscripts, it has been estimated that we can know we have the text of the original New Testament to an accuracy of 99.5%. A critical text of the Old Testament will accomplish the same thing. Thankfully today, we have many Old Testament translations - like the ESV and NET that incorporate the LXX and the DSS and when they "correct" the MT, they will render the English accordingly. 

Psalm 30 In the Hebrew language the headings appear __________________ the individual Psalms. Some scholars have suggested that the information is actually supposed to go with the Psalm that just ended, rather than the one coming! It could also be that David was not thinking about the Temple here, but this is a response to the Messianic line that 2 Samuel 7 promised would come through David, the Davidic covenant. All the Kings of Judah were from the “house of David,” as well as the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ. David _____________________ of God's various deliverances V. 1-3 The word for grave is Sheol, which occurs 64 times in the Hebrew Old Testament; the word for Pit is Bor, which occurs 61 times. As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. -Zechariah 9:11 The saints sing praise to our Holy and Gracious God V. 4-5 The word for Saints is actually a form of our awesome word Hesed that I talk about so much (referencing God's ___________________ love). Hasidic Jews are referencing this in their own desire to serve God rightly. A time David ____________________ God to extend his life V. 6-10 Do you see the word “Supply” in supplication? We are asking God to supply our needs and the needs of others we pray for – using all the resources He has to supply those needs. This is a classic version of the “for Your Name's sake” prayer! God seems to like it when we express our desire to live and praise Him and make a difference to Him. He likes it when we care enough to __________________ Him of His promises. We are really reminding ourselves. David praises God and gives Him ________________! V. 11-12 If I read Psalms correctly it shows us that the greatest expressive praise in the Bible is often shown by those who have personally experienced God's hand on their lives through the hardest things of life. In other words, some of the most expressive praise should come from tested and _______________________ saints – it should not merely be the domain of young people who haven't experienced life yet.

It's time for a big-picture look at Church history! Timothy S. Flanders joins the podcast to discuss his book City of God vs. City of Man: The Battles of the Church from Antiquity to the Present. The book is a synthesis of the approaches of St. Augustine and Christopher Dawson, whom Timothy calls the two greatest Catholic historians. Themes discussed include: The Hebrew (Old Testament) view of history The need for alliance between the "strict" and "moderate" parties of Catholic orthodoxy Ethnic pluralism in Christendom The Grand Coalition of the Status Quo The ideology of Roma and its role in the Eastern schism The love of money as a key factor in the breakdown of Christendom Links City of God vs. City of Man: The Battles of the Church from Antiquity to the Present https://www.amazon.com/City-God-vs-Man-Antiquity/dp/0578317346/ The Meaning of Catholic https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaMoKEEA-KKDNgx3icjA36Q Please consider donating at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Go to Catholic Culture's website for tons of written content, including news, articles, liturgical year info, and a vast library of documents: https://www.catholicculture.org

Psalm 17 Worksheet The 5 Psalms that are declared _________________________ in their titles are 17, 86, 90, 102, and 142. Tell me what the following says in English: YRYFLPPTSMPK In Psalm 17 you have an ____________________ David praying to God for relief. Please hear Your Servants prayer, O LORD V. 1-6 David is not claiming to be sinless here. He is pointing out to God a situation involving him that is _________________ and asking God to right it. “You can do more than pray after you've prayed, but you can not do more than pray until you have prayed.” -John Bunyan Psalm 19:14. What this all means is that in addition to vindictive words David has avoided vindicative ___________________ – David is leaving vengeance unto the Lord. Please hold Your Servant ____________________, O LORD V. 7-8 The word translated lovingkindness in verse 7 is the word Hesed (H2617), which appears 239 times in the Hebrew Old Testament, 139 in the poetic books. It's companion word for truth is emets, which occurs 126 times, 49x in poetic books. Deliver me from my enemies, O LORD V. 9-12 David is calling himself (and us) to remember that what looks like __________________ now for the godless won't look like success after judgment day. Reverse our ____________________, O LORD V. 13-15 Ecclesiastes 2:26 Luke 12:16-21 David encourages himself that the godly man will be more than ___________________ for any struggle in the days to come. Psalm 37:10-11 Read Job 19:23-27 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself, just as He is pure. -1 John 3:2-3 < EYERUOYFOELPPAEHTSAEMPEEK

The Book of Esther in the Old Testament tells the story of a beauty contest, where the queen Vashti was deposed and a Jew named Esther was chosen as the new queen. Mordecai, Esther's uncle, was a Jew who was in good standing with the king. However, a plot to destroy all the Jews, including Mordecai and Esther, was devised by a man named Heyman. Esther eventually reveals to the king that she is a Jew and through a series of events, the king reverses the decree to destroy the Jews. The book never mentions the name of God and the story is not referred to in the New Testament. The word "Jew" was a post-Babylonian term, taken from the Tribe of Judah, and there were eight ways a person could become a Jew, including being a full-blooded Jew, a forced conversion, living in the land of Judea, and more. Judaism was formed after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the Great Synagogue ruled for 150 years. The Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek in approximately 294 to 289 B.C. The Book of Esther raises questions about the nature of the people called Jews at that time and whether Esther and Mordechai were true, pure-blooded Jews. However, regardless of the background of the people in the story, the author emphasizes the importance of learning and understanding the history in the book, and giving glory and praise to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listen to the Companion Sermon: https://share.transistor.fm/s/af0c984aThe heart of the Christmas Story is the provision of salvation for the people of God. In fact, the offer of salvation extends beyond the border of Israel and has been extended to all of humanity! As we prepare for 2023 (a year given to evangelistic sensitivity), we will explore the miraculous nature of God's saving grace on this Fourth Sunday of Advent.Sermon Title: God'sPlan of SalvationText: Luke 1:67-79  The Hebrew word, zakar – “to remember” is used over 200 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. It can have the idea of appropriate actions included with the act of remembering. The Gospel is the Metanarrative! BENEDICTUS – Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel! God remembers! SALVATION: God has offered forgiveness of sins, light to shine in the darkness, and peace through His Son, Jesus!

The Hebrew word, zakar – “to remember” is used over 200 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. It can have the idea of appropriate actions included with the act of remembering.  SERMON TITLE SLIDE      God Remembered His PromiseText:          Luke 1:46-55 METANARRATIVEGod's promise of redemption culminates in the miracle of the Incarnation! The focus of this story is Jesus! THE HUMAN STAGEMary and Joseph must decide to respond to God's invitation with faith and obedience. THE ANNUNCIATION·      The focus is on Jesus!·      Jesus is the Son of David, the Holy One, the Eternal King, Son of the Most High, Son of God!·      The Holy Spirit! THE MAGNIFICAT·      Glory to God!·      The Kingdom of God is characterized by sovereign reversals.·      God remembers and fulfills His promises!·      Jesus is the Redeemer!

Hebrew (Old Testament) theology does not use or recognize western arguments for the existence of Yahweh. Indeed, Yahweh Elohim is beoynd the logical constructs of abstract discursive reason. In Hebrew theology Yahweh Elohim is prior to man and 'existence.' He is!  

Cathy McDowell and Phil Towner discuss the rewards of learning Greek and Hebrew because some of the richness of the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament are hidden in translation. The post Episode 113 Learning Greek and Hebrew with McDowell & Towner first appeared on Lanier Theological Library and Learning Center.

Cathy McDowell and Phil Towner discuss the rewards of learning Greek and Hebrew because some of the richness of the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament are hidden in translation. The post Episode 113 Learning Greek and Hebrew with McDowell & Towner first appeared on Lanier Theological Library.

In this brief podcast, I discuss the significance of the Hebrew Masorah for understanding the Hebrew Old Testament text.

Thursday, 4 August 2022   Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God. Acts 9:20   It was seen in the analysis of the previous verse that Saul's (Paul's) trip to Mt. Sinai in Arabia probably occurred between the two clauses of the verse –   So when he had received food, he was strengthened. * Journey to Arabia. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus.   With that being likely, the next words now fall into their proper place, saying, “Immediately he preached.”   Saul had (presumably) received his instruction from the Lord in Arabia and was now well versed in the doctrines he would proclaim for the rest of his life. Therefore, and upon his return, he immediately preached in Damascus concerning “the Christ.”   It is to be noted that many manuscripts here say “Jesus” instead of “the Christ.” That would appear to fit more naturally, and it would be in accord with his preaching noted in Acts 13:16-41 where the term Christ is not used. Instead, it says “Jesus” twice. Hence, it is possible this is the original wording. However, because it would be wholly unnatural for a scribe to change “Jesus” to “Christ,” it makes one wonder if the word “Christ” is actually the original. Further, the word “Christ” is “Messiah” in Hebrew, and it would be the thought on the minds of those attending.   Even if they spoke Greek or some other language in the synagogues of Damascus, there would always be certain words that were carried over in the thinking of the people, mashiakh, or the Messiah, being one of them. That remains true to this day. Therefore, it is quite possible that Saul was carefully explaining to them the doctrine of the Messiah, who is Jesus, rather than Jesus, who is the Messiah. In other words, he would first explain to them that Scripture foretold the coming of Messiah and “that He is the Son of God.”   If this is what Saul was doing at this early stage of his instruction, he is clearly setting forth the proposition that the Messiah is not simply a son of David, but that He is God incarnate. As such, it would explain why Jesus didn't just come to liberate the Jews from their enemies, but that He came to deal with their greatest enemy, sin.   If “Jesus” is the true reading, then it would be that his preaching focused on Jesus, who is the fulfillment of the Messianic promises and that Israel had, thus far, missed this fact. The resurrection proves that He is the Messiah, and thus that He is the Son of God.   Either way, the result is ultimately the same. Looking ahead for an answer which is correct would tend to favor “Jesus” –   But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.   But Barnabas took him and brought himto the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.   In verse 22, the name “Jesus” is inserted for clarity. It would appear that the verse is dependent on verse 20 giving the name which has not yet been otherwise provided. In verse 27, it clearly says that Paul preached in the name of Jesus.   If “Jesus” is the original, the error in translation may have simply come from a scribe seeing the word “Christ” in verse 20 while looking at the wrong line of the manuscript (a common error) and wrote that into this line now. Again, however, nothing is ultimately lost in either. Jesus is the Messiah, and the Messiah is Jesus. What transpired, and how Saul proclaimed his message, was in a particular way in Damascus, but both paths of discussion are covered by him in his writings elsewhere.   Life application: The means of preparing manuscripts in the New Testament Greek was far different than that of how the Hebrew Old Testament was prepared. The Greek scribes were surely less concerned about precision than they were about getting the word out to as many as possible as quickly as possible.   If small errors crept into the manuscripts, it would seem as if all hope of proper doctrine is lost. However, in comparing the many manuscripts, it is very easy to identify where the error was originally entered into the text. As such, and due to the huge number of Greek texts, along with other early writings from those texts (such as lectionaries), the New Testament is to be considered far more reliable than any other ancient writing.   The places where error has crept in do not destroy any major theology in the faith. Those points of contention are all dealt with in other parts of the New Testament. We have a sure and faithful word. Be confident of this. What we are to know with absolute clarity is there for us to know, and it is known with absolute clarity.   Glorious God Almighty, may we always be confident in our faith in Jesus. Help us never to stray from our faith and help us never to get sidetracked by those who desire to tear apart Your precious word. It has been given, and it is sufficient for us in our life, hope, and doctrine. Thank You for Your wonderful word. Amen.  

Church History Part 7 4th & 5th Century - Leading Thinkers and Councils ~ G'day and welcome to Partakers and to our series, HAHA – Heroes and Heretics Abound. Together we will look at the story of the church from its origins to the Age of Reasoning in the 18th century. Last time we looked at the change for Christianity under Constantine – the church changed from being persecuted to being, as some would, compromised with its new found freedom. During this time as well, Christian thinking was being developed and clarified. There were several Councils called over the next 100 years which served that purpose. But let us look firstly at some of the leading Christian thinkers of the time, who helped formulate what we believe as 21st century Christians. Leading Christian thinkers of the 4th & 5th Centuries Athanasius 296-373. Deacon of the church in Alexandria, opposed Arius in the Council of Nicea. Became Bishop of Alexandria in 328. Athanasius was exiled 5 times because of his opposition to Arianism! Athanasius was the champion of orthodox Christian thinking! Hilary of Poitiers 295-368. Bishop of the Church at Poitiers, France. He was the main defender of orthodoxy in the Western Church who opposed Arianism. Ambrose of Milan 339-397. Ambrose became Bishop of Milan in 374 at the age of 34, and was in that role for 23 years. He was the Governor of Milan, the capital of the Empire, before being chosen as bishop by popular vote or choice. He was unbaptized, untrained, and resisted the peoples choice initially. Ambrose was noted for his courage and unbending character, completed the overthrow of Arianism in the Western church. Aurelius Augustine 354-430. Augustine was born of a pagan father and a Christian mother in Africa. He was converted to Christianity at the age of 32 and became Bishop of Hippo in 393. He is certainly one of the greatest theologians and thinkers in the history of the church. Most of mainstream Christianity today draws upon his teachings and thoughts. He was the first to clearly explain and express the doctrine of God's grace - that salvation was a gift of God and could not be earned. He taught that there was no salvation outside of the church. However he did promote a belief in purgatory and the use of relics, which much of the evangelical church today would consider in contrast to Christian teaching. John Chrysostom 347-407. He was known as 'John the Golden Mouth', because he was a great orator, teacher and preacher. He was the Bishop of Antioch & Constantinople in the Eastern Church. Jerome 340-420, was born in Italy, which was part of the Western Church. Jerome translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Latin (the popular language of the day) and the Latin Vulgate which was accepted by the Roman Catholic Church as its official Latin translation for centuries. Jerome lived in Bethlehem as a hermit for 35 years, and strongly promoted the monastic lifestyle as spiritually superior. Leo I (Leo the Great) 390-461. Bishop of Rome 440-461 was born in Tuscany, Italy. He made a major advance in acceptance of the Bishop of Rome as the universal Bishop, arguing as he did from Matthew 16:18. He was referred to as the Pope by many Bishops at the Council of Chalcedon (451), and this was largely accepted in the Western Church. This was strongly supported by the Roman Emperor, who made it an offence against the State to resist the Bishop of Rome, or Pope. As we can see by these people, Christian doctrine and thinking is continually developing. However some incorrect thinking was also invading the church. For example Arianism and the heretical thoughts of Arius were rife! Therefore over the next 100 years, various Church councils were called, not only to combat Arianism but also other heresies – some very subtle ones! Councils of the 4th & 5th Centuries The Council of Nicea 324 AD, called by Constantine to resolve the Arian heresy. Arius, an elder from Alexandria taught that Jesus Christ was merely a created being and denied his deity. Athanasius, a deacon in the Alexandria church, opposed Arius and supported Christ's deity. The debate raged over whether Jesus Christ should be described as 'the same essence as the Father' (homousious), or 'like essence as the Father' (homoiousios). Eventually it was accepted that Jesus Christ was 'the same essence as the Father '. The Nicene creed contains the final statement about Jesus Christ's deity. Council of Constantinople 381 AD, was called to discuss Apollonarianism and Sebellianism. Apollonarianism was a theory proposed by Apollinaris the Younger, Bishop of Laodicea. This theory was that Jesus had a human body and a human sensitive soul but didn't possess a human rational mind but rather a divine mind. There was the theory of Modalism or Unitarianism which proposed that the Heavenly Father, the Resurrected Son and the Holy Spirit were different modes one God, rather than three distinct persons within the Godhead. Sebellianism differed slightly from this in that Sabellius, its proposer, acknowledged that Jesus was fully God. At the Council of Constantinople, these teachings were condemned as unbiblical and therefore were heresies. The Holy Spirit was affirmed to be a person, equal with the Father and the Son. Council of Ephesus 431 AD, was called to discuss Nestorianism, at which it was condemned as a heresy. Nestorius protested, stating that Mary was the mother of the humanity of Jesus Christ, but not of His deity. Nestorian Christians engaged in a great missionary endeavour reaching across Asia to China in the Middle Ages. The council condemned and deposed Nestorius. Eutyches, Nestorius' opponent, was deposed 20 years later with being a heretic, teaching Jesus Christ had only a divine nature and was not fully human. Council of Chalcedon 451 AD 500 bishops met and affirmed that Jesus Christ had 2 natures, both divine and human, unchangeably united in one person. Condemned Eutyches who believed Jesus Christ had only the 1 divine nature. The heretical thoughts of Arianism, Nestorianism, Apollonarianism, Unitarianism, Modalism and Sebellianism are still in some religious thoughts today – particularly in the cults such as Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses. Tap or click here to save this as an audio mp3 file ~

