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Judges 6 - 7



Judges 6

Midian Oppresses Israel

Judges 6:1     The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2 And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. 3 For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. 4 They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. 5 For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number — both they and their camels could not be counted — so that they laid waste the land as they came in. 6 And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord.

7 When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, 8 the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. 9 And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”

The Call of Gideon

11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” 14 And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” 15 And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” 16 And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” 17 And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. 18 Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”

19 So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them. 20 And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” And he did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. 22 Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” 23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” 24 Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father's bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it 26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” 27 So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.

Gideon Destroys the Altar of Baal

28 When the men of the town rose early in the morning, behold, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the Asherah beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built. 29 And they said to one another, “Who has done this thing?” And after they had searched and inquired, they said, “Gideon the son of Joash has done this thing.” 30 Then the men of the town said to Joash, “Bring out your son, that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the Asherah beside it.” 31 But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down.” 32 Therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he broke down his altar.

33 Now all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East came together, and they crossed the Jordan and encamped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34 But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him. 35 And he sent messengers throughout all Manasseh, and they too were called out to follow him. And he sent messengers to Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali, and they went up to meet them.

The Sign of the Fleece

36 Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said, 37 behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” 38 And it was so. When he rose early next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wrung enough dew from the fleece to fill a bowl with water. 39 Then Gideon said to God, “Let not your anger burn against me; let me speak just once more. Please let me test just once more with the fleece. Please let it be dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground let there be dew.” 40 And God did so that night; and it was dry on the fleece only, and on all the ground there was dew.

Judges 7

Gideon's Three Hundred Men

Judges 7:1     Then Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) and all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the spring of Harod. And the camp of Midian was north of them, by the hill of Moreh, in the valley.

2 The Lord said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ 3 Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’” Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained.

4 And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.” 5 So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.” 6 And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. 7 And the Lord said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.” 8 So the people took provisions in their hands, and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley.

9 That same night the Lord said to him, “Arise, go down against the camp, for I have given it into your hand. 10 But if you are afraid to go down, go down to the camp with Purah your servant. 11 And you shall hear what they say, and afterward your hands shall be strengthened to go down against the camp.” Then he went down with Purah his servant to the outposts of the armed men who were in the camp. 12 And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance. 13 When Gideon came, behold, a man was telling a dream to his comrade. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream, and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian and came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.” 14 And his comrade answered, “This is no other than the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; God has given into his hand Midian and all the camp.”

15 As soon as Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, he worshiped. And he returned to the camp of Israel and said, “Arise, for the Lord has given the host of Midian into your hand.” 16 And he divided the 300 men into three companies and put trumpets into the hands of all of them and empty jars, with torches inside the jars. 17 And he said to them, “Look at me, and do likewise. When I come to the outskirts of the camp, do as I do. 18 When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then blow the trumpets also on every side of all the camp and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’”     ... and for Gideon?? Why are we always trying to take God's glory? Billy Graham said to beware of the 3 'G's; glory, gold and girls."

Gideon Defeats Midian

19 So Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. 20 Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!” 21 Every man stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran. They cried out and fled. 22 When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man's sword against his comrade and against all the army. And the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath. 23 And the men of Israel were called out from Naphtali and from Asher and from all Manasseh, and they pursued after Midian.

24 Gideon sent messengers throughout all the hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites and capture the waters against them, as far as Beth-barah, and also the Jordan.” So all the men of Ephraim were called out, and they captured the waters as far as Beth-barah, and also the Jordan. 25 And they captured the two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb. Then they pursued Midian, and they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon across the Jordan.

ESV Study Bible


What I'm Reading

Why It’s Important to Ask the Right Questions as a Religious Seeker

By J. Warner Wallace 3/7/2018

     Many years ago, as an undergraduate student, my astronomy teacher used an illustration with our class to demonstrate the importance of specificitywhen asking a question. He cleverly told us about a dispute he had been called to settle between a professor colleague and a student (in fact, he was merely repeating what has become known as the infamous “Barometer Question” popularized by American test designer and professor Alexander Calandra). My astronomy professor claimed his colleague had asked the following question on a test: “If I led you to a tall tower, and asked you to take a barometer to the top of the tower, how would you use the barometer to calculate the height of the tower?” The professor was looking for a specific answer estimating the height of the building in proportion to the difference between the barometer readings at the bottom and at the top of the structure. But the student, capitalizing on the professor’s lack of specificity, offered a variety of answers without using the barometer as the professor had hoped:

     “I would tie a piece of string to the barometer and then lower it from the roof to the ground. Then I would simply measure the length of the string (and the barometer).”

     “I would tie a piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum while standing on the ground and while standing on the roof. Then I would calculate the gravitational potential difference for the two locations and arrive at the height difference.”

     “I would stand the barometer in the bright sunlight and measure the height of the barometer and the lengths of its shadow. Then, after measuring the length of the building’s shadow, I would calculate the building’s height using simple ratios.”

     “I would drop the barometer off the roof, and measure the time it takes to hit the ground. Then I would calculate the building’s height assuming constant acceleration under gravity.”

     “I would mark off the number of barometer lengths vertically along the wall of the stairwell, Then I would simply multiplying this number by the length of the barometer.”

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James "Jim" Warner Wallace (born June 16, 1961) is an American homicide detective and Christian apologist. Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and an Adjunct Professor of Apologetics at Biola University in La Mirada, California. He has authored several books, including Cold-Case Christianity, God’s Crime Scene, and Forensic Faith, in which he applies principles of cold case homicide investigation to apologetic concerns such as the existence of God and the reliability of the Gospels.

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Translated by Henry Beveridge

     CHAPTER 8.

OF BEARING THE CROSS--ONE BRANCH OF SELF-DENIAL.

The four divisions of this chapter are,--I. The nature of the cross, its necessity and dignity, sec. 1, 2. II. The manifold advantages of the cross described, sec. 3-6. III. The form of the cross the most excellent of all, and yet it by no means removes all sense of pain, sec. 7, 8. IV. A description of warfare under the cross, and of true patience (not that of philosophers), after the example of Christ, sec. 9-11.

Sections.

1. What the cross is. By whom, and on whom, and for what cause imposed. Its necessity and dignity.

2. The cross necessary. 1. To humble our pride. 2. To make us apply to God for aid. Example of David.

3. To give us experience of God's presence. 3. Manifold uses of the cross. 1. Produces patience, hope, and firm confidence in God, gives us victory and perseverance. Faith invincible.

4. 2. Frames us to obedience. Example of Abraham. This training how useful.

5. The cross necessary to subdue the wantonness of the flesh. This portrayed by an apposite simile. Various forms of the cross.

6. 3. God permits our infirmities, and corrects past faults, that he may keep us in obedience. This confirmed by a passage from Solomon and an Apostle.

7. Singular consolation under the cross, when we suffer persecution for righteousness. Some parts of this consolation.

8. This form of the cross most appropriate to believers, and should be borne willingly and cheerfully. This cheerfulness is not unfeeling hilarity, but, while groaning under the burden, waits patiently for the Lord.

9. A description of this conflict. Opposed to the vanity of the Stoics. Illustrated by the authority and example of Christ.

10. Proved by the testimony and uniform experience of the elect. Also by the special example of the Apostle Peter. The nature of the patience required of us.

11. Distinction between the patience of Christians and philosophers. The latter pretend a necessity which cannot be resisted. The former hold forth the justice of God and his care of our safety. A full exposition of this difference.