If we are reading a book in the West, we pick it up and open it by opening the cover from right to left. We then read the first page from top left to right and then downwards. This is not only logical for us, but anything else would be unusual, as if right-handed people had to write with their left hand or vice versa. When I learned Hebrew, it was therefore very strange for me at the beginning to open the Hebrew Old Testament - from our point of view - from the back: that is, to open the cover of the book from left to right and thus to read the last page from top to bottom but from right to left, according to Western custom. Unfamiliar things need practice to become familiar with them. Perhaps you are already or will be in a situation in which something in your job or in a relationship is quite unusual, totally different from what you are used to. Give yourself time to get used to it. And above all: don't give up! I wish you an extraordinary day!

An earthly father teaches us to bless the Heavenly Father Read 1 Chronicles 29:9-21 David models a public blessing of our perfect Heavenly Father V. 10-13 The main Hebrew Old Testament word for bless is Barak (H1288), occurring 330 times. It can also be translated praise, thank, kneel, adore, salute. Intriguingly, the majority of its occurrences revolve around David, Abraham, and Moses. The main Greek New Testament word for bless is Eulogeo (G2127), occurring 44 times. It can also be translated praise, speak good words over, make glad, cause to prosper. We get our word Eulogy from it. To bless another is to speak good words over them and about them, to praise & thank them; it is to make them glad, & do your part to set them up for success. About half of the Psalms were by David, and half by others. The next time you read through the Psalms note that David, far more than the other Psalmists, prays directly to God rather than just make statements about God! David models being a prototype earthly father V. 14-18 As part of repentance, David stood on the promises of God about God responding to true confession of sin with forgiveness and restoration. He also claimed the Bible's promise – that true faith equals right standing with God. I love what happens after David's life – every king after David was evaluated on two things: whether their hearts were fixed on God like David's had been, and whether they had used their authority to deal with faith destroying idols. Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ. -1 Corinthians 11:1 David modeled for us blessing our own children and others V. 19-20 Let your children see that your past sin doesn't define you – your future with God does!

The Septuagint (LXX) is the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. The apostles quoted it in the New Testament, and earliest Christians used it for many years. What role does it play for us today? How does translation shape our understanding of the Scriptures? Why do we turn to the Hebrew Old Testament instead of the Greek today? Join us as we discuss the LXX, the Masoretic Hebrew text, the Vulgate, and how they relate to each other. ----more---- Hosts: Rev. Willie Grills and Rev. Zelwyn Heide Episode: 174 Visit our website for more information.

Thursday, 19 May 2022   You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Remphan, Images which you made to worship; And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.' Acts 7:43   Stephen had just begun to quote Amos 5 in the previous verse. He now continues with that here. His citation does not completely match the Hebrew, which says –   “‘You also carried Sikkuth your king And Chiun, your idols, The star of your gods, Which you made for yourselves. 27 Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus,' Says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.”   Noting these differences, Stephen begins with, “You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch.” A tabernacle is a tent in which an entity dwells. This would have been carried by the people in a procession as was common among the pagans, and which is seen even in parts of the world today. Moloch is the god of the Ammonites. In the Old Testament, he is noted as Molech.   Worship of Molech was expressly forbidden five times in the book of Leviticus. Solomon made a high place to Molech in 1 Kings 11:7. Also, in Jeremiah 32:35, it says –   “And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.”   Despite the differences in the English, the translation of the Hebrew is exceedingly close to Stephen's words. The name Sikkuth is spelled similarly to Succoth, or “tabernacle.” And the words “your king” are closely associated with Molech, which comes from the Hebrew word meaning “king.”   The reason for saying “tabernacle” here is certainly because he is making a play on words, connecting the thought to what is coming in verse 44. There, he will refer to the “tabernacle in the wilderness,” showing a contrast between this tabernacle and that one.   Stephen next says, “And the star of your god Remphan.” This clause can be seen to be quite different from the Hebrew. The explanation for the difference is provided by the Pulpit Commentary –   “Rephan, or Raiphan, or Remphan, as it is variously written, is the LXX. translation of the Hebrew Chiun in Amos 5:26. The best explanation of this is that Rephan is the Coptic name of the planet Saturn, well-known of course to the LXX., and that Chiun is the Hebrew and Arabic name of the same star, which they therefore translated by Rephan.”   Stephen next says, “Images which you made to worship.” Stephen returns to the thought of verse 7:41 which referred to the golden calf and which said, “and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.” Israel had a proclivity to fashioning gods instead of trusting in the uncreated God. In this, they were completely disobedient to Moses, and thus to the Lord.   Stephen finishes with, “And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.” Although this seems completely contradictory to the Hebrew that reads “Damascus,” it is evident that if one is carried beyond Babylon, he has been carried beyond Damascus. John Gill provides a thorough account of this –   “...in Amos it is beyond Damascus, and so some copies read here, which was in Babylon; and explains the sense of the prophet more fully, that they should not only be carried for their idolatry beyond Damascus, and into the furthermost parts of Babylon, but beyond it, even into the cities of the Medea, Halah, and Habor, by the river Gozan; and here is no contradiction: how far beyond Damascus, the prophet does not say; and if they were carried beyond Babylon, they must be carried beyond Damascus, and so the words of the prophet were fulfilled; and Stephen living after the fulfilment of the prophecy, by which it appeared that they were carried into Media, could say how far they were carried; wherefore the Jew (i) has no reason to cavil at Stephen, as if he misrepresented the words of the prophet, and related things otherwise than they were.”   Life application: Stephen is talking to the lead council of Israel, and he is citing things that are a part of their history. Though the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament do not appear to match, the differences are settled by including both the Greek Old Testament and analysis of the customs, cultures, and languages of the surrounding countries that the people of Israel were fully aware of.   Throughout Acts 7, the council is not seen to stop Stephen and correct him. This would have occurred if what he said was not considered acceptable. Luke is simply chronicling what was said and what happened. And more, if the record of what Luke had said was not compatible with what was considered a reasonable understanding of the citation of the Old Testament, such as that found here, there would have been countless critiques of it throughout the years, starting immediately after Acts was published.   On the other hand, scholars have analyzed every word of the book of Acts and have been able to reasonably settle any difficulties. As this is so, we can be content that we have a reliable record of what was said, and that it is fully in accord with an acceptable interpretation of the passages set before the council.   When people attempt to disparage your faith by disparaging the Bible, and they will, be ready to defend it. There are difficulties in it, but there are reasonable explanations for each of them if you are willing to put in the time and effort to understand them. Don't be shy about this. Stand up for the word. It is the basis for our faith in the Lord. As Paul says, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”   Lord God, thank You for those scholars who have come before us, and who have carefully analyzed the Bible, seeking out its mysteries and finding reasonable solutions to very difficult passages that arise at times. Their work helps us to have greater confidence when we speak to others, and it helps us to want to go further in opening up the treasures that are still awaiting us in Your word. We are surely blessed as this stream of effort continues, even to this day. Amen.  

Saturday, 14 May 2022   “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, Acts 7:38   Following in the same thoughts as Peter from Acts 3, Stephen implicitly tied Jesus in with the “Prophet like Moses” from the previous verse. He did this by noting that Moses had admonished Israel to hear that coming Prophet. Now, he continues with his words about Moses, saying, “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness.”   In the Hebrew Old Testament, two main words are used to define those in the wilderness: qahal – assembly, and edah – congregation. The two words are similar in meaning but are distinct enough that a good translation will render them consistently as “assembly” and “congregation” to show the difference between the two. The word Stephen uses is the Greek word ekklésia. It can signify either word from the Hebrew. It refers to a group that is assembled, whether religious or secular (such as in Acts 19:32).   His use of the word simply indicates that the people of Israel had been called together as a people, assembling for a purpose. In this case, the assembly is defined by the next words, saying, “with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai.”   The congregation of those assembled met with the Angel of the Lord, meaning a visible/audible manifestation of God. As God is Spirit, it is a reference to the Lord Jesus who is the Angel (Messenger) of the Lord seen at that time and throughout the Old Testament.   The people were called together to hear the law spoken forth. They agreed to the conditions set forth, and they accepted the rule of the Lord over them. As such, they accepted Moses as the Lord's representative. With this understood, Stephen confirms that not only Moses, but the people had heard this, saying, “and with our fathers.”   The people as an assembly had gathered at the foot of Sinai. They had heard the words of law, and they were overcome with terror at what they had heard. This is found just after the giving of the Ten Commandments –   “Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. 19 Then they said to Moses, ‘You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.'” Exodus 20:18, 19   The people agreed that hearing the voice of the Lord was too much for them. And so, they asked Moses to speak out the words of law and they would hear – meaning obey – them. This is then reflected in the final words of the verse, saying, “the one who received the living oracles to give to us.”   This refers again to Moses. The people accepted that Moses would receive and transmit the word of the Lord to them. These are then called “the living oracles.” Some translations incorrectly say, “lively oracles,” “words of life,” or “life-giving.” Such translations are not the intent. It is a verb and signifies that the oracles are alive and active.   In Deuteronomy 33:2, Moses says, “From His right hand, fire-law for them” (CG). The meaning is that the law is alive and both purifying and consuming. This is the intent of what is given. These oracles are what work in Israel to either purify them as a people in their obedience or to consume them in their disobedience.   Life application: In Hebrews, it says –   “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” Hebrews 4:11-13   This is the same thought as that of what Stephen presents to the council as he speaks to them. It is the same thought that we are to remember as well. Assuming the person is saved by faith in Christ, there is still the need to develop in Him. We are saved out of sin to live in holiness. This is what the Word of God is given for. We can learn what is pleasing to Him. We can learn how to walk properly before Him. We can avoid those things that are contrary to His nature.   Let us make use of this wonderful word. We will not lose our salvation if we don't learn the word, but our life will never be one that is properly conducted unless we apply it to our walk before Him. Read the word, think on it, and let it fill you so that it can guide your actions, your conduct, and your words all the days of your life.   Glorious God, thank You for the wonderful words that You have given to us in the pages of Scripture! It is a living and powerful word that can mold us into Your image if we will just learn it and apply it to our lives. Help us in this, O God. May we do so, and may we be pleasing in Your sight as we walk before You in holiness. Amen.

If you're a follower of Prophecy Watchers you know how important God's Word is to us. More than likely, you're probably unfamiliar with the Septuagint Bible, the Bible favored by the early Church, Josephus, and even quoted by Jesus Himself. This Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament is one of the oldest versions of God's Word that we have in our possession today.

If you're a follower of Prophecy Watchers you know how important God's Word is to us. More than likely, you're probably unfamiliar with the Septuagint Bible, the Bible favored by the early Church, Josephus, and even quoted by Jesus Himself. This Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament is one of the oldest versions of God's Word that we have in our possession today.

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 10: The Holy Spirit & Me BY: Judy Moore DATE: 3 April 2022 PASSAGE: Ephesians (Chaper 5, verses 15 to 20) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis)

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 9: Built Up – Gift Of Tongues BY: Tim Chilvres DATE: 27 March 2022 PASSAGE: 1 Corinthians (Chaper 12, verses 7 to 11 and Chapter 14, verses 1-25) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis)

SESSION 8: BUILT UP – GIFT OF PROPHECY TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 8: Built Up – Gift Of Prophecy BY: Sarah Auger DATE: 20 March 2022 PASSAGE: 1 Corinthians (Chaper 12, verses 7 to 11 and Chapter 14, verses 1-25 “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis)

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 7: A Generous Spirit BY: Tim Chilvers DATE: 13 March 2022 PASSAGE: Romans (Chaper 12, verses 42 to 47) Acts (Chapter 4, verses 32 to 36) and Acts 5 “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis)

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 6: A Transformed Community BY: Nathanael Ballew DATE: 27 February 2022 PASSAGE: Romans (Chaper 12, verses 3 to 8) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis)

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 5: Gifts That Keep On Giving BY: Judy Moore DATE: 20 February 2022 PASSAGE: 1 Corinthians (Chapter 12, verses 1 to 7) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 4: A Beautiful Kind of Ordinary BY: Tim Chilvers DATE: 13 February 2022 PASSAGE: Galatians (Chaper 5, verses 13 to 26) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis)

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 3: You're Home BY: Sarah Auger DATE: 30 January 2022 PASSAGE: Romans (Chapter 8, verses 5 to 15) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis) Welcome: What's true of Riverside Church when we meet together in-person is still true of us online. We are on a journey together to help people get to know Jesus and grow as his followers across Birmingham and beyond. Riverside is a church made up of people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences all with one thing in common; our discovery of God and His amazing love. We hope you will feel at home among us and that you will find our weekly services, events and groups welcoming and relevant to your life. Whoever you are, whatever you believe, you're so welcome in this community. To find out more about Riverside Church please visit our website: https://riverside-church.org.uk/ Useful Links: OUR WEBSITE: https://riverside-church.org.uk/ READ ONLINE (Church Blog) - https://www.riverside-church.org.uk/blog WATCH ONLINE (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/RiversideChurchBirmingham

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 2: A Life Of Purpose BY: Judy Moore DATE: 23 January 2022 PASSAGE: John (Chapter 16, verses 5 to 15) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis) Welcome: What's true of Riverside Church when we meet together in-person is still true of us online. We are on a journey together to help people get to know Jesus and grow as his followers across Birmingham and beyond. Riverside is a church made up of people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences all with one thing in common; our discovery of God and His amazing love. We hope you will feel at home among us and that you will find our weekly services, events and groups welcoming and relevant to your life. Whoever you are, whatever you believe, you're so welcome in this community. To find out more about Riverside Church please visit our website: https://riverside-church.org.uk/ Useful Links: OUR WEBSITE: https://riverside-church.org.uk/ READ ONLINE (Church Blog) - https://www.riverside-church.org.uk/blog WATCH ONLINE (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/RiversideChurchBirmingham

Young Earth Creationism is the view that God created everything that exists – including the earth – in six literal consecutive days and rested on a literal seventh consecutive day according to a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, specifically the first eleven chapters. Central to the argument by Young Earth Creationists is the fact that the Hebrew word ‘Yom' translated into English as “day” in the Genesis account of Creation is used throughout the Old Testament. And every other time that word ‘Yom' is used throughout the Hebrew Old Testament it is understood most directly to mean a literal 24-hour period of time. Another core argument Young Earth Creationists use is the explicit nature of the phrase “and there was morning and evening on the [such and such] day” used with each successive day of Creation described in Genesis. Proponents of an Old Earth, poetic, symbolic, or figurative reading of Genesis are fond of pointing to where in the Scriptures the prophet tells us that “a day is as a thousand years" and "a thousand years is as a day” to the Lord. And by connecting that passage to a figurative interpretation of Genesis, they assert that the days being described in Genesis could be any other length of time whatsoever – even millions or billions of years. And thus they excuse themselves for accommodating modern, secular science in its claims that the universe and the earth are millions and billions of years old, and that all life on earth arose by random, unguided, evolutionary processes which God could have initiated. Young Earth Creationists meanwhile typically oppose this accommodation on the grounds that there is no need for it. There is no need to compromise with the mainstream of modern science and its secular humanism. But there is a great deal of need to not compromise with it. Modern science, after all, rejects as a rule all references to divine revelation like the Bible, and similarly rejects all supernatural explanations that would amount to giving God credit for Creation. Accommodating modern secular science in its purely naturalistic insistences about our origins, or the origins and age of the Earth, opens the door to compromising on everything else God's Word tells us God ever did to intervene or reveal Himself throughout history. And that includes but is not limited to the incarnation, the virgin birth, and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As should be obvious, if we throw out the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ then we have nothing left of Christianity. Our entire faith is based on the claim that Jesus was raised from the dead after living a sinless life and atoning for our sins through his literal death on the cross. And if we don't believe that, we're not Christians. It's as simple as that. So how far do we compromise with modern science when the claims of modern science contradict what the Bible teaches? That's really the central question, and Young Earth Creationists like myself have a simple answer. 'Not at all.' --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/garrett-ashley-mullet/support

TEACHING SERIES: And, Breathe TITLE: Session 1: We Are Not Alone BY: Tim Chilvers DATE: 16 January 2021 PASSAGE: John (Chapter 15, verses 26 to Chapter 16, verse 7) “If God was small enough to be comprehended, he would not be big enough to be worshipped.” (Imad Shehadeh) This is a series all about the Holy Spirit. Who, or what, is the Holy Spirit? The bible is mainly written in Hebrew (Old Testament) and in Greek (New Testament). Each of these languages has one word (Hebrew – ruach; Greek – pneuma) that is used for three different English words – Spirit, breath and wind. And so, the way the bible describes the Holy Spirit can be both confusing and illuminated by these ideas…the wind that powers the sails, and the breath that gives life. So, what role does the Holy Spirit play in the life of Christians? This series takes a deep dive in who the Holy Spirit is and the difference he makes in our lives. It's time to breathe again. “The Lord of hosts is with us. He's not watching us move through this stream of history, he's actually navigating it with us through his Holy Spirit.” (Karen A Ellis Welcome: What's true of Riverside Church when we meet together in-person is still true of us online. We are on a journey together to help people get to know Jesus and grow as his followers across Birmingham and beyond. Riverside is a church made up of people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences all with one thing in common; our discovery of God and His amazing love. We hope you will feel at home among us and that you will find our weekly services, events and groups welcoming and relevant to your life. Whoever you are, whatever you believe, you're so welcome in this community. To find out more about Riverside Church please visit our website: https://riverside-church.org.uk/ Useful Links: OUR WEBSITE: https://riverside-church.org.uk/ READ ONLINE (Church Blog) - https://www.riverside-church.org.uk/blog WATCH ONLINE (YouTube) - https://www.youtube.com/RiversideChurchBirmingham

William Whiston believed that prophecy had only one meaning and the Hebrew Old Testament was corrupt and needed to be restored in order to align more clearly with the New Testament.

Biden's trip abroad, NYC's vaccine mandate deadline, potential immigration settlements, and other top news for Monday November 1st. Stay informed, while remaining focused on Christ, with The Pour Over.Today's episode is sponsored by the Christian Standard Bible. For those of you using the Google Translate App to forge through your Hebrew Old Testament… there is a better way. The CSB translation is the product of over 100 top, biblically-minded scholars from 17 denominations dedicating years to translate God's Word. The result shines by academic standards and is remarkably enjoyable to read. Learn more about the translation here.

How was the ancient Hebrew Old Testament copied, distributed and preserved for future generations-----Handouts are available at the -View PDF- link above---

Today I sat down with Dr. Kevin Youngblood (PhD, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), Professor of Old Testament at Harding University and author of the highly praised commentary on Jonah in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the OT series (links below). Kevin has a gift for making the #OldTestament seem less strange and more accessible. This episode of the podcast is the first in a new series where we'll take a book-by-book approach for most of the New Testament. To help us set the stage, I wanted to ask Kevin one simple but profound question, “How does the Old Testament anticipate Jesus?” Because the Old Testament is so strange and so remote from our normal experience, I think it's easy for many Christians to use the Old Testament like a buffet line: we so often pick out just the things we like and we leave the rest behind. The problem is, if we take the arrangement of the Christian Bible seriously, we can't leave all this other stuff out just because it's weird or uncomfortable. The Hebrew Old Testament ends with Chronicles, and in English with Malachi, and both endings leave something to be finished. Youngblood thinks this is intentional: the entire Old Testament story drives us to anticipate some final, decisive act of God, and that is where #Jesus enters in. Kevin's commentary on Jonah is now in a 2nd edition: https://zondervanacademic.com/products/jonah2You can find Kevin's lectures on Jonah in Zondervan's Master Lectures series: https://masterlectures.zondervanacademic.com/jonah-kevin-j-youngblood Faith in the Folds is a podcast for ministry, biblical studies, and Christian living. You can find full videos on Facebook or YouTube, and audio versions on Apple, Google, Amazon, Spotify, and iHeartRadio podcasts, as well as rss.com/podcasts/faithinthefolds/. You can also follow us on Instagram @faithinthefolds.

Defining Rest in the Old TestamentCertainly, we all need rest, which is why it's a theme found allthrough the Bible. Though God created us for activity, that activity isto be punctuated by rest.The Hebrew Old Testament, for instance, includes a number of termsdenoting rest. The description of God's resting on the newly createdseventh day in Genesis 2:2, 3 uses the verb shabbat, “to cease work, torest, to take a holiday,” which is the verb form of the noun “Sabbath.”The same verb is used in Exodus 5:5 in a causative form and translatedas “making someone rest” from their work. Angry Pharaoh accusesMoses of “making them rest” from their labor.The reference to God's resting activity on the seventh-day Sabbath inthe fourth commandment is expressed by the Hebrew verb form nuakh(Exod. 20:11, Deut. 5:14). The verb is translated as “rest” in Job 3:13 or,more figuratively, “settled,” referencing the ark of the covenant in Numbers10:36. Second Kings 2:15 notes that Elijah's spirit “rested” on Elisha.Another important verb form is shaqat, to “be at rest, grant relief,be quiet.” It is used in Joshua 11:23, where it describes the rest of theland from war after Joshua's initial conquest. The term often appears toindicate “peace” in the books of Joshua and Judges.The verb raga` also is used to indicate rest. In the warnings againstdisobedience in Deuteronomy, God tells Israel that they won't find restin exile (Deut. 28:65). The same verb also appears in a causative formin Jeremiah 50:34, describing the inability to rest.Read Deuteronomy 31:16 and 2 Samuel 7:12. What kind of rest isbeing talked about here?__________________________________________________________________________________________________________Both verses use an idiomatic expression from the verb shakab, which liter-ally means “to lie down, sleep.” In God's covenant with David, God promisesthe future king of Israel that “ ‘when your days are fulfilled and you rest withyour fathers, I will set up your seed after you' ” (2 Sam. 7:12, NKJV).The long (and here incomplete) list of different Hebrew verbs denot-ing rest helps us to understand that the theological concept of rest isnot connected to one or two particular words. We rest individually andcollectively. Rest affects us physically, socially, and emotionally and isnot limited to the Sabbath alone.Death is certainly an enemy and will one day be abolished. Andhowever much we mourn and miss our dead, why is it comfortingto know that, at least for now, they are at rest?

The Spetuagent is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Moses wrote the first 5 books. How did Moses know what to write? It was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God but he had reliable sources through Adam and Methuselah. Stephen is retelling the story of Moses up til verse 50. Then he turns to preach to the people the things they really needed to hear. They had one from heaven and yet did not believe. When people get convicted, and they don't know what to do with it, they get mean. Stephen was stoned because of this.

The Spetuagent is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Moses wrote the first 5 books. How did Moses know what to write? It was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God but he had reliable sources through Adam and Methuselah. Stephen is retelling the story of Moses up til verse 50. Then he turns to preach to the people the things they really needed to hear. They had one from heaven and yet did not believe. When people get convicted, and they don't know what to do with it, they get mean. Stephen was stoned because of this.

ACTIONS HAVE consequences. In the case of Israel, the decision to rebel against Moses after the “bad [or ‘evil'] report” of the spies sent into Canaan led to forty years of wandering in the wilderness. We discuss the intercession of Moses for the people when God declared that He would “strike them with the pestilence,” and the possibility that “Pestilence,” the Canaanite pestilence-god Deber, was an angel sent to carry out His judgment. The reaction of the Israelites to God's alternate punishment, which was to keep Israel from entering Canaan until everyone over the age of 20 (except Joshua and Caleb), was about what you'd expect: They decided to go ahead and attack the Amalekites and Canaanites anyway, and were badly defeated in battle. We also look at God's reiteration of certain sacrificial laws, including sacrifices for unintentional sin, and a death penalty for a man caught gathering wood on the Sabbath. Then we skip to Psalm 90, a psalm of Moses that appears to have been written about this time, with special attention to his prayer for wisdom and cry for the Lord's return. Some striking differences were noted in this week's reading between the Masoretic Hebrew text, the basis for our modern English Old Testament translations, and the Septuagint, which was translated around 300 BC by Jewish scholars working with older Hebrew texts. Specifically, we noticed references to other aspects of the personhood of Yahweh (such as His Name, Right Hand, Spirit, and Glory) that are missing from our English Bibles, apparently because the Masoretes, Jewish scholars who completed their Hebrew Old Testament text by the 10th century AD, de-emphasized the “Second Power in Heaven” in scripture after Christians identified that figure as Jesus Christ.

ACTIONS HAVE consequences. In the case of Israel, the decision to rebel against Moses after the “bad [or ‘evil’] report” of the spies sent into Canaan led to forty years of wandering in the wilderness. We discuss the intercession of Moses for the people when God declared that He would “strike them with the pestilence,” and the possibility that “Pestilence,” the Canaanite pestilence-god Deber, was an angel sent to acarry out His judgment. The reaction of the Israelites to God’s alternate punishment, which was to keep Israel from entering Canaan until everyone over the age of 20 (except Joshua and Caleb), was about what you’d expect: They decided to go ahead and attack the Amalekites and Canaanites anyway, and were badly defeated in battle. We also look at God’s reiteration of certain sacrificial laws, including sacrifices for unintentional sin, and a death penalty for a man caught gathering wood on the Sabbath. Then we skip to Psalm 90, a psalm of Moses that appears to have been written about this time, with special attention to his prayer for wisdom and cry for the Lord’s return. Some striking differences were noted in this week’s reading between the Masoretic Hebrew text, the basis for our modern English Old Testament translations, and the Septuagint, which was translated around 300 BC by Jewish scholars working with older Hebrew texts. Specifically, we noticed references to other aspects of the personhood of Yahweh (such as His Name, Right Hand, Spirit, and Glory) that are missing from our English Bibles, apparently because the Masoretes, Jewish scholars who completed their Hebrew Old Testament text by the 10th century AD, de-emphasized the “Second Power in Heaven” in scripture after Christians identified that figure as Jesus Christ. Join us in Israel! We will lead another tour through the Holy Land October 3–18, 2021, with an optional three-day extension to Jordan, with visits to Mount Nebo, Wadi Rum, and Petra. For more information, log on to www.SkyWatchinIsrael.com. Our new book Giants, Gods and Dragons is available now in Kindle and paperback! Get it as part of a great package with more than 27 hours of our video teachings at the SkyWatchTV Store, or by itself at Amazon.com. And Derek's novels The God Conspiracy and Iron Dragons are available now in paperback and Kindle! See the official trailers and learn more at the website for Rose Avenue Fiction. Download these studies directly to your phone, tablet, or iPod! Get our free mobile app for iOS and Android. Links to the App Store and Google Play are on the main page at www.GilbertHouse.org. Click here for the complete archive of our New Testament Bible studies to date, and click here for the Old Testament studies to date. Or go to www.spreaker.com/show/gilbert-house-fellowship for all of the audio.