1. The pious mind must ascend still higher, namely, whither Christ calls his disciples when he says, that every one of them must "take up his cross," (Mt. 16:24). Those whom the Lord has chosen and honoured with his intercourse must prepare for a hard, laborious, troubled life, a life full of many and various kinds of evils; it being the will of our heavenly Father to exercise his people in this way while putting them to the proof. Having begun this course with Christ the first-born, he continues it towards all his children. For though that Son was dear to him above others, the Son in whom he was "well pleased," yet we see, that far from being treated gently and indulgently, we may say, that not only was he subjected to a perpetual cross while he dwelt on earth, but his whole life was nothing else than a kind of perpetual cross. The Apostle assigns the reason, "Though he was a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered," (Heb. 5:8). Why then should we exempt ourselves from that condition to which Christ our Head behoved to submit; especially since he submitted on our account, that he might in his own person exhibit a model of patience? Wherefore, the Apostle declares, that all the children of God are destined to be conformed to him. Hence it affords us great consolation in hard and difficult circumstances, which men deem evil and adverse, to think that we are holding fellowship with the sufferings of Christ; that as he passed to celestial glory through a labyrinth of many woes, so we too are conducted thither through various tribulations. For, in another passage, Paul himself thus speaks, "we must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God," (Acts 14:22); and again, "that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death," (Rom 8:29). How powerfully should it soften the bitterness of the cross, to think that the more we are afflicted with adversity, the surer we are made of our fellowship with Christ; by communion with whom our sufferings are not only blessed to us, but tend greatly to the furtherance of our salvation.

2. We may add, that the only thing which made it necessary for our Lord to undertake to bear the cross, was to testify and prove his obedience to the Father; whereas there are many reasons which make it necessary for us to live constantly under the cross. Feeble as we are by nature, and prone to ascribe all perfection to our flesh, unless we receive as it were ocular demonstration of our weakness, we readily estimate our virtue above its proper worth, and doubt not that, whatever happens, it will stand unimpaired and invincible against all difficulties. Hence we indulge a stupid and empty confidence in the flesh, and then trusting to it wax proud against the Lord himself; as if our own faculties were sufficient without his grace. This arrogance cannot be better repressed than when He proves to us by experience, not only how great our weakness, but also our frailty is. Therefore, he visits us with disgrace, or poverty, or bereavement, or disease, or other afflictions. Feeling altogether unable to support them, we forthwith, in so far as regards ourselves, give way, and thus humbled learn to invoke his strength, which alone can enable us to bear up under a weight of affliction. Nay, even the holiest of men, however well aware that they stand not in their own strength, but by the grace of God, would feel too secure in their own fortitude and constancy, were they not brought to a more thorough knowledge of themselves by the trial of the cross. This feeling gained even upon David, "In my prosperity I Said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled," (Ps. 30:6, 7). He confesses that in prosperity his feelings were dulled and blunted, so that, neglecting the grace of God, on which alone he ought to have depended, he leant to himself, and promised himself perpetuity. If it so happened to this great prophet, who of us should not fear and study caution? Though in tranquillity they flatter themselves with the idea of greater constancy and patience, yet, humbled by adversity, they learn the deception. Believers, I say, warned by such proofs of their diseases, make progress in humility, and, divesting themselves of a depraved confidence in the flesh, betake themselves to the grace of God, and, when they have so betaken themselves, experience the presence of the divine power, in which is ample protection.

3. This Paul teaches when he says that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience. God having promised that he will be with believers in tribulation, they feel the truth of the promise; while supported by his hand, they endure patiently. This they could never do by their own strength. Patience, therefore, gives the saints an experimental proof that God in reality furnishes the aid which he has promised whenever there is need. Hence also their faith is confirmed, for it were very ungrateful not to expect that in future the truth of God will be, as they have already found it, firm and constant. We now see how many advantages are at once produced by the cross. Overturning the overweening opinion we form of our own virtue, and detecting the hypocrisy in which we delight, it removes our pernicious carnal confidence, teaching us, when thus humbled, to recline on God alone, so that we neither are oppressed nor despond. Then victory is followed by hope, inasmuch as the Lord, by performing what he has promised, establishes his truth in regard to the future. Were these the only reasons, it is surely plain how necessary it is for usto bear the cross. It is of no little importance to be rid of your self-love, and made fully conscious of your weakness; so impressed with a sense of your weakness as to learn to distrust yourself--to distrust yourself so as to transfer your confidence to God, reclining on him with such heartfelt confidence as to trust in his aid, and continue invincible to the end, standing by his grace so as to perceive that he is true to his promises, and so assured of the certainty of his promises as to be strong in hope.

     Christian Classics Ethereal Library / Public Domain

     Institutes of the Christian Religion

By Gleason Archer Jr.

Abraham and  Genesis 14

       The archaeological confirmation of the historical trustworthiness of the  Genesis account of Abraham’s life has already been reviewed in chapter 13 (pp. 171–75). There it was shown: (1) that the name Abram appears in cuneiform records of the first half of the second millennium B.C.; (2) that both Ur and Haran were flourishing cities in the twenty-first century B.C.; (3) that Shechem and Bethel (if Beitin is correctly identified as Bethel) were inhabited during that period, and likewise that the Jordan Valley was highly populated; (4) that the names of the invading kings listed in  Gen. 14 were appropriate to that age, and travel from Mesopotamia to Palestine was quite extensive, and Elamite power (suggested by the Elamite name Chedorlaomer) was in the ascendancy at approximately the same time. (As for the Sodom-Gomorrah Pentapolis, Ebla records refer to each as contemporary cities back in 2300 B.C., cf. p. 170 n. 5); (5) We noted that Abraham’s negotiations in purchasing the cave of Machpelah conformed to Hittite law practiced in the second millennium Unger (AOT, p. 107) and J. B. Payne21 date the birth of Abraham in the twenty-second century, and his migration to Palestine in the twenty-first (more precisely estimated by Payne as 2091, although Unger implies a few years later), during the period of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2070–1960).

       Since the name of Hammurabi was so long associated with that of Abraham, on the ground of his supposed identity with Amraphel king of Shinar ( Gen. 14:1 ), it is well to indicate the most recent lines of evidence for 1770 B.C. as the midpoint in Hammurabi’s career. In an article in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies (April 1958, p. 97), M. B. Rowton lists the data as follows: (1) A piece of charcoal from a building in Nippur constructed several years before or after the accession of lbi-Sin (a king of the Third Dynasty of Ur who preceded Hammurabi by 235 years) yielded the radiocarbon date of 1992 B.C. plus-or-minus 106. This would mean a date for Hammurabi of 1757 plus-or-minus 106 (Rowton’s dates for Hammurabi are 1792–50; cf. IDB ii517 in 1958, JNES 4/58, p. 111). (2) Reed mats from the ziggurat (or stage tower) of Ur-Nammu, founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur, erected in Uruk (or else possibly in the reign of his successor, Shulgi), yielded the radiocarbon date of 1868 plus-or-minus 133. This would place the accession of Hammurabi in 1581 plus-or-minus 133. (3) The observation records kept for the planet Venus in the reign of Ammizaduqa of Babylon (the fourth in succession after Hammurabi) allow for three possible dates for Hammurabi’s accession: 1848, 1792, and 1728. Of these, Rowton favors the second, 1792, on the basis of a statement by Tiglath-pileser I (whose dates are 1112–1074, according to P. E. van der Meer) that he had renovated a temple of Anu and Adad 701 years after it was built by Shamshi-Adad I, a contemporary of Hammurabi. This would suggest a date of 1813 for the period of Hammurabi. These evidences tend to confirm the synchronism of Zimri-Lim and Hammurabi mentioned in chapter 13 (p. 172), and establish the dates of his reign during the eighteenth century (ca. 1792–1750)—far too late for Abraham. The reference to “Dan” in  14:14 has been taken as evidence of a post-Mosaic date for  Genesis. But this name appears at least as early as Dynasty II (LD III, 211, 4) in Egyptian as Matu Dan-nu-na (VAB II b 24) 211, (cf. Harris 76.7)—Burchardt, M: “Die Altkanuaixhe Fremdwuorteru und Eigennamen im Aegyptischen,” Leipzig, 1909 II, p. 60.