Disciple Up Episode 202 Do I Have a Soul or Am I a Soul? Louie Marsh, 3-10-2021   Intro:   This episode sparked by an e-mail from a listener named John, who wrote:   Please check out my biggest and best book – Everyday in the Spirit - https://tinyurl.com/3fct42zn   I was listening to a podcast called "The Bible Project" and the guys on there bring up a point about the word in Hebrew that is translated into English as "soul" doesn't really mean what we think. They say we are translating it wrong and that we don't have a soul if you translate the word correctly it means the throat. The gateway to your innermost part of your body. I am confused about what that means as far as if I go to heaven or not when I die or what   Great question and indicative of a lot of what some people are saying these days about the soul and after life. So on this episode we're going to dive in and check out what some scholars say about this and how in the end the Bible Project guys and I agree, but we disagree with how to get there.   Link are in the show notes to what I'll be referencing as well as a link to the Bible Project so you can listen and decide for yourself.   Links:   Exegetical Fallacies by D.A. Carson, Baker Books - https://tinyurl.com/25635e3z   Commentary on the Old Testament by Keil-Delitzch, - https://tinyurl.com/pbdyyach   The Bible Project; https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bible-project   Bible Project Episode Description (bold & underlining is mine) You Are A Soul This is our first episode related to our new word studies video on the Hebrew word “Nephesh” which often gets translated as “soul” in English bibles. In Hebrew the most basic meaning of the word is “throat.” Which seems weird to us. So how did we get “soul” from “throat”? Tim and Jon discuss. In the first part of the episode (0-12:30), Tim and Jon outline where the word “soul” comes from (Old English), and why most people think that a core teaching of the Bible is people “having souls.” Jon asks how much you can really separate the ideas of a person's “mind, soul, and body.” In the second part of the episode (12:30-41:20), Tim explains that the Hebrew word “Nephesh” is an extremely common word in the Hebrew Old Testament. It occurs over 700 times, but less than 10% of the time is it translated as “soul.” It also gets translated as “life”, “heart”, “you”, “people” and several other words. Tim outlines some famous verses in the Old Testament that use the word soul. Like Psalm 42 “ As the deer pants...My soul thirsts for you” the original meaning is Hebrew is “my throat thirsts for you.”   Tim explains that the word Nephesh is designed to show the essential physicality of a person. Whereas “soul” connotes the non-physicality of a person. In the third part of the episode (41:20-end), Tim says “Nephesh” isn't just used to describe humans, but also used to describe animals and what the land produced in Genesis. “And God said ‘Let the waters teem with living Nephesh.'” The bottom line, biblically, is that people don't have souls. They are souls. They don't have “nephesh” they are “nephesh.” And the ultimate hope for Christians is not a disembodied existence living as souls, but an embodied existence living in their Nephesh. Thank you to all our supporters! Check out more free resources on our website: www.thebibleproject.com Strong's Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary. Hebrew Word: ‏נֶפֶשׁ‎ Transliteration: nepesh Phonetic Pronunciation: neh'-fesh     Usage Notes:   English Words used in KJV: soul 475 life 117 person 29 mind 15 heart 15 creature 9 body 8 himself 8 yourselves 6 dead 5 will 4 desire 4 man 3 themselves 3 any 3 appetite 2 miscellaneous translations 47 [Total Count: 753]   from  (naphash); properly a breathing creature, i.e. animal or (abstract) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental) :- any, appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, × dead (-ly), desire, × [dis-] contented, × fish, ghost, + greedy, he, heart (-y), (hath, × jeopardy of) life (× in jeopardy), lust, man, me, mind, mortally, one, own, person, pleasure, (her-, him-, my-, thy-) self, them (your) -selves, + slay, soul, + tablet, they, thing, (× she) will, × would have it.   Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old Testament and New Testament Words. Life Usage Number: 1 Part Of Speech: Noun Strong's Number:  Original Word: ‏נֶפֶשׁ‎, nepesh Usage Notes: "soul; self; life; person; heart." This is a very common term in both ancient and modern Semitic languages. It occurs over 780 times in the Old Testament and is evenly distributed in all periods of the text with a particularly high frequency in poetic passages. The basic meaning is apparently related to the rare verbal form, nāpash. The noun refers to the essence of life, the act of breathing, taking breath. However, from that concrete concept, a number of more abstract meanings were developed. In its primary sense the noun appears in its first occurrence in Gen. 1:20: "the moving creature that hath life," and in its second occurrence in Gen. 2:7: "living soul." However, in over 400 later occurrences it is translated "soul." While this serves to make sense in most passages, it is an unfortunate mistranslation of the term. The real difficulty of the term is seen in the inability of almost all English translations to find a consistent equivalent or even a small group of high-frequency equivalents for the term. The kjv alone uses over 28 different English terms for this one Hebrew word. The problem with the English term "soul" is that no actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is represented in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew system of thought does not include the combination or opposition of the terms "body" and "soul," which are really Greek and Latin in origin. The Hebrew contrasts two other concepts which are not found in the Greek and Latin tradition: "the inner self" and "the outer appearance" or, as viewed in a different context, "what one is to oneself" as opposed to "what one appears to be to one's observers." The inner person is nepesh, while the outer person, or reputation, is shēm, most commonly translated "name." In narrative or historical passages of the Old Testament, nepesh can be translated as "life" or "self," as in Lev. 17:11: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for [yourselves]…." Needless to say, the reading "soul" is meaningless in such a text. But the situation in the numerous parallel poetic passages in which the term appears is much more difficult. The Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate both simply use the Greek and Latin equivalent "soul," especially in the Psalms. The first occurrence is in Psa. 3:2: "Many are saying of my soul, There is no deliverance for him in God" (nasb). The next occurrence is in Psa. 6:3: "And my soul is greatly dismayed; But Thou, O Lord, how long?" (nasb). In both passages the parallel contrast is between nepesh and some aspect of the self, expressed as "him" in Psa. 3:2 and not expressed but understood in Psa. 6:3. There is no distinction as to whether it appears as an "A" or "B" word in the parallelism. However, since Hebrew rejects repeating the same noun in both halves of a poetic line, nepesh is often used as the parallel for the speaker, primary personal subject, and even for God, as in Psa. 11:5: "The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence [he himself] hateth." Such passages are frequent, and a proper understanding of the word enlightens many well-known passages, such as Psa. 119:109: "My life is continually in my hand, Yet I do not forget Thy law" (nasb). The versions vary widely in their readings of nepesh, with the more contemporary versions casting widely for meanings.   Usage Number: 2 Part Of Speech: Verb Original Word: ‏נָפַשׁ‎, nāpash Usage Notes:Nāpash means "to breathe; respire; be refreshed." This verb, which is apparently related to the noun nepesh, appears 3 times in the Old Testament (Exod. 23:12; Exod. 31:17). The other appearance is in 2 Sam. 16:14: "And the king, and all the people that were with him, came weary, and refreshed themselves there." Genesis 2:7 “7then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Genesis 2:7, ESV)   “7Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the earth and blew the breath of life into his nostrils. The man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7, GW)   “7And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7, ASV 1901)   “7Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7, NASB95)   “7And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7, KJV 1900)   “7And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7, NKJV)   “7God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!” (Genesis 2:7, The Message)   Psalm 42:1-2 Terrible suggested translation:  Like Psalm 42 “ As the deer pants...My soul thirsts for you” the original meaning is Hebrew is “my throat thirsts for you.”   “1As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:1–2, ESV)   The Root Fallacy: (D.A. Carson)   Soul – GW, NASB, YLT, NIV, KJV, ASV, Darby,  I – HCSB, NLT, LB, The Message, Vol. 5, Page 55: “The poet compares the thirsting of his soul after God to the thirsting of a stag.”   Aside from the root fallacy there's the fact this is a metaphor. The writer is comparing a deer's thirst for water need to survive with his soul's (self, inner person, etc.) need for God.  The physical is contrasted with the spiritual.   Literally it was never intended as “throat,”  That's horrible and reflects a misunderstanding of metaphor and language as well.   BOTTOM LINE:   My soul is saved because I am saved! In the end I'll be reunited with my body, but that body will be changed.   The bottom line, biblically, is that people don't have souls. They are souls. They don't have “nephesh” they are “nephesh.”   “42So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 15:42–46, ESV)   So yes, you ARE a soul who inhabits a body and in the end Christ will redeem both!