Jacob and Laban,  Genesis 31

       It is interesting to observe in the case of Jacob, who had gone to work for Laban in the Mesopotamian area by Padan-aram ( Gen. 29:16–30 ), that there are parallels in the Nuzi documents to the obligation which was laid upon Jacob to work for 7 years in order to earn the right to marry Laban’s daughter. The Nuzi documents record that it was common for a man to work for a specified length of time prior to receiving his wife from her father.

       Furthermore, it is significant that there is a prohibition laid upon Jacob against marrying outside of the family. Laban says to Jacob in  Gen. 31:50, “If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see God is witness between me and you.” This prohibition, as stated by Laban, is again attested by a similar Nuzi custom in which it was forbidden that a man should take another wife beside the one he originally labored to obtain. Thus we see again that Nuzi documentation of the contemporary customs of the Patriarchal period illustrates the reliability of the biblical record and illumines the practices common to that day.

     A Survey of Old Testament Introduction

To the Next Generation of Church Leaders

By Stephen Witmer 3/3/2018

     Dear Future Church Leader,

     I began seminary eighteen years ago, with my career path already mapped out. My goal was to become an influential pastor in a big church in a big city.

     Perhaps it goes without saying that this plan was fueled, at least in part, by prideful desires for attention and applause. But here’s something less obvious and equally important: it was founded upon a deeply-held belief that bigger is usually better; that the place to go to make a difference is a world-class city; that, for a gifted person, ministry in a small place is somewhat of a waste. It turns out this view was shared by many of my peers and professors.

     I would venture to say it is still the view of many aspiring to ministry. Who’s excited about the prospect of moving to a small town to pastor a small church? I wasn’t.

     But God surprised me. He called me to be a pastor in a town whose name I had never heard of. You’ve never heard of it, either (for the record, it’s Pepperell, Massachusetts). I’ve been here for a decade and have no plans to leave. What I’ve come to believe, and what I’m passionate to commend to you, is that the equation of “bigger” with “better” is out of step with the very gospel we set ourselves to ponder and proclaim. In fact, the message and values of the gospel itself will send some (not all) of us to small places, and encourage us to stay there.

     Please don’t misunderstand me: my goal is not to persuade you to go to a small place. It is to persuade you to be joyfully open to God persuading you to go to a small place if he chooses to do so. For the sake of your own soul, and for the sake of God’s glory in both the small and big places, I long for you to be excited if you receive God’s clear call to Nowheresville.

     Pondering the gospel has taught me several things that call into question my previous assumptions. These are the building blocks of a theological vision for small-town and rural ministry that now sustains my ministry.

     1. Strategic isn’t always what we think. | A good part of the drive toward urban church planting and city ministry in the past generation has come from a desire to be strategic, to maximize Christian influence in the culture for the sake of spreading the gospel. Cities are full of young, educated, successful people. If we reach them, we will shape the broader culture, preparing the way for the gospel to advance. This view has borne lots of good fruit, and there is much to commend it.

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Stephen Witmer is the pastor of Pepperell Christian Fellowship in Pepperell, Massachusetts, and teaches New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the author of Eternity Changes Everything and a 12-Week-Study-Revelation

Read The Psalms In "1" Year

Psalm 32

Blessed Are the Forgiven
32 A Maskil Of David.

6 Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
7 You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.

ESV Study Bible

The Right Kind of Freedom

By Nate Shurden 2/01/2016

     They were truly delightful. Probably in their late fifties, recently retired, just relocated to Franklin, Tenn., to be closer to their grandkids. They started attending the church several months earlier and had just expressed excitement about participating in the upcoming inquirers’ class. Hearing this, I was encouraged but mistakenly concluded that signing up for the inquirers’ class meant they were exploring the possibility of membership. I innocently began to ask about churches they were members of in the past when the conversation shifted.

     “I’m sorry. I’m afraid we misled you,” they said. “Even if we attend the inquirers’ class, we won’t be joining the church.” Surprised, and a little confused, I asked why that would be the case. “We don’t do membership. We’ve found it comes with certain expectations about attendance and involvement, and we just prefer to be freer than that.”

     Though rarely expressed so honestly, such sentiment is representative of a significant number of professing Christians across North America. It seems many are happy to maintain a loose affiliation with a church fellowship, but consider membership just a little too much commitment for their tastes.

     To be fair, some of the views or feelings expressed about membership stem from bad experiences in local churches. It is true that some churches and denominations have a history of using membership as a legalistic billy club. If someone is coming from that background, it will take time to heal, build trust, and reshape what biblical church membership is supposed to look like.

     Other Christians have simply never been taught a biblical view of membership and instinctively connect the word with the Rotary Club and Costco. For this person, the idea of membership feels like an exclusive clique where only those who pay the dues are welcome. Again, biblical instruction coupled with loving care will often lead these brothers and sisters into joyously committing to membership.

     In my experience, however, an increasing percentage of professing Christians resist making the membership plunge for the reason the couple of above stated: “We prefer to be freer than that.” Here’s the question though: Is the freedom of non-membership the freedom God wants for us?

     When we take an honest look at Scripture, it is clear that we are redeemed not to be alone or loosely associated but to be numbered among the body of Christ. And contrary to how it may feel at times, membership is exactly the kind of freedom for which we have been designed.  ( Our pastor asks, "Where do you see membership in the Bible?" So Athey Creek does not have a formal membership. That being said, I cannot speak for anyone else, but my wife and I certainly feel connected and committed to Athey Creek.

     At first blush, it may seem odd to call membership the kind of freedom we’re designed to experience, but that is the way Scripture speaks of it. One of the primary ways Scripture speaks of membership is with reference to the metaphor of the physical body.

     In Ephesians 4:1–16 and 1 Corinthians 12:1–27, Christian membership is analogous to the membership shared by the various parts of our body. The way your hand and foot are attached to your physical body is the same way individual Christians are to be attached to Christ and other Christians. The Bible is giving us a picture of a fellowship that is so interrelated and interdependent that true life and belonging cannot be expected without each part’s being connected to one another. Very simply, we cannot be ourselves by ourselves (Rom. 12:5).

     Now, from a certain angle, one could argue that a hand or foot’s attachment to the body is restrictive. It is true that an attached hand or foot is not experiencing the “liberty” of being unattached from the body. The question we should ask is whether the so-called liberty of being unattached to the body is the kind of liberty the hand or foot is designed to experience. Can the hand or the foot be what they are supposed to be without the body? Can we expect the hand and foot to function and develop without the body? The obvious answer is no.

     To be honest, the situation is far more serious than a matter of functioning and development. It’s a matter of life and death. When a hand or foot is dismembered from the body, the very life of the hand or foot is drained out of it. It ceases to live. This is not to mention the fact that it’s very disturbing to see a part of the body cut off. Interestingly, when a hand or foot is attached to a body as it’s designed, it strikes us as the most ordinary thing in the world. But if you see a hand lying on the ground, it’s traumatic—the stuff of horror movies.

     It makes sense, then, why John Calvin, leaning heavily on the early church fathers, argued that the church is the “bosom [in which] God is pleased to gather his sons, not only that they may be nourished by her help and ministry as long as they are infants and children, but also that they may be guided by her motherly care until they mature and at last reach the goal of faith … so that, for those to whom he is Father the church may also be Mother” (Institutes 4.1.1).

     Far from being restrictive to our freedom, membership in a local church is the exact condition and constraint that makes for a healthy—and free—Christian life. In the end, membership really is the right kind of freedom.