What can we learn about who God is from Moses' encounter with the great 'I AM' at a burning bush? How does Jesus deepen this understanding? Good morning. I am not one who normally uses props, but I didn't know what this was until somebody explained it to me. It looks like an instrument of torture. In some ways it is. It's actually something used in exercise. It's a kettle bell. It's a kind of weight. It was what was recommended to me this year as I was approaching a new year, approaching my 60s, wanting to be able to continue to live life on a somewhat normal basis, wanting to continue to hike like I enjoy. And the person who is advising me said, why don't you work out with kettle bells? Because kettle bells and the various exercises that you can do with them help strengthen your core. Strengthening your core - that was a bit of a new concept for me. And that may be something that you're already familiar with. But here's basically what your core is. According to the Mayo Clinic, your core, our cores are the the muscles that make up our our abdomen and our back and the muscles around our pelvis. And the reason that is significant is because if you have a strong core that enables you to continue to keep doing the normal activities of life. When somebody ages or becomes ill and they lose the ability to pick themselves up off the floor or sit up or some have just what we would consider you and I in normal activities, that that usually is a problem of a weak core. So a strong core enables you to to do all those activities of normal, everyday life, to keep doing things like I enjoy, like hiking a weak core not only works against that, but can bring on back pain. It can even make you susceptible to muscle issues. So why is that significant? Because again, physically, to keep functioning, to keep doing the things that I enjoy, I want to strengthen my physical core. But that makes me recall what Paul the Apostle says to young Timothy in First Timothy four. He reminds Timothy physical training is of some value. It's not something we should ignore. But he says, training yourself to be godly, in other words, strengthening your physical core or your spiritual core. Training yourself to be godly, strengthening your spiritual core, Paul says, is much better because it not only has benefits in this life, it has benefits in the life to come. So, that is really the theme of this series that we are into for the next couple months, strengthening your core. And by that we mean strengthening our spiritual core. Really, another term that we could use to describe what it means to strengthen our spiritual core is discipleship. And that's one of those churchy words that that maybe we do or don't have a handle on. But a disciple is very simply a learner, somebody who is a learner and a follower of Jesus; a disciple of Jesus is a learner and a follower of Jesus. And when we think about that idea of strengthening our spiritual core - discipleship, we're essentially asking the question: "What does a disciple of Jesus look like? What does he or she think? Does he or she think like Jesus? How is he developing or she developing and thinking like Jesus? Does he or she act like Jesus in the way that they are living? Is that person growing and more in their conduct in a way that mirrors Jesus? And is he or she becoming more like Jesus? Is the heart changing in such a way that it resembles more and more Jesus?" That's really the measurement of discipleship. That's really the measurement of strengthening our spiritual core. It is: Are we being transformed in our thinking? Are we being transformed in our actions? Are we being transformed in our being who we are in our heart? You can think of it in very easy terms of our head - what we're believing; our hearts - our virtues, in other words, what's happening internally in the control center of our lives; and our hands - what we're practicing, what we're actually doing. And so that's really what we have been focusing on, even as church leadership, what does it mean to be a disciple who's being transformed in head and heart and hands and belief in virtues and practices? And we're using something right now. We're looking at something right now called the Christian Life Profile. It's something that's been used in our leadership training for some time here at Calvary. And it identifies 30 characteristics, 10 characteristics of belief, 10 characteristics of virtues, 10 characteristics of practices that we see over and over again in the Bible. And we're looking at how do we incorporate that into our intentional efforts to help people strengthen their spiritual core, to grow as disciples. So over the next couple of months, we're going to look at some of these. We are going to start working our way through. And today and this month, we begin with the first core beliefs. So this is this is, again, of the head. Not that everything is about belief, but this is where we're beginning. And that first belief is very simply this. It is the belief in God: a disciple of Jesus believes in the God of the Bible. And by that we mean the one true God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now, you may think this is academic, especially if you've been in church for a while, but let's talk about the very real relevance of this, why this is so critical. Just think about what happened in 2020. One of the realizations for me is 2020, and all the events that happened during 2020 brought to the surface. So it is undeniable what has been happening in our culture for some time. And that very simply is the world has been slowly and subtlely but undeniably changing right beneath us. And I don't mean necessarily the physical world. I mean what is happening in our culture. Most of us, if we're 40 or over, we were we were raised, we were steeped, in what's called modernism, which which depends on rational thought and the scientific method and reason. And yet what has been going on in the last number of years and really came to the surface in all of the events that I think we've seen in 2020 is rationalism has been eclipsed by postmodernism. And postmodernism rejects rationality; it rejects reason; it even to some degree rejects or wants to change the use of the scientific method. And why this is so crucial for us is, at its core, postmodernism - what what people who are now growing up in their elementary school age up into their 20s and 30s and 40s, and it's leaking even up above that. What is there is a rejection of this very idea that there is any absolute. Even if there's some acknowledgement of God, he is rejected as the one who is absolute reality, who establishes absolute truth, who establishes the standard that determines what is right or wrong, what is moral or immoral for all times and all places. In all cultures. Postmodernism rejects the idea that there is - what we are learning in our leadership class in here at Calvary - a metanarrative that there is a story that God is in control and working towards everything, towards his aims all throughout human history, that that he has a point and purpose for all of our lives. So into this postmodern culture, we step if we are followers of Jesus and we say: no, we believe in one true God, we believe in the God of the Bible, we believe in the God of the Bible who reveals himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we'll be looking at that the next couple of weeks, but today I want to come to what what I think for me is become a foundational text in all of this. And it's the one you heard read earlier. I'm not going to read the whole text, but it is the account of God appearing to Moses in Exodus, chapter three. And in verse one, we see the context. Moses is leading the flock, the flocks that belonged to his father in law, Jethro, and he's leading them into the far side of the wilderness. And he comes to Horeb, the mountain of God. Now, this location is unknown. We don't know where this is. All we know is it's way out in the middle of nowhere. He was probably wandering to find some fresh grazing for his sheep. He was probably going far beyond he'd ever gone before. Horeb - that word in Hebrew means wilderness. So it is out in the middle of nowhere. There's no hint that Moses was aware that there was a mountain out there identified as the mountain of God. What's the significance of that? When God reveals himself, as we're going to see, is probably one of the most significant revelations of himself in all of scripture. God does it in a non-traditional, non-religious setting. That's not the last time in scripture that we'll see a significant revelation of God, not in some kind of church or sanctuary, but in a non traditional, non religious setting. And what does he see? How does God begin this revelation? Moses isn't looking for this, but we read in verse two, the angel of the Lord appeared to him not in a burning bush, but literally the Hebrew here would be like this: In a flame of fire from the midst of a bush that was not consuming the bush. Now, that's significant, a flame of fire is an Old Testament symbol of what we call a theophany, when when God reveals himself in some visible way, you think of the pillar of fire. There is a theophany, that God appeared leading the Israelites in during the exodus. You think of God appearing to Moses at Mount Sinai to give him the law. He did it, Deuteronomy records, out of the midst of a fire. So this fire is God just giving a visual representation of himself. That's why the bush is not consumed. This is not somebody simply lighting a bush on fire. And even as we read Angel, Angel is probably better translated here as messenger. This this is God in some visual form appearing before man. And this is actually God speaking. This is not some angel of God speaking. We see instances of the Angel of the Lord throughout the Old Testament, meaning God is in some way visually showing up to speak. Jumping ahead a little bit in verse six, what is it that God says to Moses at its core?: I am the God of your father. Notice that singular, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Israel and the God of Jacob. That is singular because God is identifying himself with with Moses and Moses's family who are in slavery in Egypt. I don't have time to go through all the context of that. But if you read the first two chapters of Exodus, you see the setting, the situation that the Israelites are in. And he mentions Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the three great patriarchal fathers. So what is God doing here? God is identifying himself with the faith of Moses's people, the nation of Israel who are enslaved in Egypt. Now, I think there is a real challenge for Moses, first of all, to believe this, but but really, anyone who would have been there at that time. Yes, Moses can recall at least hearing about times where God showed up to appear to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and various places. But it's been a long time. It's been four hundred years that the Israelites have been in Egypt under slavery, crying out with no real evidence that God has shown up for them at all. Four hundred years. And not only has it been a long time, but this is a very new situation, the nation of Egypt. This is probably the first world's great power. The pharaoh had power over every aspect of the Egyptians lives and of course, the Israelites slaves. It had an international influence. It was the first probably great world power. And not only was there Pharaoh with all of his power, the power of the state, we might think of it, but there was a pantheon of gods. I've read of at least eight Egyptian deities. So as an Egyptian, you know, you had all you had these choices of all these deities. And if you somebody came along and told you about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you're like, oh, that's that's just one other choice that I could possibly make. I guess he fits in somewhere, even if he's real. I guess he fits in somewhere with the other pantheon of gods. So Moses has some, probably some, at least tentativeness, if not doubt about this, leading him to ask the question in verse thirteen. If I go to the Israelites, notice the hesitation - if - if I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they ask me, what is his name? What should I tell them? You see the significance of that question, what is his name? What is your name? Moses is not asking about God's identity. He's not right at this point asking what you're like. Somebody meets me on the street. What is your what's your name? What's your first name? He is not asking that. It is a question of authority. Moses is essentially asking, if I go to them, how am I going to explain to them where you have been for the last four hundred years? If I go to them and I say this, how am I going to answer when they ask me and even my own question, can he really accomplish what he is promising? If I go to them, how am I going to explain to them that you are really present in their situation, that you really have the power over this culture, this dominant world power of Egypt? Again I think about the relevance of that today. If we are followers of Jesus, we know Jesus sends us out into the world, that is the great commission, Matthew twenty eight. And when we think about Jesus sending us out into our postmodern culture. We, or at least I'll speak honestly for me, we/I have the same struggles as Moses. You know, postmodernism has not totally wiped out the memory of the God of our fathers. I mean, most even probably people down into their 20s at least know the concept of God, but they don't know him as as God. So there is the memory of the God of our fathers. But even when they hear that, they ask with skepticism and often with scoffing. Well, what is his name? Again, not necessarily asking about identity, they're asking, is he real, is he really present? Does he really care? Can he really affect things? Does he really have power? And why does he seem so absent, why does he seem so distant? I wonder if you feel that struggle when you and I face a culture that is increasingly secular, that increasingly rejects any authority, that hangs on to personal autonomy. A culture that is becoming more and more tribal - we all have our little gods, small g gods. A culture that is becoming more and more polarized. A culture that increasingly rejects any moral absolutes, any ultimate voice, saying this is right and this is wrong, this is true and this is false. As we face that culture, what do you say? What do you say when they ask you what is his name, what should you tell them? You see how relevant this is to us. Well, God answers Moses, he answers, Moses's real question in verse 14. "I am who I am, this is what you are to say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you". Now you probably picked it up there three times. He uses the same - It's actually one word in Hebrew - It's the verb to be I am in the first singular there. He repeats it twice, right together. I am who I am. And then there is the third time added on. The most common translations of this. Other than I am who I am. You might find this in various translations of the Bible. I am who I am. Other translations "I will cause to be what I cause to be." I've seen that one. "I will be who I am." "I am who I will be." The one thing that is for certain that is absolutely clear by the even the tense of and the form of these verbs "I am who I am" - is the past tense is not appropriate. It is not appropriate to speak of God as he was like so many in our postmodern situation would say today. Oh, yeah, God's dead. God was. God was you know, God is something from the past. God is is an archaic belief here. There's no sense of the past other than the eternal past that God always has been. There's no sense of the past tense in here. This is the present tense. It is God is representing himself as actively existing. He is saying, I am. I always have been. I always will be. I don't often quote commentators, but John Durham, a commentator, this just stuck out to me, he says, "This answer is not by any stretch of the imagination a name. It is an assertion of authority. It is a confession of reality." In essence, God is saying to them, and he's saying to us, by the way, as well, I am the God who is with and for my people at all times and all places, including in twenty, twenty one. He is saying, I will be God for you, I have always been this and I will be God for you right in the middle of your situation. This is God saying he is real, this is God saying he is present, this is God saying he is sovereign, this is God saying he is faithful, this is God saying he is at work even if you can't see it. So now that God has established who he is, I am who I am, and all of that means now he makes his proper name known, I am who I am is not his proper name. I am who I am, explains the name that he now gives in verse 15 Yahweh. This is my name forever, Yahweh is my name forever, Yahweh is how I am to be recognized in every generation. And that Hebrew word Yahweh, it comes from the same form of I am, the Hebrew word h-y-h so so God has built the foundation with the three items in verse 14, and now he gives the proper name that comes out of that Yahweh. God has been up to this point - to Moses and to you and me - revealing the meaning of his true name, his personal name, this is the name that appears over sixty eight hundred times in the Old Testament, but you don't see it. I'll explain why in a moment. It appears over and over in the Old Testament whenever you see Lord capitalized LORD, why is that? Why is not Yahweh in there? Because first of all, this is the most sacred name for God. And so the Jews honoring that sacredness, they would not pronounce it. And so instead, what they did, they did a little kind of a trick. I don't mean that in the negative sense. When they translated it, when they spoke it, they would substitute another name for God - Adonai, which means, my lord, that's why you see LORD that and as well as the Septuagint, which is just simply the the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, uses a similar translation, kyrios, which also means Lord. So every time you read your Old Testament and you see the capitalized word, all caps, LORD, what you're actually seeing there is the Hebrew word Yahweh. And I understand how that all came about. But it is a little confusing when you hear the real explanation of it. And again, I'm not on the level of any Bible translator, but I find it a little unsatisfactory because LORD is a title, but his name is Yahweh. So LORD really doesn't capture his name. Now, one more thing before I move on from his name - the Hebrew Old Testament is we have consonants, we don't have vowel markings. And so what we do know when we look at the Hebrew is the consonants which transliterated would be YHWH. So there's a lot of speculation when you add the vowels in, how do you actually say it? One very common practice was to take in the vowels from Adonai. I'm not really sure the reason and add them to YHWH and that produces Jehova. If you have the King James version of the Bible that you may see Jehovah referenced a number of times, that's where that comes from, adding the vowels from Adonai into the consonants of your way. There's no evidence that that's the right pronunciation of it. But we don't know. I think a very good translation is simply Yahweh adding in the the A and the E to say Yahweh. And that's one of the reasons I like the Holman Christian Standard Bible is occasionally they will use the word Yahweh. Now I don't mean to get academic here, because really the significance of this is that all of the verses leading up to verse 15, God has been providing an interpretation of his name. If we want to know who he is, if Moses wants to know who he is, God has been explaining that Yahweh is the great I am, Yahweh is, or as Francis Schaffer says, the God who is there. Yahweh is real whether people recognize him or not. He is eternal. He always is. He always has been. He always will be. And he is present. He is even when we can't see him. Even when we don't understand where he is. So for the Israelites and for us. Even in the midst of this postmodern culture that we now find ourselves in, God is the ultimate reality. God is the ultimate authority because he always has been and he always will be. This is going to be tested. It's going to be tested, we see in verse 15, when they go to Egypt, when Moses goes to Egypt and says, we want to worship, it's going to be tested, really his authority and whether they will follow him, it's going to be tested, verse 19, we see in the confrontation with Pharaoh, it's going to be tested, verse 20, through the series of plagues, the wonders that God will bring, but ultimately God will demonstrate to the Israelites, and to us: he is who he says he is. He is the ultimate authority. Let me close with this, how do we experience the great I am? How do we experience Yahweh where you heard it read earlier and in John eight Jesus inflames those listening to him, the Pharisees and Sadducees with that statement: "before Abraham even was born, I AM!." And their reaction to him shows that they got exactly where he was drawing that from. He's drawing that from God's revelation of himself here in Exodus three. But that's who Jesus is. He is the great I AM wrapped up in human nature. And that's why he makes himself known to us and those I am statements of the gospel of John, I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the true and living way. And my question for you as we close is, do you know this God, the one true God? Do you know the great I AM? We know him as we approach him through how he reveals himself most perfectly to us through the great I AM - Jesus the Christ. And as we come to him, recognizing his authority, recognizing him as savior, him as king, him as Lord, that is how we come and we embrace the great I AM. That is how we enter into a relationship where the great I AM, who is existed eternally, who is all powerful, who is all authority, knows and loves us and accepts us and forgives us and changes us. Do you know the great I AM through Jesus the Christ? Let's pray. Our God, there's no way I can fully do this justice of how you reveal who you truly are, but I pray, Lord Jesus, as your spirit works and our hearts, that this this would grow on us - the revelation of who you are and all of your reality, the revelation of your absolute authority, the revelation that you are here and you are present, and that determines how we go not just in our own lives, but out into the world. That rejects you. That does not believe in you. So, Lord Jesus, I pray that if there is anyone here who does not know the great I AM, that they would approach you as savior, as king, as LORD, as God incarnate, that they would come to know you as they bow before you, in repentance and faith as they embrace you, as savior, as LORD, as King. I pray this in your name. Amen.