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     Nate Shurden is senior pastor of Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Franklin, Tenn., and an adjunct professor at New College Franklin. You can follow him on Twitter @NateShurden.

How to Get Your Mind Back on Track

By Jon Bloom 3/21/2014

     How are you feeling? What’s on your mind?

     These are very important questions, not just polite conversation starters. They’re questions we should ask ourselves (and others) frequently because they tell us what direction our train is heading.

     The train of the mind is linked together like this: the car of our thoughts is hitched to the car of our emotions, which is hitched to the car of our hope, which is hitched to the engine of our trust.

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     Jon Bloom serves as author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God. He and his wife live in the Twin Cities with their five children.

     John Bloom Books |  Go to Books Page

By James Orr 1907


VI. ISRAEL AND THE EXODUS

There have always been scholars who doubted the current theory of the date of the Exodus, but, while the majority, probably, still adhere to the old date, the effect of Professor Petrie’s discovery has been to lead many to revise their previous opinions, and to create hesitation in the minds of more. An almost insuperable difficulty in the way of the Rameses-Meneptah theory is the chronological. The steady tendency in Egyptian study has been to lower the dates of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty. Professor Flinders Petrie, e.g., puts the accession of Meneptah as late as 1208 B.C., and the Exodus in 1200 B.C. This, however, leaves little more than 200 years for the interval between the Exodus and the building of Solomon’s temple (c. 975 B.C.) — a period into which it is impossible to crush the wanderings and conquest, the times of the Judges, and the reigns of Saul and David. At the other end, the period from Abraham (c. 2100 B.C.) to the Exodus is far too long, about 900 years — some make it longer. Even if the date of Rameses II. is raised by half a century, the difficulty is only very partially removed. If, on the other hand, we take a date which the Bible itself gives us for the Exodus, viz., 480 years before the building of the temple, as approximately correct, we are taken back to about 1450 B.C., just at the close of the reign of the powerful ruler Thothmes III., of the eighteenth dynasty. This date corresponds also with the interval from Abraham. On this view, the Exodus would fall in the first years of the reign of Amenophis II., son of Thothmes III., in whose reign Professor Hommel now also places it.

It is next to be observed that, on the supposition of this earlier date, the conditions are in every way as suitable as on the Rameses theory — perhaps more suitable. The argument in favour of Rameses II. from the store cities loses much of its force when we find that, as might be shown by examples, it was a habit of this monarch to appropriate the work and monuments of his predecessors, and give his name to them. On the other hypothesis, the oppressor becomes the great ruler, conqueror, and builder, Thothmes III., whose character, length of reign (fifty-four years), and oppression of his subjects, entirely corresponds with the description in  Exodus. To his reign belongs the well-known picture of the brick-making by captives, so often used to illustrate the bondage of the Israelites. If the new hypothesis is correct, it need not be a mere illustration, but may be a picture of the bondage itself. As in Exodus, over the slaves stand overseers with their rods, and the words are put into their mouths, “Be not idle.” There is another curious agreement. Thothmes III. was preceded by Thothmes II., and he by Thothmes II., whose daughter Hatasu (Hashop) was one of the most remarkable women in Egyptian history. She was associated with her father in the government; she married her brother Thothmes II., and shared his throne; she was regent in the minority of Thothmes III. It is at least a singular coincidence that, on the theory we are expounding, Moses must have been born just about the time this “bold and clever” princess was rising into power. The temptation is great to connect her with the “Pharaoh’s daughter” of the story in  Exodus.

One other coincidence of much importance remains to be noticed. This takes us back to the Tel el-Amarna tablets. These, as was stated, include many letters from Palestine, and reveal an extraordinary state of things in that country. The land, especially in the south, was overrun by a people called the Khabiri, who had come up, apparently, from Seir, and were carrying all before them. The tone of all the letters that mention them, as Colonel Conder says, “is a despairing cry for help to Egypt, but none of them record that any help was sent, though eagerly expected. They relate no victories over the Khabiri” Specially piteous are the lamentations of Abdi-Khiba, king of Jerusalem. “The Khabiri have devastated all the king’s territory” — “The Khabiri are occupying the king’s cities” — “There remains not one prince to my lord, the king; every one is ruined” — “If no troops come, the whole territory of my lord, the king, will be lost.” This is the reign of Amenophis IV. (c. 1380 B.C.), which is seen ending in defeat and disaster. If, however, the Exodus is placed where the new hypothesis suggests, or possibly a reign later, under Thothmes IV. (the Thummosis of Manetho), their invasion synchronises very closely with the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, and many leading scholars, accordingly, now seriously propose an identification of these Khabiri with the Hebrews. The subject is still under discussion, but it is easy to see how interesting are the possibilities it opens up.

VII. EMPIRE OF THE HITTITES—PERIOD OF THE KINGS

It remains to indicate in the briefest survey the light cast by archæology on the relations of Israel to the great powers with which, in so many ways, it was brought into contact, after the settlement in Canaan.

1. And first may be mentioned the remarkable corroborations of Scripture in its references to the existence and power of the Hittites. In the Books of  Joshua and  Kings are found various references which imply the existence of a great and formidable Hittite empire or confederacy north of Palestine, and this long after, as well as before, the Israelites had obtained possession of Canaan. Thus, in  Joshua 1:4: “From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites.” In  1 Kings 10:28, 29, we are told of chariots and horses being brought from Egypt for “all the kings of the Hittites.” Still later, in  2 Kings 7:6, we read of a flight of the Syrians occasioned by the belief that the king of Israel had hired against them “the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians.” As, however, no ancient writer knew anything about such a power, these Scriptural allusions to them were, as usual, treated as unhistorical, or as mere rhetorical flourishes. “The unhistorical tone,” wrote Mr. Francis W. Newman in his Hebrew Monarchy, “is far too manifest to allow of our easy belief in it” (the flight of the Syrians), adding that the reference to the Hittites “does not exhibit the writer’s acquaintance with the times in a very favourable light.” Now, it will hardly be disputed that the statements of Scripture on this subject are confirmed to the letter. Alike from Egyptian and from Assyrian inscriptions we learn that this Hittite people were for nearly 1000 years a great ruling power in Syria and Western Asia, extending their influence eastwards as far as the Euphrates. They had, in short, an empire hardly less great than Egypt and Assyria themselves. The kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties in Egypt conducted extensive campaigns against them, the events of which constitute a considerable part of their annals. But beyond this their own abundant monuments, inscribed with a hieroglyphic which scholars are still busy attempting to decipher, now discover to us what manner of people they were, and testify to the wide range of their supremacy. It is already known that the Hittite language was not a Semitic, but an Aryan, tongue, and Jensen has thrown out the conjecture that the Hittites of the monuments were the ancestors of the modern Armenians. It seems evident that the Biblical books in which these references to the Hittites occur must have been written when the power of that people was yet in the ascendant, else the writers would have blundered in regard to them like others.

2. Space would fail to tell of the long series of discoveries minutely illustrating and corroborating the narratives of the historical books of the Old Testament in the period of the kings. It is a striking fact that there is hardly a single point of contact with foreign powers in this period which does not receive illustration from the monuments; while the Assyrian synchronisms and notices in the Eponym Canon afford valuable aid in rectifying the Bible chronology. Only to glance at outstanding instances — the walls of the Hall of Karnak give Shishak’s own boastful account of his invasion of Israel and Judah in the time of Rehoboam; Mesha, king of Moab, set up his stone at Dibon to commemorate the freeing of his country from the yoke of Israel; the Bible informs us that Ahab at the end of his life made a covenant with Benhadad of Syria, and, on the Assyrian side, we have a notice of Ahab as present with Benhadad at the battle of Karkar, 854 B.C., when the Syrians were defeated by Shalmaneser II.; this apparently brought Israel under tribute to Assyria, and Jehu’s servants are next pictured on Shalmaneser’s black obelisk as bearing tribute to that monarch; the relations of Israel and Judah with Tiglath-pileser, or Pul (shown by the lists of kings to be the same person) are circumstantially confirmed; Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea appear in this monarch’s inscriptions as on the Bible page; Hoshea’s rebellion, and the carrying away of the people by Sargon, after the fall of Samaria, are described; Sargon’s own palace was, as formerly mentioned, one of the first Ninevite discoveries; Sennacherib’s version of his expedition against Hezekiah, his siege of Lachish, and the other events of his reign, may be read from his own annals; his murder by his son, and the accession of Esarhaddon, are duly recorded; Tirhakah appears as “king of Egypt and Ethiopia.”