The Faction Election War Won (10) (Audio) Chinese DS Faction Invasion (audios always have more info) Missy Pollock - 12-23-20 (David’s notes in red) I had this dream with three parts. I think they could be three separate dreams but they are all related. I was in a bathroom by the toilet and there were little Chinese children that came in and were at my feet.  I wanted to have privacy so I started to hang up a colorful curtain  (separation/sanctification) across a string that was strung across the room. The curtain didn't reach the whole way across the string. (The Chinese have found a way around our intelligence protections)  (We have a promise of Ps 91 that is ours by our spiritual separation, our spiritual fruit of Jesus in us,  from the world. We don't need to physically protect ourselves) Then I saw a line of Chinese people outside coming in to the house and they had brought in chairs that were folded up but not yet set up. (The Chinese Communist Party has invaded every political, economical, critical infrastructure, MSM, tech industry, and intelligence which is our privacy, to bring down the US from within. They have bought, bribed, blackmailed, etc into our power structure in every way possible in order to overthrow the US. They are allied with the DS whose intelligence arm is the CIA. They are allied with the Anarchist forces of Islam, BLM, Antifa, etc.  These are their “brown shirts”.  Anarchist are useful to overthrow a country but not to rule a country for their spirits are rebellion/witchcraft.  Hitler knew this and had them destroyed as will the CCP destroy the anarchists if they come to power. The anarchist faction is also the faction in the church seeking to over throw it.  The parallel is complete. Trump derangement syndrome and Man-child derangement syndrome are enforced by the same demons; witchcraft, Faction, slander, hatred, fornication, and Satanism whether they know it or not. ) I asked the Lord if these Chinese people represent physical Chinese people. He gave me 2 heads for a yes. They are the De-ep St-ate / Chinese Communist Party that have not yet set up and taken over the U.S. They also represent the foreign woman/factious sects of Christianity that want to rule over God's people.  They will not take over because of the authority of our warfare and prayers! I asked the Lord for a verse by faith at random for this scene and got: Lk 23:11, 8-12, 8   Now when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was of a long time desirous to see him, because he had heard concerning him; and he hoped to see some miracle done by him.  9  And he questioned him in many words; but he answered him nothing. 10  And the chief priests and the scribes stood, vehemently accusing him. 11  And Herod with his soldiers set him at nought, and mocked him, and arraying him in gorgeous apparel sent him back to Pilate.12  And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day: for before they were at enmity between themselves. (The priests, scribes and Pilate are all the factious beast that come against the house of God and the Man-child and Bride.) (Remember the Sanhedrin were the political and spiritual leaders over Israel, representing the Church, but they were under the beast rule. The political left are under the beast rule, the CCP.) In another scene, I was in a bathroom again but not the same bathroom. I had just gotten out of the shower. The bathroom door was open and I had a towel in my hand. There was  a man with a red beard and hair (factious Edom) that came to the open doorway. I pulled the towel up quickly to cover myself and he said "I'm sorry." There was another man and another woman who also had red hair and a beard (factious Edom) that came to the doorway but not in the bathroom. I was puzzled why they were in my house. (Edom is the seed of Esau who sold his birthright due to a root of bitterness against his brother Israel, as a type of the true Church. Heb 12:14-17  Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord:  15  looking carefully lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled;  16  lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright.  17  For ye know that even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place for a change of mind (in his father), (This is a false addition.  Esau could not change his mind meaning he could not repent) though he sought it diligently with tears.  Esau was known for his red hair. The Hebrew word Edom means "red", and the Hebrew Old Testament relates Edom to its father, Esau, the older son of Isaac, because he was born "red all over” who sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for "red pottage”.)  I had gotten dressed and had come out of the bathroom. I was thinking they came into the house when Merle and I weren't there because there were all kinds of stuff in the house, clutter that wasn't ours. (The Chinese and Edomites are in the US house and the Church as invaders and overthrowers and they have filled the US with their junk.)  I told them this wasn't their house. The woman mentioned that there was a pony outside that was theirs. (Biden, who always comments on Ponies and is owned by the CCP)   They had all this food and were sitting at the table in the kitchen eating.(They own Cosco and are buying out Walmart and Sams and are seeking to control the food supply while antifa derails the trains of supply And DS destroys graineries and silos) (they are glutinous, feeding their flesh on US resources) I asked them why they were in our house.The one man said that it was their house and we needed to talk to the agent that sold us the house. (American politicians have sold the house of the US to the CCP) (The only way to get them out of our house is to use the authority the Lord has given us. Also to pay the price of denying ourselves, not by wrestling with flesh and blood and taking up our cross and following the Lord.) I asked for a Verse for this scene by faith at random: 2 Sam. 1:11, in context 11-16,  11   Then David took hold on his clothes, and rent them; and likewise all the men that were with him: 12  and they mourned, and wept, and fasted until even, for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of Jehovah, and for the house of Israel; because they were fallen by the sword. (The old order of political leadership who fell to witchcraft and faction has fallen to the beast enemy without)  13  And David said unto the young man that told him, Whence art thou? And he answered, I am the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite. 14  And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to put forth thy hand to destroy Jehovah's anointed? 15  And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him, so that he died.  16  And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain Jehovah's anointed. (Those foreigners who take credit for bringing down our old order political leaders will die. This is a huge gambol for the Chinese and DS. They know if thy do not win this war they will die.  Trump will destroy them.) The scene changed again and it seemed like I was in the same bathroom as the previous scene. I was at the sink washing my hands and the sink was all dirty. (The swamp will be drained) This was my personal bathroom and the soap and stuff that I usually have at the sink were gone. (All used up in the swamp draining)  There was something else sitting there at the sink that wasn't mine but I don't recall what it was but I know that it was something blue (meaning heavenly). Because the sink was all dirty I asked Merle, although I didn't see him, if he had taken over my bathroom. Then I woke up. Merle had come to the heavenly unleavened Word of God through the Man-child that cleansed him. He's taken over and is now the head/husband he's supposed to be and cleanses me by the washing of the water in the Word! PTL! I asked for a Verse for this scene by faith at random and got Psalm 15.  My finger was right on verse one and pointing at the title that says: "A Psalm of David". 1  A Psalm of David. (The David Man-child’s song who conquered the Edomite faction) Jehovah, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 2  He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, And speaketh truth in his heart; 3 He that slandereth not with his tongue, Nor doeth evil to his friend, Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor; (There will be no factious people in the house of God) 4  In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, (Those in God’s house will despise the reprobate factions that David and His Lord Despises. Come out from among them!  Rom 1:18-2:10  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness;  … 21  because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened.  22  Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,   ... 24  Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves:  25  for that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, … 28  And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;   29  being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers,  30  backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,  31  without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, unmerciful:  32  who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practise such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practise them.  2:1  Wherefore thou art without excuse, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest dost practise the same things.  ... 5  but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;  6  who will render to every man according to his works:  7  to them that by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life:  8  but unto them that are factious, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation,  9  tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that worketh evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek;  10  but glory and honor and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek: Back to Psa 15:  But who honoreth them that fear Jehovah; He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not; 5  He that putteth not out his money to interest, Nor taketh reward against the innocent. (Bribed by their lusts to accuse the innocent of their own crimes) He that doeth these things shall never be moved.   This chapter describes who Merle and I both are in the Lord. (And fits the Man-child and Bride joined by the Lord as John said when he saw the Lord walking with the first-fruits people, saying “He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom.") Amos 3:3 Shall two walk together except they have agreed? (Merle and I are walking together, finally equally yoked by the power of God's Word, mercy and grace. Merle, the Lord and I are a threefold cord.) Ecc. 4:8  There is one that is alone, and he hath not a second; yea, he hath neither son nor brother; yet is there no end of all his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with riches. For whom then, saith he, do I labor, and deprive my soul of good? This also is vanity, yea, it is a sore travail. 9  Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. 10  For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, and hath not another to lift him up.11  Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one be warm alone? 12  And if a man prevail against him that is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. (I perceive this is the time to share this: I saw a glorious vision in the early morning about two weeks ago that I have been thinking and praying on. Everything in this vision was different densities of white brightness to look at. I saw the Lord officiating the marriage of the Man-child and Bride. It is hard to describe but this whole scene was bright and glorious, the only color was white in various shades of brilliance. I think this represents the Lord in His Man-child body is about to be joined to the Bride to receive the seed of the Kingdom, the Word of God, to bring forth the fruit of Christ in themselves and then the Church. As you know Jesus the Son of God in a body of the Son of David sowed the seed of the Word into the Bride who came into His image and went forth to raise up the Church in that image. “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.  Remember also that all of the Judas’ entities mentioned in this dream will only bring forth the death and resurrection life of Christ in His people.) Thank you Father for making what is impossible with man possible with you! Remember that George Washington saw a vision of the three wars fought on this continent. The first two came to pass.  We are entering the third one now. He saw an invasion from the east that was a RED glow. DS Europe and the Chinese have joined to invade this country to overthrow it. Washington saw the country as almost overthrown before the people began to pray and angels joined with them to throw out the invaders. A. A. Allen also had a vision of this country invaded by planes that sprayed the people who fell to the earth. The invasion of Chemtrail planes has started back up with a vengeance all across the US and many are sick.  This is for the purpose of locking down the populous so they cannot fight the invaders and so the economy will fail. The Red Chinese CCP are throughout the country and their military is in Canada and Mexico.  Their navy is on the east and west coasts. Their allies are traitorous bribed and blackmailed politicians and their DS faction in government and Church. Christians must now call on God and send forth the angels to cast down the enemy invaders and drain the swamp.  A few years ago the Lord said to me, "Send the Angels”. I said to the Lord, "What should I send the Angels to do?”  And I put my finger down by faith at random directly on the name “David” and I read on from there. “David, Do all that is in thy heart for God is with thee.” Do you know that when we speak for God the Angels bring to pass what we command?  I believe this dream below was only in a limited way fulfilled in President  Trump's first term as it was a learning stage. Now seems to be the most complete fulfillment of this dream so pray and send the angels saints and lets finish off this evil invasion of demonic hordes.   Eve Brast - 11/11/2016  (David's notes in red) I dreamed that I was standing in the back of a press conference room. There was a stage up front and a podium. There were reporters seated in the chairs on the floor, waiting for the president-elect to come and give his acceptance speech. I could hear people all over the world cheering and celebrating their victory. (The term "president-elect" is used when he is elected to office but not yet inaugurated. Update 12/30/20: The world now understands at this time how close we all are to be turned over to Communism. Many would greatly rejoice when Trump Wins.) I was expecting Donald Trump to come walking in but, instead, almost like I was given a glimpse of a parallel universe, David Eells (as a type of the David Man-child company) came walking in from the right of the stage with four large bodyguards (angels) dressed in white shirts and black suits with no ties. David was dressed in a ivory-colored suit and white shirt. There were about 15 or 20 government agents gathered all around the podium. (The spiritual government agents are the angels.) The agents were waiting for President-elect David to give them their orders. (To arrest the criminals in the government and Church among other things.) All over the stage, among the agents, were many empty cardboard boxes that had been opened up and were ready to be packed up. As David stood at the podium, he began motioning with his index finger to each agent and giving them their orders one at a time. (This is not done in the physical but by authority in the spiritual realm.) I understood that he was sending them throughout Washington DC to find all the evil, wicked people in the government and flush them out of their hiding places and "send them packing". (I then I had a vision of corrupt government officials hiding under their desks in fetal positions. They were terrified and paralyzed with fear and couldn't function anymore.) (Let us, through the authority given to us, root out the corruption and send them packing.) (I also think the boxes represent the timing of the wilderness, as well as sending the enemy and their evil vessels packing.) (Update 12/30/20: We are now drawing close to the wilderness tribulation when in Rev 12 the angels went forth for the elect to cast down the dragon and his angels.) I believe this dream has two meanings: The elect corporate Man-child is coming into power in the spiritual realm concurrently with Trump in the physical realm and also Father is confirming that the body of David has power to send forth the angels to expose (and eject) the evil. He is answering our prayers of faith. (Update 12/30/20: The president will have more power over his enemies this time than in his last term.) The angels fulfill what the saints speak in agreement with God. {Heb.1:13} But of which of the angels hath he said at any time, Sit thou on my right hand, Till I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet? {14} Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation? Notice the Lord rules through His true saints and angels. {Psa.103:19} Jehovah hath established his throne in the heavens; And his kingdom ruleth over all. {20} Bless Jehovah, ye his angels, That are mighty in strength, that fulfil his word, Hearkening unto the voice of his word. {21} Bless Jehovah, all ye his hosts, Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. {22} Bless Jehovah, all ye his works, In all places of his dominion: Bless Jehovah, O my soul. Let us exercise our authority over the evil in all branches of this government. We are the salt of the earth. If we lose our savor, we are good for nothing but to be trodden under the foot of men. {Luk.10:19} Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you. {Mat.18:18} Verily I say unto you, what things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. {Psa.149:6} Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two-edged sword in their hand; {7} To execute vengeance upon the nations, And punishments upon the peoples; {8} To bind their kings with chains, And their nobles with fetters of iron; {9} To execute upon them the judgment written: This honor have all his saints. Praise ye Jehovah. Pray and agree with me. We command and cast down the demons of faction, witchcraft, Satanism, murder, assassination, hatred, wrath, anarchy, lying, slandering, manipulation, destruction, deception in the government and over the peoples. We send the angels forth to cast down your plots and schemes, Satan, and all your helpers. We command the fear of God upon the wicked. Paranoia and confusion is in their camps. We pray for protection and wisdom for Trump, his Cabinet, advisors, helpers, police, Secret Service personnel, etc. God will be with you. Is our authority really limitless? It is limitless in Christ. Do you abide in Christ by faith in His sacrifice and Word? Do you believe He took away your sins? Are you walking in the light that you have or are you in willful disobedience for which there is no sacrifice? All things are limitless in Christ. What does "all" leave out? {Mar.11:24} Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. {9:23} And Jesus said unto him, If thou canst! All things are possible to him that believeth. {Mat.21:22} And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. {Luk.21:36} But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. {10:19} Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you.     Select LanguageAfrikaansAlbanianAmharicArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasqueBelarusianBengaliBosnianBulgarianCatalanCebuanoChichewaChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)CorsicanCroatianCzechDanishDutchEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchFrisianGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitian CreoleHausaHawaiianHebrewHindiHmongHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianIrishItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKazakhKhmerKinyarwandaKoreanKurdish (Kurmanji)KyrgyzLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianLuxembourgishMacedonianMalagasyMalayMalayalamMalteseMaoriMarathiMongolianMyanmar (Burmese)NepaliNorwegianOdia (Oriya)PashtoPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSamoanScots GaelicSerbianSesothoShonaSindhiSinhalaSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSundaneseSwahiliSwedishTajikTamilTatarTeluguThaiTurkishTurkmenUkrainianUrduUyghurUzbekVietnameseWelshXhosaYiddishYorubaZulu Powered by Translate Printer-friendly version

How should we understand the relationship of the Septuagint to what we traditionally mean by Holy Scripture? What difference does it make to biblical interpretation and the vocabulary of theology if we work with the Septuagint alongside our Hebrew and Greek Testaments? And what does the field of Septuagint studies look like now, and where is it going?Today's Greystone Conversations episode is the continuation of a conversation between Matthew Albanese and Dr. Mark A. Garcia regarding the Septuagint--the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. In the first part of their conversation, Mr. Albanese and Dr. Garcia discussed how complicated--indeed how fraught with risks--such language is since there is no single Septuagint and it is far more than a translation in the modern sense of that word. They explored, in particular, the importance of approaching the Septuagint as the first commentary on the Hebrew Bible.In this second part of the conversation, Mr. Albanese and Dr. Garcia discuss the vexed question of the status of the Septuagint in relation to the Hebrew and Greek Testaments, which the Church identifies, by creed and confession, as Holy Scripture. They also move more substantially into the rich topic of the New Testament use of the Old Testament in light of the Septuagint, including the heavy use of the Septuagint by the New Testament. To zero in on particular case studies for these grand and sweeping questions, they then discuss Mr. Albanese's own research project in Greek Isaiah and the fascinating ways in which Greek Isaiah displays internal ordering and various important intra-textual features--an ordering and features which signal not only the important unity of Isaiah but also the remarkable hermeneutical moves made by the Septuagint within a single book. After this, Mr. Albanese and Dr. Garcia turn to the current state of Septuagint research, directions that research is going, and promising but largely untapped areas for future work. Finally, Mr. Albanese offers some suggestions for where any thoughtful Christian can begin in one's practical appreciation of the Septuagint.Now in the last stage of finalizing his Doctorate of Philosophy at Oxford University, in which he worked on Septuagint Isaiah, Matthew Albanese is also one of Greystone's recently appointed Associate Fellows focusing his Greystone activity in the large area of what has long been termed "Oriental Studies." In the months and years to come, our Lord willing, we can look forward to Matthew teaching series and modules for Greystone in Christian Syriac, Aramaic, the Septuagint, and various portions of the canon of Christian Scripture.

The season of Advent provides a time to think, reflect and prepare our hearts for Christmas. In this Baylor Connections, William Bellinger, the W. Marshall and Lulie Craig Chairholder in Bible and Professor of Hebrew/Old Testament, shares thoughts on maintaining a faithful hope amidst the trials of the year. An expert on the Psalms and worship texts of the Old Testament, he examines stories of hope and the bonds of community that resonate today.

What difference might it make to our relationship to the Septuagint if we saw it not only as a translation of the Hebrew OT into Greek and as a translation often used in the NT, but also as the first true commentary on the Hebrew Old Testament? How might this approach to the Septuagint illuminate our understanding of biblical hermeneutics and the nature of Holy Scripture?In the exilic or early post-exilic period, Hebrew gave way to Aramaic as the lingua franca and classical Hebrew started to fade from use. Then, when the Jews became Hellenized on account of the diaspora provoked by the rise of Alexander the Great and of the Greek empires, Greek became the primary language for Jews. This combination of historical developments helps explain why the Septuagint became the Old Testament for many Jews leading up to and into the New Testament era, especially those living in Ptolemaic Egypt and other deeply Hellenized areas.The Septuagint is primarily a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek--this much is common knowledge. But what is less known and appreciated is that the Septuagint may also be viewed as the first commentary on the Hebrew Old Testament. To be sure, this is true along the lines of what translation necessarily is: not simply a wooden replacement of one word in one language with the allegedly equivalent word in another language. Rather, all translations involve a measure of commentary, of explanation and sense-making, given the way languages work. And yet the ways that the Septuagint provides explanations of the Hebrew Scriptures disclose not only ancient views of how the biblical text works as text but also valuable insights into how the Scriptures read and interpret themselves, including the long-standing curiosity of how the New Testament writers read the Old Testament. Given that the month of December has just begun, this is an excellent opportunity for us to think a bit about the Septuagint since an interesting example of its importance comes to us in Matthew 1:23 as a citation of Isaiah 7:14--those famous words of the Prophecy of Isaiah that he spoke to Ahaz, which in Hebrew says "behold the young woman shall conceive," but in the Septuagint reads, "Behold the virgin shall conceive." Matthew is citing the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Old Testament. This suggests that the language of the "virgin birth"--the virgin birth of Jesus of Nazareth--is not only a faithful rendering of the meaning of the Hebrew word for a young woman but, in what is often overlooked even by the most enthusiastic defenders of the virgin birth among evangelicals, the very notion--which is to say the very vocabulary--of the "virgin" birth of Jesus is something we owe specifically to the Septuagint which uses the word virgin to clarify the nature of Mary's state when she brings us the Messiah. Despite this rather key role in reading Scripture, the Septuagint has strangely enjoyed precious little serious attention among seminary students and writers in biblical and theological studies. With this in mind, today's Greystone Conversations episode is a conversation on this very subject with Matthew Albanese. This conversation will be a two-part series, with today's episode introducing the subject. Now in his final stage of finalizing his Doctorate of Philosophy at Oxford University, in which he worked on Septuagint Isaiah, Matthew Albanese is also one of Greystone's recently appointed Associate Fellows focusing his Greystone activity in the large area of what has long been termed "Oriental Studies." In the months and years to come, our Lord willing, we can look forward to Matthew teaching series and modules for Greystone in Christian Syriac, Aramaic, the Septuagint, and various portions of the canon of Christian Scripture.