The captivity of Manasseh, his repentance, and his restoration to his kingdom, are, like the invasion of Shishak, recorded only in  Chronicles. The narrative has very generally been pronounced unhistorical on the double ground, apart from the silence of the Book of  Kings, that we have no mention of the supremacy of the Assyrians at this time in Western Asia, and that the king is declared to have been carried to Babylon, not to Nineveh. Both objections, as Schrader shows, “lose their force in presence of the inscriptions.” Manasseh’s name occurs in the list of tributaries of both Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (“Manasseh, king of Judah”); and, as kings of Babylon, the sovereigns sometimes held their court in that city. The release of Manasseh has a parallel in the case of Pharaoh-Necho. He was brought to Nineveh, as Manasseh was to Babylon, “in iron chains,” yet Assurbanipal, a little later, allowed him to return to Egypt and resume his power. Schrader sums up the results of a careful examination by saying “that there is no reason to cast any suspicion on the statement of the Chronicler, and that what he relates can be satisfactorily accounted for from the circumstances that existed in the year 647 B.C.”

     The Problem of the Old Testament

What is a Morally “Good” Person?

By Scot McKnight 9/17/2014

     Here is the essence of virtue ethics: character produces behavior. Even more: a good character acts out in goodness. Virtue ethics, to be sure, contends that habits produce the character that then lives the good life. But what is a good person? Dallas Willard and Gary Black, Jr., in The Divine Conspiracy Continued, in their pivotal chapter for leaders called “moral knowledge,” sketch what a good person is — and this is worth the price of the book (95-96). [I see their sketch to be very close to a Christian version of virtue ethics.]

     A morally good person is a matter of degree — all are on the spectrum of virtues to vices. There are then thoroughly good persons and thoroughly bad persons. Evil persons then are ought to undo and destroy the list below; good persons are ought to create the list.

     1. A morally good person is one who is committed to preserving and enhancing — in an appropriate order of importance — all the various “goods” (individual aspects of the “good”) over which he or she has influence. This includes pursuing one’s own moral goodness as well as the well-being of others.

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     Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author or editor of more than fifty books, is the Julius R. Mantey Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL. Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly speaks at local churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries in the USA and abroad. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986) and has been a professor for more than three decades.

     Scot McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies. He is the author of the award-winning The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living. His books include Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us, The Story of the Christ, Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today, The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus, A Community Called Atonement (Living Theology). He broadened his Jesus Creed project in writing a daily devotional: 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed. His studies in conversion were expanded with his newest book, Finding Faith, Losing Faith: Stories of Conversion and Apostasy, a book he co-authored with his former student Hauna Ondrey. Other books are The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible and Fasting: The Ancient Practices, as well as A Fellowship of Differents: Showing the World God's Design for Life Together and Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church.

     McKnight wrote a commentary on James (The Letter of James (The New International Commentary on the New Testament)), a book on discipleship (One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow), and a Jesus Creed book for high school students (with Syler Thomas and Chris Folmsbee) called The Jesus Creed for Students: Loving God, Loving Others. His research on gospel was published in the Fall of 2011 in a book called The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Along with Joe Modica, McKnight co-edited Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies. Also he published an e-book affirming the importance of the doctrine of perseverance in a book called A Long Faithfulness: The Case for Christian Perseverance. His most recent commentary is Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary). In the Fall of 2015 his book on heaven appeared: The Heaven Promise: Engaging the Bible's Truth About Life to Come, and he has a book appearing in 2017 The Hum of Angels: Listening for the Messengers of God Around Us.

     He co-wrote with his daughter a Jesus Creed book for children: Sharing God's Love: The Jesus Creed for Chldren.

     McKnight’s current projects is a commentary on Colossians (Eerdmans) as well as a book on the Holy Spirit.

     Other books include Who Do My Opponents Say That I Am?: An Investigation of the Accusations Against the Historical Jesus (The Library of New Testament Studies), Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory, Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period by Scot McKnight (1991-04-02), A New Vision for Israel: The Teachings of Jesus in National Context (Studying the Historical Jesus), Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels, Galatians (The NIV Application Commentary) and Galatians (The NIV Application Commentary), Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels (Guides to New Testament Exegesis), and he is a co-editor with J.B. Green and I.H. Marshall of the award-winning Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (The IVP Bible Dictionary Series) as well as the co-editor, with J.D.G. Dunn, The Historical Jesus in Recent Research. He regularly contributes chapter length studies to dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles for magazines and online webzines. McKnight’s books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese.

     Scot McKnight was also ordained by Bishop Todd Hunter to the Diaconate in Churches for the Sake of Others, a segment of Anglican Churches of North America. He and Kris are active in their church, Church of the Redeemer.

     McKnight blogs at Jesus Creed.

     Scot McKnight was elected into the Hall of Honor at Cornerstone University in honor of his basketball accomplishments during his college career. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Libertyville, Illinois. They enjoy traveling, long walks, gardening, and cooking. They have two adult children, Laura (married to Mark Barringer) and Lukas (married to Annika Nelson), and two grandchildren: Aksel and Finley.


Why Did Christ Die?

By John Stott

     The answer which we have so far given to the question ‘Why did Christ die?’ has sought to reflect the way in which the Gospel writers tell their story. They point to the chain of responsibility (from Judas to the priests, from the priests to Pilate, from Pilate to the soldiers), and they at least hint that the greed, envy and fear which prompted their behaviour also prompt ours. Yet this is not the complete account which the evangelists give. I have omitted one further and vital piece of evidence which they supply. It is this: that although Jesus was brought to his death by human sins, he did not die as a martyr. On the contrary, he went to the cross voluntarily, even deliberately. From the beginning of his public ministry he consecrated himself to this destiny.

     In his baptism he identified himself with sinners (as he was to do fully on the cross), and in his temptation he refused to be deflected from the way of the cross. He repeatedly predicted his sufferings and death, as we saw in the last chapter, and steadfastly set himself to go to Jerusalem to die there. His constant use of the word ‘must’ in relation to his death expressed not some external compulsion, but his own internal resolve to fulfil what had been written of him. ‘The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,’ he said. Then, dropping the metaphor, ‘I lay down my life...No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord’ (John 10:11, 17–18).

     Moreover, when the apostles took up in their letters the voluntary nature of the dying of Jesus, they several times used the very verb (paradidōmi) which the evangelists used of his being ‘handed over’ to death by others. Thus Paul could write ‘the Son of God...loved me and gave (paradontos) himself for me’. (Gal. 2:20. Cf. Eph. 5:2, 25 and also Luke 23:46) It was perhaps a conscious echo of Isaiah 53:12, which says that ‘he poured out (LXX paredothē) his life unto death’. Paul also used the same verb when he looked behind the voluntary self-surrender of the Son to the Father’s surrender of him. For example, ‘he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up (paredōken) for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?’ (Rom. 8:32; cf. 4:25.) Octavius Winslow summed it up in a neat statement: ‘Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; – but the Father, for love!’ (I am grateful to David Kingdon for drawing my attention to this quotation, which John Murray includes in his Romans, Vol. 1, p.324, having taken it from Winslow’s No Condemnation in Christ Jesus (1857).)

     It is essential to keep together these two complementary ways of looking at the cross. On the human level, Judas gave him up to the priests, who gave him up to Pilate, who gave him up to the soldiers, who crucified him. But on the divine level, the Father gave him up, and he gave himself up, to die for us. As we face the cross, then, we can say to ourselves both ‘I did it, my sins sent him there’ and ‘he did it, his love took him there’. The apostle Peter brought the two truths together in his remarkable statement on the Day of Pentecost, both that ‘this man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge’ and that ‘you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross’.30 Peter thus attributed Jesus’ death simultaneously to the plan of God and to the wickedness of men. For the cross which, as we have particularly considered in this chapter, is an exposure of human evil, is at the same time a revelation of the divine purpose to overcome the human evil thus exposed.


The Cross of Christ      John R.W. Stott Books |  Go to Books Page

The Coming Prince

By Sir Robert Anderson 1841-1918

Chapter 2 Daniel and His Times

     "DANIEL the prophet." None can have a higher title to the name, for it was thus Messiah spoke of him. And yet the great Prince of the Captivity would himself doubtless have disclaimed it. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the rest, "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" (2 Peter 1:21) but Daniel uttered no such "God-breathed" words. [1] Like the "beloved disciple" in Messianic times, he beheld visions, and recorded what he saw. The great prediction of the seventy weeks was a message delivered to him by an angel, who spoke to him as man speaks with man. A stranger to prophet's fare [2] and prophet's garb, he lived in the midst of all the luxury and pomp of an Eastern court. Next to the king, he was the foremost man in the greatest empire of antiquity; and it was not till the close of a long life spent in statecraft that he received the visions recorded in the latter chapters of his book.

[1] My belief in the Divine character of the Book of Daniel will, I trust, appear plainly in these pages. The distinction I desire to mark here is between prophecies which men were inspired to utter, and prophecies like those of Daniel and St. John, who were merely the recipients of the revelation. With these, inspiration began in the recording what they had received.

[2] To quote Daniel 1:12 in opposition to this involves an obvious anachronism. The word "pulse," moreover, in the Hebrew points generally to vegetable food, and would include a dish as savory as that for which Esau sold his birthright (comp, Genesis 25:34). To eat animal food from the table of Gentiles would have involved a violation of the law; therefore Daniel and his companions became "vegetarians."
Genesis 25:34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.   ESV

     To understand these prophecies aright, it is essential that the leading events of the political history of the times should be kept in view.

     The summer of Israel's national glory had proved as brief as it was brilliant. The people never acquiesced in heart in the Divine decree which, in distributing the tribal dignities, entrusted the scepter to the house of Judah, while it adjudged the birthright to the favored family of Joseph; [3] and their mutual jealousies and feuds, though kept in check by the personal influence of David, and the surpassing splendor of the reign of Solomon, produced a national disruption upon the accession of Rehoboam. In revolting from Judah, the Israelites also apostatized from God; and forsaking the worship of Jehovah, they lapsed into open and flagrant idolatry. After two centuries and a half unillumined by a single bright passage in their history, they passed into captivity to Assyria; [4] and on the birth of Daniel a century had elapsed since the date of their national extinction.

[3] "Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph's" (1 Chronicles 5:2).

[4] The disruption was in B. C. 975, the captivity to Assyria about B. C. 721.
     Judah still retained a nominal independence, though, in fact, the nation had already fallen into a state of utter vassalage. The geographical position of its territory marked it out for such a fate. Lying half-way between the Nile and the Euphrates, suzerainty in Judea became inevitably a test by which their old enemy beyond their southern frontier, and the empire which the genius of Nabopolassar was then rearing in the north, would test their rival claims to supremacy. The prophet's birth fell about the very year which was reckoned the epoch of the second Babylonian Empire. [5] He was still a boy at the date of Pharaoh Necho's unsuccessful invasion of Chaldea. In that struggle his kinsman and sovereign, the good king Josiah, took sides with Babylon, and not only lost his life, but compromised still further the fortunes of his house and the freedom of his country. (2 Kings 23:29; 2 Chronicles 35:20)

2 Kings 23:29 In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him, and Pharaoh Neco killed him at Megiddo, as soon as he saw him.   ESV

2 Chronicles 35:20 After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to meet him.   ESV

[5] B. C. 625.
     The public mourning for Josiah had scarcely ended when Pharaoh, on his homeward march, appeared before Jerusalem to assert his suzerainty by claiming a heavy tribute from the land and settling the succession to the throne. Jehoahaz, a younger son of Josiah, had obtained the crown on his father's death, but was deposed by Pharaoh in favor of Eliakim, who doubtless recommended himself to the king of Egypt by the very qualities which perhaps had induced his father to disinherit him.

     Pharaoh changed his name to Jehoiakim, and established him in the kingdom as a vassal of Egypt (2 Kings 23:33-35; 2 Chronicles 36:3-4).

2 Kings 23:33-35 33 And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.   ESV

2 Chronicles 36:3-4 3 Then the king of Egypt deposed him in Jerusalem and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 4 And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But Neco took Jehoahaz his brother and carried him to Egypt.   ESV

     In the third year after these events, Nebuchadnezzar, Prince Royal of Babylon, [6] set out upon an expedition of conquest, in command of his father's armies; and entering Judea he demanded the submission of the king of Judah. After a siege of which history gives no particulars, he captured the city and seized the king as a prisoner of war. But Jehoiakim regained his liberty and his throne by pledging his allegiance to Babylon; and Nebuchadnezzar withdrew with no spoil except a part of the holy vessels of the temple, which he carried to the house of his god, and no captives save a few youths of the seed royal of Judah, Daniel being of the number, whom he selected to adorn his court as vassal princes. (2 Kings 24:1; 2 Chronicles 36:6, 7; Daniel 1:1-2) Three years later Jehoiakim revolted; but, although during the rest of his reign his territory was frequently overrun by "bands of the Chaldees," five years elapsed before the armies of Babylon returned to enforce the conquest of Judea. [7]

[6] Berosus avers that this expedition was in Nabopolassar's lifetime (Jos., Apion, 1. 19), and the chronology proves it. See App. I. as to the dates of these events and the chronology of the period.

[7] 2 Kings 24:1, 2. According to Josephus (Ant., 10. 6, Ch. 3) Nebuchadnezzar on his second invasion found Jehoiakim still on the throne, and he it was who put him to death and made Jehoiachin king. He goes on to say that the king of Babylon soon afterwards became suspicious of Jehoiachin's fidelity, and again returned to dethrone him, and placed Zedekiah on the throne. These statements, though not absolutely inconsistent with 2 Kings 24, are rendered somewhat improbable by comparison with it. They are adopted by Canon Rawlinson in the Five Great Monarchies (vol. 3, p. 491), but Dr. Pusey adheres to the Scripture narrative (Daniel, p. 403).
2 Kings 24:1 In his days, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him.   ESV

2 Chronicles 36:6-7 6 Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and bound him in chains to take him to Babylon. 7 Nebuchadnezzar also carried part of the vessels of the house of the LORD to Babylon and put them in his palace in Babylon.   ESV

Daniel 1:1-2 1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.   ESV

     Jehoiachin, a youth of eighteen years, who had just succeeded to the throne, at once surrendered with his family and retinue, (2 Kings 24:12) and once more Jerusalem lay at the mercy of Nebuchadnezzar. On his first invasion he had proved magnanimous and lenient, but he had now not merely to assert supremacy but to punish rebellion. Accordingly he ransacked the city for everything of value, and "carried away all Jerusalem," leaving none behind "save the poorest sort of the people of the land." (2 Kings 24:14)