Scholars say there was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament extant (in existence) before the time of Jesus Christ (B.C.) called the Septuagint. They also say that Jesus and the apostles quoted it. Since the LXX (Septuagint) contains the apocryphal books that contain false doctrine (that disagrees with scripture), their claim would validate these doctrines as biblical truth. Get ready for some debunking of devilish lies in this two-part series!

Scholars say there was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament extant (in existence) before the time of Jesus Christ (B.C.) called the Septuagint. They also say that Jesus and the apostles quoted it. Since the LXX (Septuagint) contains the apocryphal books that contain false doctrine (that disagrees with scripture), their claim would validate these doctrines as biblical truth. Get ready for some debunking of devilish lies in this two-part series!

In this episode, we discuss the Ketuvim: the third portion of the Hebrew Old Testament. Also known as the Writings or in Greek, the Hagiographa, this group of books is represents an different way of looking at God than do the Prophets or Torah. Writings also contains some of the more hotly debated books in the canon. 

As we discuss the second section of the Hebrew Old Testament, we talk about why early authority matters for the prophetic books of the Bible, what books were contained in the original list of “prophets”, and why prophetic canon matters for Christians today.

One of the most common words in the Hebrew Old Testament for judgment has to do with the law, judge-pronouncing-judgment, and courtroom - which is probably the most common way we talk about judgment today in English, too. The image of a "justice system" working to uphold the laws is powerful, and the idea of God as that kind of neutral, objective, cold/stern/righteous judge is a common idea. The good news? This word is used just as powerfully to remind us that we are unconditionally loved by that judge as it is to show us we're condemned. Are we using judgment the same way?

Today's episode is rated pg-13, and that is a first for us. Of course, I am being a little tongue in cheek by using such a rating, but what I am trying to communicate is that the subject matter isn't necessarily for children - not my discussion, but the passage that we are reading. For our readings today, we are in Genesis 34, a very upsetting passage in which Dinah, daughter of Jacob is raped. Though it doesn't make it better, the revenge on those who raped her is every bit as satisfying as any revenge-themed movie you've ever seen. We continue in Mark, which sees the fascinating incident with Jesus and the legion of demons that he drives into a herd of pigs, an episode which we will no doubt cover later on in the podcast run. Romans 5 will then continue our beautiful view of the good news of Jesus, proclaiming the powerful truth of death in the first Adam, and life everlasting available in the second Adam, Jesus. Also today we begin a new book - Job (pronounced JOBE, not JOHB) which is one of the literary masterpieces of the Bible, and a book which will flex many of your theological convictions. The primary theme of Job is suffering, sovereignty and the character of God. A fascinating thing happens in Job 1 and 2 - we are given a peak into the throne room of God, where we will get a glimpse at what is probably God's Divine Council as well as a conversation between God and The Satan. That will be our focus passage today, as we consider who the 'Sons of God' were, and why the Devil came with them (twice) to a meeting in God's throne room. Let's read it - prepare to be surprised if you've never read Job before! 6 One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. 7 The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” Job 1:6-7 Job doesn't give us a lot of subtext or explanation here - all of the sudden, we are taken to a scene in the throne room of God, and these beings called 'Sons of God' are presenting themselves before THE King of Kings - God Most High, and Satan is strolling in there with them. So many questions! Who in the world were the 'Sons of God?' Isn't Jesus the ONLY Son of God? Was the Satan somehow a 'son of God?' To at least try to answer these questions, lets first look at the text of the Bible: Genesis 6:1, "The sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves." Genesis 6:4, "The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men." Job 1:6, " One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them." Job 2:1, "One day the sons of God came again to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before the Lord." Job 38:7, "Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? " This is every exact occurrence of the Hebrew phrase " בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים " (Bene-Elohim/sons of God) in the Old Testament. From this very limited sampling, we can conclude with a fairly high degree of grammatical certainty that, in at least some instances, the 'sons of God' in the Hebrew Old Testament were NOT human. (How could they be since God Himself says in Job 38 that they were present at the creation of the world and were shouting for joy then?) Some confidently postulate that the 'sons of God' are the human offspring of Seth, but that simply does not fit the context of the Job passages or really the Genesis passage either. As mentioned in our episode on the Nephilim, episode 6, I further believe that the grammatical and contextual uses of the Hebrew phrase here indicate that the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6 and Job were NOT human, but were some sort of Heavenly being. Most assume that they are angels, but that doesn't appear to be the case either, as angels tend to serve as messengers (that is what the Hebrew for their name means) and these beings do not appear to be messengers. So - what are they? Sadly, the Bible never tells us exactly, but I believe it is likely that what we are seeing in Job 1 and Job 2 is what is described in a bit fuller detail in Psalm 82: The Divine Council of Yahweh, referred to earlier this week: God stands in the divine assembly; he pronounces judgment among the gods: Psalm 82:1-4 Here is another picture of what might well be the divine council: Then Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and the whole heavenly army was standing by him at his right hand and at his left hand. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to march up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' So one was saying this and another was saying that. 21 “Then a spirit came forward, stood in the Lord's presence, and said, ‘I will entice him.' 22 “The Lord asked him, ‘How?' “He said, ‘I will go and become a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' “Then he said, ‘You will certainly entice him and prevail. Go and do that.' 1 Kings 22:19-22 From these Scriptures, we see that God 'holds court' from time to time and meets with various heavenly beings and considers their council. Why would an omniscient being do this? I think the answer lies in relationship rather than the need of council. God did not need humans. He was not lonely, and thus created humanity in the same way one adopts a puppy for companionship. God Himself, as Trinity, is in the ultimate relationship and is completely fulfilled in Himself, but His actions seem to indicate that He is a God who delights in relationships with others. But why was The Satan in God's throne room? (Satan isn't a name, it is a role - it means, "The accuser.) That is a big, big question, and the surprising truth is that, up until a certain time, Satan had access to Heaven: 7 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, 8 but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him. 10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have now come, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been thrown down. Revelation 12:7-10 At some point, apparently during the time of humans being on earth, Satan was cast out of Heaven. A plain-sense reading of Revelation 12 indicates that - even well after The Fall of Genesis 3, Satan had access to Heaven. How do we know? Because vs. 10 notes that Satan had been accusing the brothers and sisters in front of GOD (day and night!) BEFORE he was cast out of Heaven. If this happened pre-creation, or even pre-Fall in the Garden, there were no brothers and sisters to be accused! Therefore I believe that Job is giving us a picture of what things were like in Heaven pre-the War in Heaven of Revelation 12 - prior to Satan being cast out of Heaven. Allow me to close with this powerful encouragement from Charles Spurgeon: How few Christians there seem to be who really understand the covenant of grace! “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” We fell, not by our own fault, but by Adam's fault; and we rise, not by our own virtue, but by virtue of our union with Christ. If you are in Christ, believer, you are safe while Christ stands. You cannot drown the body until you drown the Head. My foot may be deep in the stream, but until the waves roll over my brow, my foot is not drowned; and until Christ shall perish, no soul that is one with Christ can be destroyed; for he said to his disciples, “Because I live, you shall live also.” ... May the Spirit of God glorify Christ by taking these things of Christ, and revealing them unto you, and making them personally yours! C. H. Spurgeon, “The Spirit's Office Towards Disciples,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 53 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1907), 512. Slightly modernized.

Today's episode is rated pg-13, and that is a first for us. Of course, I am being a little tongue in cheek by using such a rating, but what I am trying to communicate is that the subject matter isn't necessarily for children - not my discussion, but the passage that we are reading. For our readings today, we are in Genesis 34, a very upsetting passage in which Dinah, daughter of Jacob is raped. Though it doesn't make it better, the revenge on those who raped her is every bit as satisfying as any revenge-themed movie you've ever seen. We continue in Mark, which sees the fascinating incident with Jesus and the legion of demons that he drives into a herd of pigs, an episode which we will no doubt cover later on in the podcast run. Romans 5 will then continue our beautiful view of the good news of Jesus, proclaiming the powerful truth of death in the first Adam, and life everlasting available in the second Adam, Jesus. Also today we begin a new book - Job (pronounced JOBE, not JOHB) which is one of the literary masterpieces of the Bible, and a book which will flex many of your theological convictions. The primary theme of Job is suffering, sovereignty and the character of God. A fascinating thing happens in Job 1 and 2 - we are given a peak into the throne room of God, where we will get a glimpse at what is probably God's Divine Council as well as a conversation between God and The Satan. That will be our focus passage today, as we consider who the 'Sons of God' were, and why the Devil came with them (twice) to a meeting in God's throne room. Let's read it - prepare to be surprised if you've never read Job before! 6 One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. 7 The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” Job 1:6-7 Job doesn't give us a lot of subtext or explanation here - all of the sudden, we are taken to a scene in the throne room of God, and these beings called 'Sons of God' are presenting themselves before THE King of Kings - God Most High, and Satan is strolling in there with them. So many questions! Who in the world were the 'Sons of God?' Isn't Jesus the ONLY Son of God? Was the Satan somehow a 'son of God?' To at least try to answer these questions, lets first look at the text of the Bible: Genesis 6:1, "The sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves." Genesis 6:4, "The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men." Job 1:6, " One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them." Job 2:1, "One day the sons of God came again to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present himself before the Lord." Job 38:7, "Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? " This is every exact occurrence of the Hebrew phrase " בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים " (Bene-Elohim/sons of God) in the Old Testament. From this very limited sampling, we can conclude with a fairly high degree of grammatical certainty that, in at least some instances, the 'sons of God' in the Hebrew Old Testament were NOT human. (How could they be since God Himself says in Job 38 that they were present at the creation of the world and were shouting for joy then?) Some confidently postulate that the 'sons of God' are the human offspring of Seth, but that simply does not fit the context of the Job passages or really the Genesis passage either. As mentioned in our episode on the Nephilim, episode 6, I further believe that the grammatical and contextual uses of the Hebrew phrase here indicate that the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6 and Job were NOT human, but were some sort of Heavenly being. Most assume that they are angels, but that doesn't appear to be the case either, as angels tend to serve as messengers (that is what the Hebrew for their name means) and these beings do not appear to be messengers. So - what are they? Sadly, the Bible never tells us exactly, but I believe it is likely that what we are seeing in Job 1 and Job 2 is what is described in a bit fuller detail in Psalm 82: The Divine Council of Yahweh, referred to earlier this week: God stands in the divine assembly; he pronounces judgment among the gods: Psalm 82:1-4 Here is another picture of what might well be the divine council: Then Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and the whole heavenly army was standing by him at his right hand and at his left hand. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to march up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' So one was saying this and another was saying that. 21 “Then a spirit came forward, stood in the Lord's presence, and said, ‘I will entice him.' 22 “The Lord asked him, ‘How?' “He said, ‘I will go and become a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' “Then he said, ‘You will certainly entice him and prevail. Go and do that.' 1 Kings 22:19-22 From these Scriptures, we see that God 'holds court' from time to time and meets with various heavenly beings and considers their council. Why would an omniscient being do this? I think the answer lies in relationship rather than the need of council. God did not need humans. He was not lonely, and thus created humanity in the same way one adopts a puppy for companionship. God Himself, as Trinity, is in the ultimate relationship and is completely fulfilled in Himself, but His actions seem to indicate that He is a God who delights in relationships with others. But why was The Satan in God's throne room? (Satan isn't a name, it is a role - it means, "The accuser.) That is a big, big question, and the surprising truth is that, up until a certain time, Satan had access to Heaven: 7 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, 8 but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him. 10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have now come, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been thrown down. Revelation 12:7-10 At some point, apparently during the time of humans being on earth, Satan was cast out of Heaven. A plain-sense reading of Revelation 12 indicates that - even well after The Fall of Genesis 3, Satan had access to Heaven. How do we know? Because vs. 10 notes that Satan had been accusing the brothers and sisters in front of GOD (day and night!) BEFORE he was cast out of Heaven. If this happened pre-creation, or even pre-Fall in the Garden, there were no brothers and sisters to be accused! Therefore I believe that Job is giving us a picture of what things were like in Heaven pre-the War in Heaven of Revelation 12 - prior to Satan being cast out of Heaven. Allow me to close with this powerful encouragement from Charles Spurgeon: How few Christians there seem to be who really understand the covenant of grace! “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” We fell, not by our own fault, but by Adam's fault; and we rise, not by our own virtue, but by virtue of our union with Christ. If you are in Christ, believer, you are safe while Christ stands. You cannot drown the body until you drown the Head. My foot may be deep in the stream, but until the waves roll over my brow, my foot is not drowned; and until Christ shall perish, no soul that is one with Christ can be destroyed; for he said to his disciples, “Because I live, you shall live also.” ... May the Spirit of God glorify Christ by taking these things of Christ, and revealing them unto you, and making them personally yours! C. H. Spurgeon, “The Spirit's Office Towards Disciples,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 53 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1907), 512. Slightly modernized.

What is the Septuagint? When was the Sepuagint translated? Why did the New Testament authors usually quote from the Septuagint instead of the Hebrew Old Testament?