2 Kings 24:12 and Jehoiachin the king of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself and his mother and his servants and his officials and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign   ESV

2 Kings 24:14 He carried away all Jerusalem and all the officials and all the mighty men of valor, 10,000 captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained, except the poorest people of the land.   ESV

     Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah was left as king or governor of the despoiled and depopulated city, having sworn by Jehovah to pay allegiance to his Suzerain. This was "King Jehoiachin's captivity," according to the era of the prophet Ezekiel, who was himself among the captives. (Ezekiel 1:2)

Ezekiel 1:2 1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin),   ESV

     The servitude to Babylon had been predicted as early as the days of Hezekiah; (2 Kings 20:17) and after the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy respecting it, Jeremiah was charged with a Divine message of hope to the captivity, that after seventy years were accomplished they would be restored to their land. (Jeremiah 29:10) But while the exiles were thus cheered with promises of good, King Zedekiah and "the residue of Jerusalem that remained in the land" were warned that resistance to the Divine decree which subjected them to the yoke of Babylon would bring on them judgments far more terrible than any they had known. Nebuchadnezzar would return to "destroy them utterly," and make their whole land "a desolation and an astonishment." (Jeremiah 24:8-10; 25:9; 27:3-8) False prophets rose up, however, to feed the national vanity by predicting the speedy restoration of their independence, (Jeremiah 28:1-4) and in spite of the solemn and repeated warnings and entreaties of Jeremiah, the weak and wicked king was deceived by their testimony, and having obtained a promise of armed support from Egypt, (Ezekiel 17:15) he openly revolted.

2 Kings 20:17 Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD.   ESV

Jeremiah 29:10 “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.   ESV

Jeremiah 24:8-10 8 “But thus says the LORD: Like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. 9 I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them.   ESV

Jeremiah 25:9 behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the LORD, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these surrounding nations. I will devote them to destruction, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation.   ESV

Jeremiah 27:3-8 3 Send word to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the sons of Ammon, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon by the hand of the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. 4 Give them this charge for their masters: ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: This is what you shall say to your masters: 5 “It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me. 6 Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him also the beasts of the field to serve him. 7 All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.

8 “‘“But if any nation or kingdom will not serve this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, declares the LORD, until I have consumed it by his hand.
  ESV

Jeremiah 28:1-4 1 In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the LORD, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. 4 I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the LORD, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.”   ESV

Ezekiel 17:15 But he rebelled against him by sending his ambassadors to Egypt, that they might give him horses and a large army. Will he thrive? Can one escape who does such things? Can he break the covenant and yet escape?   ESV

     Thereupon the Chaldean armies once more surrounded Jerusalem. Events seemed at first to justify Zedekiah's conduct, for the Egyptian forces hastened to his assistance, and the Babylonians were compelled to raise the siege and withdraw from Judea. (Jeremiah 37:1, 5, 11) But this temporary success of the Jews served only to exasperate the King of Babylon, and to make their fate more terrible when at last it overtook them.

     Nebuchadnezzar determined to inflict a signal chastisement on the rebellious city and people; and placing himself at the head of all the forces of his empire, (2 Kings 25:1; Jeremiah 34:1) he once more invaded Judea and laid siege to the Holy City.

Jeremiah 37:1-11 1 Zedekiah the son of Josiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah, reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim. 2 But neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the LORD that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet.

3 King Zedekiah sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseiah, to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Please pray for us to the LORD our God.” 4 Now Jeremiah was still going in and out among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison. 5 The army of Pharaoh had come out of Egypt. And when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem.

6 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet: 7 “Thus says the LORD, God of Israel: Thus shall you say to the king of Judah who sent you to me to inquire of me, ‘Behold, Pharaoh’s army that came to help you is about to return to Egypt, to its own land. 8 And the Chaldeans shall come back and fight against this city. They shall capture it and burn it with fire. 9 Thus says the LORD, Do not deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will surely go away from us,” for they will not go away. 10 For even if you should defeat the whole army of Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and there remained of them only wounded men, every man in his tent, they would rise up and burn this city with fire.’”

11 Now when the Chaldean army had withdrawn from Jerusalem at the approach of Pharaoh’s army,
  ESV

2 Kings 25:1 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it.   ESV

Jeremiah 34:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem and all of its cities:   ESV

     The Jews resisted with the blind fanaticism which a false hope inspires; and it is a signal proof of the natural strength of ancient Jerusalem, that for eighteen months (2 Kings 25:1-3) they kept their enemy at bay, and yielded at last to famine and not to force. The place was then given up to fire and sword. Nebuchadnezzar "slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age; he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah." (2 Chronicles 36:17-21)

2 Kings 25:1-3 1 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it. 2 So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.   ESV

2 Chronicles 36:17-21 17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand. 18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. 19 And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. 20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.   ESV

     As He had borne with their fathers for forty years in the wilderness, so for forty years this last judgment lingered, "because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place." (2 Chronicles 36:15) For forty years the prophet's voice had not been silent in Jerusalem; "but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy." [8]

2 Chronicles 36:15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.   ESV

     Such is the sacred chronicler's description of the first destruction of Jerusalem, rivaled in later times by the horrors of that event under the effects of which  it still lies prostrate,    ( Nope, despite what those who believe in Replacement Theologu say, God is not finished with Israel.) and destined to be surpassed in days still to come, when the predictions of Judah's supreme catastrophe shall be fulfilled. [9]

The Coming Prince

  and also at this website. https://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Voice/The.Coming.Prince.html#1-2

The Continual Burnt Offering

By H.A. Ironside - 1941

March 20
Nehemiah 4:17 who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. 18 And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me.  ESV

     The story of the building up again of Jerusalem’s ruined wall, as told in the book of Nehemiah, is most interesting and suggestive. A wall speaks of separation and also of security, God’s children need to be walled in from the world if they would enjoy fellowship with their Lord and with one another. But the maintaining of this means activity in service and watchfulness against the enemy. Into all of our hands God puts the trowel for service and the sword for conflict. Then we need to be ever on the alert, listening for the trumpet call so that we may act consistently for God and glorify Him as we take our places on the walls of Zion.

The Saviour bids thee watch and pray
Through life’s momentous hour,
And grants the Spirit’s quickening ray
To those who seek His power.


The Continual Burnt Offering: Daily Meditations on the Word of God


  • All About Being
    A Biblical Leader
  • All About
    Esther
  • Everything About Demons
    And Angels

#1 Greg Laurie | Harvest

 

#2 Greg Laurie | Harvest

 

#3 Greg Laurie | Harvest

 


     Devotionals, notes, poetry and more

coram Deo
     5/2006 | Decoding Da Vinci

     It should be no surprise to know that in 2005 the Louvre museum in Paris attracted more visitors, 7.3 million to be exact, than in any previous year since the Louvre was established as a museum in 1793. The museum is expecting to break that record again in 2006 with the May release of Hollywood’s version of Dan Brown’s best-selling book, The Da Vinci Code. Last year I too visited the Louvre while on a layover in Paris. Although I was not there in order to try to figure out the supposed centuries-old codes hidden in the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci, I was curious to see what sort of crowds his paintings were attracting. As I made my way to room 13, where Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was displayed, I could hear the low roar of what turned out to be the voices of hundreds of people from all over the world gazing at the intriguing smile and face of Da Vinci’s famous brown-eyed girl.