Contrary to some overly zealous Trinitarian preaching, to be “Lord” does not mean you are God. Otherwise the upper house of the British parliament would be the House of Gods. Sometimes LORD/Lord in the Bible does mean God, but there are many lords/Lords in the Bible who are not God. “Jesus is Lord” is not a claim to deity (Act 2:36, Rom. 10:9). The confusion over LORD/Lord/lord stems from the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. The title “Lord” kurios (“master, sir, prince, ruler”), an honorific title acknowledging authority, was substituted for God’s personal name, Yehovah יהוה . English translations of the Old Testament usually indicate Yehovah’s personal name with all capitals LORD. But God’s name Yehovah is very different from the replacement title “Lord”. Yehovah/Yahweh is God’s personal name but the title Lord is adon in Hebrew and kurios in Greek). Abigail distinguished between her Lord (David) and her God (LORD/Yehovah): “for the LORD will certainly make for my Lord an enduring house, because my Lord is fighting the battles of the LORD” (1 Sam. 25:28, Abigail called David “Lord” 13x in this chapter). In the Hebrew text there is no confusing Abigail’s LORD from her Lord, because they are two very different words. In the Greek text the words are exactly the same, and therefor confusing. Sometimes God is called “Lord” in the New Testament, using the Greek practice of substituting the title Lord/kurios for Yehovah’s personal name. Context can most often determine if kurios/Lord in the New Testament means God, or the Lord Messiah, or some other lord. Lord/kurios in the Gospel of John, for example, refers to God only in direct Old Testament quotations. Scriptures referred to in this podcast: Acts 2:36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Romans 10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ... Ephesians 1:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 1 Samuel 25:28 Please forgive the trespass of your servant. For the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD, and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. Matthew 17:4 And Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good that we are here...." Mark 9:5 And Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here..." Luke 9:33 ...Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good that we are here..." Matthew 27:63 and said, "Sir (Lord/kurios), we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, 'After three days I will rise.' Acts 25:26 But I have nothing definite to write to my Lord about him. Therefore I have brought him before you all, and especially before you, King Agrippa... Psalm 110:1 A psalm of David. The LORD (Yehovah) says to my Lord (adoni): "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." Revelation 11:15 …"The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."

After the death of Alexander, four of his generals and their descendants split his empire. One of them, Ptolemy, founded a great library in Alexandria. The library had the goal of collecting all of the known literary works of Antiquity. One of their projects was the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Old Testament scrolls into Greek. By the time of the New Testament, the Septuagint will become the scripture of choice for the New Testament writers. Daniel 8 www.messagetokings.com

Welcome to Blackbird9's Breakfast Club's Wednesday Podcast, Abramelin Conjures A Bloody Magick Square. Tonight we will discuss the history and symbolism of Magick.https://www.blackbird9tradingposts.org/2019/03/13/abramelin-conjures-a-bloody-magick-square-blackbird9/In the First Hour we cover the chaotic events brought on by the teachings of the Frankfurt School Marxists. Their mission has always been to establish a Greater Israel ruled by globalism under the direction of Talmudic Noahide Law and at the same time force all other nations to surrender their independent sovereignty.In the second hour, Abramelin Conjures A Bloody Magick Square, the host examined the history and symbolism of Magick. From the earliest divination of the future of Ice Age calendar technologies, to the four basic elements of Fire, Water, Air and Earth, to the Triangle and Square Masonic Aprons, to Magic Square puzzles and cyphers, to the magic rituals in the Hebrew Old Testament, to the orders of The Priory of Zion, The Knights Templars and The Freemasons, to the various magick systems of Abramelin The Mage, Issac Long, Eliphas Levi, and Aleister Crowley, to the symbolism of Tarot Cards, to the Hollywood productions of Roseymary's Baby, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Harry Potter, the host discussed the long and often bloody history of Ritual Magick.

Welcome to Blackbird9's Breakfast Club's Wednesday Podcast, Abramelin Conjures A Bloody Magick Square. Tonight we will discuss the history and symbolism of Magick.https://www.blackbird9tradingposts.org/2019/03/13/abramelin-conjures-a-bloody-magick-square-blackbird9/In the First Hour we cover the chaotic events brought on by the teachings of the Frankfurt School Marxists. Their mission has always been to establish a Greater Israel ruled by globalism under the direction of Talmudic Noahide Law and at the same time force all other nations to surrender their independent sovereignty.In the second hour, Abramelin Conjures A Bloody Magick Square, the host examined the history and symbolism of Magick. From the earliest divination of the future of Ice Age calendar technologies, to the four basic elements of Fire, Water, Air and Earth, to the Triangle and Square Masonic Aprons, to Magic Square puzzles and cyphers, to the magic rituals in the Hebrew Old Testament, to the orders of The Priory of Zion, The Knights Templars and The Freemasons, to the various magick systems of Abramelin The Mage, Issac Long, Eliphas Levi, and Aleister Crowley, to the symbolism of Tarot Cards, to the Hollywood productions of Roseymary's Baby, Sabrina The Teenage Witch and Harry Potter, the host discussed the long and often bloody history of Ritual Magick.

Dr. Allen Jones God Revealed in the Book of Ruth Dr. Allen Jones has served in a variety of ministries, including junior high, high school, college, community care outreach, children with special needs, and short-term missions work to Cameroon, South Sudan, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania and Mexico. Dr. Jones, whose doctorate is in Hebrew/Old Testament, will discuss the revelation of God through the Book of Ruth. Focus: Contemplate the Mysteries of God https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-jones-8876bb26/

This is our first episode related to our new word studies video on the Hebrew word “Nephesh” which often gets translated as “soul” in English bibles. In Hebrew the most basic meaning of the word is “throat.” Which seems weird to us. So how did we get “soul” from “throat”? Tim and Jon discuss. In the first part of the episode (0-12:30), Tim and Jon outline where the word “soul” comes from (Old English), and why most people think that a core teaching of the Bible is people “having souls.” Jon asks how much you can really separate the ideas of a person’s “mind, soul, and body.” In the second part of the episode (12:30-41:20), Tim explains that the Hebrew word “Nephesh” is an extremely common word in the Hebrew Old Testament. It occurs over 700 times, but less than 10% of the time is it translated as “soul.” It also gets translated as “life”, “heart”, “you”, “people” and several other words. Tim outlines some famous verses in the Old Testament that use the word soul. Like Psalm 42 “ As the deer pants...My soul thirsts for you” the original meaning is Hebrew is “my throat thirsts for you.” Tim explains that the word Nephesh is designed to show the essential physicality of a person. Whereas “soul” connotes the non-physicality of a person. In the third part of the episode (41:20-end), Tim says “Nephesh” isn’t just used to describe humans, but also used to describe animals and what the land produced in Genesis. “And God said ‘Let the waters teem with living Nephesh.’” The bottom line, biblically, is that people don’t have souls. They are souls. They don’t have “nephesh” they are “nephesh.” And the ultimate hope for Christians is not a disembodied existence living as souls, but an embodied existence living in their Nephesh. You can check out our new word studies video on Nephesh here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_igCcWAMAM Thank you to all our supporters! Check out more free resources on our website: www.thebibleproject.com Show Resources: The Shema: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Original uses of the word Nephesh meaning throat: Psalm 23 Psalm 42:1-2 Isaiah 58:11 Show Music: Defender Instrumental: Rosasharn Music River Deep: Retro Soul (Danya Vodovoz, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B1tVfm832w) Lotus Lane: The Loyalist Herbal Tea: Artificial Music Show Produced By: Jon Collins and Dan Gummel

Our Westernized meanings of faith (beliefs, believing, conviction) were not what Paul had in mind when quoting the Hebrew Old Testament from Habakkuk 2:4 in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11! Read the first two articles because we cannot repeat all we studied previously. The word emunah, erroneously translated “faith” in Habakkuk 2:4 in most translations, does not refer to what you believe or your beliefs alone. According to the Brown, Driver Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB), emunah means firmness, fidelity, steadfastness, faithfulness, trust, and steadiness. When speaking of our faith in God and Jesus, the most accurate definition of faith portrays how you live your daily life in the Lord. Real Bible faith describes our character and our relationship with Jesus. Faithfulness describes firmness in relationship-fellowship with the Lord that is unmovable from the Covenant in His blood, steadfastness that will not quit on Him, and a steady lifestyle of trust and obedience to Him demonstrated in our words and by our actions. What about injecting those powerful definitions into every mention of faith in the New Testament? If you separate any of these from faith in the New Testament, you are subscribing to either an erroneous idea of faith, or at best, an incomplete definition. The subject of faith is not a side issue, when you consider that it is mentioned hundreds of times in Scripture. Not only does that make the subject a central teaching of the Bible, faith in God is also a foundational teaching of Christ (Hebrew 6:1, 2; Mark 11:22). So that we get a revelation of what emunah means in Hebrew, and therefore what Paul had in mind by quoting Habakkuk 2:4, look at a powerful word picture in Exodus. Moses commanded Joshua to gather Israel’s warriors and go defeat Amalek. Moses sat on a hill overlooking the battle, and as long as he kept the rod of God in his hand held high, Israel won, but when he dropped his hands with the rod because of weariness, Israel lost. So, what did they do? But Moses’ hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun (Exodus 17:12 NKJV). Aaron and Hur were helpers to Moses and made sure that his hands were steady until Israel won!! Do you see the word “steady”? It is the same Hebrew word (emunah) wrongly translated “faith” in Habakkuk 2:4! Remember that one of the definitions of emunah is steadiness. Moses’ hands stayed firmly (emunah) in the air until the victory was won. Here is another translation of emunah: Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times, And the strength of salvation; The fear of the Lord is His treasure (Isaiah 33:6 NKJV). Emunah is stability in that verse. Emunah is often translated in the Psalms as faithfulness (33:4, 36:5, 37:3, 40:10, 88:11, etc.). Faithfulness is stability or staying power. It doesn’t change. God is our supernatural ROCK, and therefore He is faithful (emunah) in Deuteronomy 32:4 because He doesn’t change (Malachi 3:6, 2 Timothy 2:13). In the same way, Jesus is stable and faithful because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Faithfulness is abiding power. In John 15:4-10, Jesus taught us to abide in Him. To abide refers to staying, enduring, continuing and remaining in His sphere of influence through obedience and yielding to His commandments, Word, and Spirit (John 8:31, 32, 14:15-17, 21-23, 15:7, 10; 1 John 2:3-6, 17, 3:6, 9, 24 NET).   Are you ready for this?  Stay calm. Kick over those sacred cows of traditional interpretations. Let them crack, break apart, be ground to powder, and may the wind of the Spirit of God blow it away forever. Let that traditional nonsense be like Humpty Dumpty. Let it fall from the wall, crack, and don’t put it back together again! Let these truths bring God's light to you! Allow the Holy Spirit to minister this to you. Don't resist the truth. Renew your mind to God's Word (Romans 12:1, 2). Take as an example one of the words BDB used to translate emunah. Let's look closely at the word fidelity. Synonyms for fidelity are: adhesion, allegiance, attachment, commitment, constancy, dedication, devotedness, devotion, faith, faithfulness, fastness, fealty, loyalty, piety, steadfastness, and troth.[1] Note that faith is stuck in the middle of the synonyms given by this dictionary, but it is surrounded by words that describe something different than believing or the general idea of faith. Here is Merriam-Webster's rich synonym discussion on fidelity found under this word, and note that faith and believing are nowhere to be found: Allegiance, fealty, loyalty, devotion, piety means faithfulness to something to which one is bound by pledge or duty. Fidelity implies strict and continuing faithfulness to an obligation, trust, or duty. Allegiance suggests an adherence like that of citizens to their country. Fealty implies a fidelity acknowledged by the individual and as compelling as a sworn vow. Loyalty implies a faithfulness that is steadfast in the face of any temptation to renounce, desert, or betray. Devotion stresses zeal and service amounting to self-dedication. Piety stresses fidelity to obligations regarded as natural and fundamental. That is what emunah is all about: allegiance, fealty, loyalty, devotion, piety, faithfulness, obligation, duty, trust, zeal, service, dedication, and steadfastness! Wow! The synonym discussion, without trying to, has given us a powerful description of emunah in Hebrew. Did you notice the word allegiance? Citizens of our country pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. It is a pledge of loyalty and respect for our country and flag. We pledge allegiance, standing up at attention, and certainly NOT as some kneeling fools are doing today! I despise and reject disrespect and dishonor for our country and flag. I reject all disrespect for our military and police officers. You may hear me say it strongly, without compromise, and no apology: “If you don’t like our country, LEAVE IT!” I mean that with all the sincerity I can muster. I don’t agree in the least with everything happening at the hands of some ungodly people in our country, but I love our country. I pray for our leaders and the USA (1 Timothy 2:1-4). Though I honor and pray for the President and the First Lady, my first allegiance is to the Lord Jesus, His Father, and to the Word of God! It’s similar to what President Trump said, “In America, we don’t worship government; we worship God!” Our first allegiance must be to the One that created the heavens and the earth, that is, IF we call ourselves Christians! Now proceed to apply these truths about the word fidelity to your Christian life and your relationship-fellowship with the Lord Jesus. Does the above synonym discussion describe you in the Lord? If not, maybe it is time to repent and grow up in Jesus. Don’t look at someone else. Look at and examine your faith (just like I do mine), but now, you (and me) are armed with the proper understanding and definition. Put yourselves to the test to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize regarding yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you - unless, indeed, you fail the test! (2 Corinthians 13:5) Here are some questions to stir you up based on the synonym discussion of fidelity above: Is my allegiance firstly to the Lord Jesus? Is my life pledged to Him? Am I loyal to His cause, kingdom, and gospel message? Am I loyal to His orders and commands? Am I devoted to prayer, holiness, and the love of God and love towards others? Is my faithfulness to the Lord and His Word so firm that I am duty bound to obedience? Do I consider myself under obligation to be faithful and to trust Him, or is my Christianity the kind that requires nothing of me? Does my allegiance to the kingdom of God suggest adherence to the rules of the kingdom like that of the citizens of a country? Does my fealty to God, Jesus, and His Word compel me as much as to a sworn vow? Is my loyalty so firm that it is steadfast in the face of any temptation to renounce, desert, or betray the Lord or His Word? Does my devotion stress zeal and service amounting to self-dedication? Does the piety (godliness) in my life stress fidelity to the Lord Jesus and God’s Word? Do I see fidelity as stressing obligations regarded as natural and fundamental as a member of the Body of Christ, the kingdom of God? Now you are equipped with a fuller definition of faith, as Paul understood it. Plug these definitions into every mention of faith in the New Testament, but especially in Paul's writings. How do these definitions change our outlook, our responsibilities before the Lord, and what we are accountable for in Christ?  It is time to take inventory! NOTES:  [1] See Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, 2017, s.v. “fidelity,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fidelity .   Following is message #30, "Do not Worry or be Anxious about Tomorrow" from the audio series: Removing Doubt from the Heart. Be blessed!