     Some may say, and rightly so, “What’s all the fuss about? Isn’t The Da Vinci Code just a fictional story invented by some imaginative writer whose book was marketed to inquisitive readers?” Such a charge is certainly appropriate. Nevertheless, the book has had (and I suspect the movie will have) a religiously strong grip on the minds of undiscerning people throughout the world. Even though the book is sold under the category “fiction,” the author deceitfully and deliberately intertwines seeming fact and fiction in order to dupe his readers into thinking that there actually is a hidden code in Da Vinci’s works — a code that unlocks the secrets of the church, secrets that reveal the supposed truths that Jesus had been surreptitiously wed to Mary Magdalene, that the deity of Christ was invented in the fourth century by Constantine, and that the Bible is not the product of God but the product of devious men whose ecclesiastical descendants have dominated the church throughout history. Such notions are not simply innocent inventions but are the products of men who, while impenitent, are in the service of the father of lies (John 8:44).

     At the foundation of our faith is the conviction that the Bible is not just a book of man’s opinions about God. On the contrary, the Bible is the inspired Word of God established by God Himself, in His gracious provision, so that we might know Him and live coram Deo, before His face and for His glory. Indeed, His Word is truth (John 17:17), for it not merely contains truth, but it defines truth and destroys all the devices and deceptions of men that rise up against it.

     click here for article source

     Dr. Burk Parsons (@BurkParsons) is editor of Tabletalk magazine, senior pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., a visiting lecturer at Reformed Theological Seminary, and a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow. He is editor of John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, and Doxology.

Ligonier     coram Deo (definition)

American Minute
     by Bill Federer

     On this date, March 20, 1727, Sir Isaac Newton, one of the world’s greatest scientists, died. With his mother widowed twice, he was raised by his grandmother, before being sent off to grammar school and later Cambridge. He discovered calculus, the laws of gravity and built the first reflecting telescope. Using a prism, Newton demonstrated how a beam of sunlight contained all the colors of the rainbow. Regarding the Bible, Isaac Newton wrote: “The system of revealed truth which this Book contains is like that of the universe, concealed from common observation yet… the centuries have established its Divine origin.”

American Minute

Lean Into God
     Compiled by Richard S. Adams


All religions have been made by men.
--- Napoleon Bonaparte
God Is Relevant: Finding Strength and Peace in Today's World


Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart.
--- Bob Pierce, World Vision founder
Know Why You Believe

Man is a messenger who forgot the message.
--- Abraham Joshua Heschel
I Asked For Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology

You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.
--- Wendell Berry
A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural

... from here, there and everywhere

Journal of John Woolman 3/20
     University of Virginia Library 1994

     Fourteenth of sixth month. -- We sought out and visited all the Indians hereabouts that we could meet with, in number about twenty. They were chiefly in one place, about a mile from where we lodged. I expressed to them the care I had on my mind for their good, and told them that true love had made me willing thus to leave my family to come and see the Indians and speak with them in their houses. Some of them appeared kind and friendly. After taking leave of them, we went up the river Susquehanna about three miles, to the house of an Indian called Jacob January. He had killed his hog, and the women were making store of bread and preparing to move up the river. Here our pilots had left their canoe when they came down in the spring, and lying dry it had become leaky. This detained us some hours, so that we had a good deal of friendly conversation with the family; and, eating dinner with them, we made them some small presents. Then putting our baggage into the canoe, some of them pushed slowly up the stream, and the rest of us rode our horses. We swam them over a creek called Lahawahamunk, and pitched our tent above it in the evening. In a sense of God's goodness in helping me in my distress, sustaining me under trials, and inclining my heart to trust in him, I lay down in an humble, bowed frame of mind, and had a comfortable night's lodging.

     Fifteenth of sixth month. -- We proceeded forward till the afternoon, when, a storm appearing, we met our canoe at an appointed place and stayed all night, the rain continuing so heavy that it beat through our tent and wet both us and our baggage. The next day we found abundance of trees blown down by the storm yesterday, and had occasion reverently to consider the kind dealings of the Lord who provided a safe place for us in a valley while this storm continued. We were much hindered by the trees which had fallen across our path, and in some swamps our way was so stopped that we got through with extreme difficulty. I had this day often to consider myself as a sojourner in this world. A belief in the all-sufficiency of God to support his people in their pilgrimage felt comfortable to me, and I was industriously employed to get to a state of perfect resignation.

     We seldom saw our canoe but at appointed places, by reason of the path going off from the river. This afternoon Job Chilaway, an Indian from Wehaloosing, who talks good English and is acquainted with several people in and about Philadelphia, met our people on the river. Understanding where we expected to lodge, he pushed back about six miles, and came to us after night; and in a while our own canoe arrived, it being hard work pushing up the stream. Job told us that an Indian came in haste to their town yesterday and told them that three warriors from a distance lodged in a town above Wehaloosing a few nights past, and that these three men were going against the English at Juniata. Job was going down the river to the province store at Shamokin. Though I was so far favored with health as to continue travelling, yet, through the various difficulties in our journey, and the different way of living from which I had been used to, I grew sick. The news of these warriors being on their march so near us, and not knowing whether we might not fall in with them, was a fresh trial of my faith; , and though, through the strength of Divine love, I had several times been enabled to commit myself to the Divine disposal, I still found the want of a renewal of my strength, that I might be able to persevere therein; and my cries for help were put up to the Lord, who, in great mercy, gave me a resigned heart, in which I found quietness.

     Parting from Job Chilaway on the 17th, we went on and reached Wehaloosing about the middle of the afternoon. The first Indian that we saw was a woman of a modest countenance, with a Bible, who spake first to our guide, and then with an harmonious voice expressed her gladness at seeing us, having before heard of our coming. By the direction of our guide we sat down on a log while he went to the town to tell the people we were come. My companion and I, sitting thus together in a deep inward stillness, the poor woman came and sat near us; and, great awfulness coming over us, we rejoiced in a sense of God's love manifested to our poor souls. After a while we heard a conch-shell blow several times, and then came John Curtis and another Indian man, who kindly invited us into a house near the town, where we found about sixty people sitting in silence. After sitting with them a short time I stood up, and in some tenderness of spirit acquainted them, in a few short sentences, with the nature of my visit, and that a concern for their good had made me willing to come thus far to see them; which some of them understanding interpreted to the others, and there appeared gladness among them. I then showed them my certificate, which was explained to them; and the Moravian who overtook us on the way, being now here, bade me welcome. But the Indians knowing that this Moravian and I were of different religious societies, and as some of their people had encouraged him to come and stay awhile with them, they were, I believe, concerned that there might be no jarring or discord in their meetings; and having, I suppose, conferred together, they acquainted me that the people, at my request, would at any time come together and hold meetings. They also told me that they expected the Moravian would speak in their settled meetings, which are commonly held in the morning and near evening. So finding liberty in my heart to speak to the Moravian, I told him of the care I felt on my mind for the good of these people, and my belief that no ill effects would follow if I sometimes spake in their meetings when love engaged me thereto, without calling them together at times when they did not meet of course. He expressed his goodwill towards my speaking at any time all that I found in my heart to say.

     On the evening of the 18th I was at their meeting, where pure gospel love was felt, to the tendering of some of our hearts. The interpreters endeavored to acquaint the people with what I said, in short sentences, but found some difficulty, as none of them were quite perfect in the English and Delaware tongues, so they helped one another, and we labored along, Divine love attending. Afterwards, feeling my mind covered with the spirit of prayer, I told the interpreters that I found it in my heart to pray to God, and believed, if I prayed aright, he would hear me; and I expressed my willingness for them to omit interpreting; so our meeting ended with a degree of Divine love. Before the people went out, I observed Papunehang (the man who had been zealous in laboring for a reformation in that town, being then very tender) speaking to one of the interpreters, and I was afterwards told that he said in substance as follows: "I love to feel where words come from."

John Woolman's Journal

Andrew Murray's Absolute Surrender
     Practical religion. The Christian life

     God works it (our surrender) in the secret of our heart, God urges us by the hidden power of His Holy Spirit to come and speak it out, and we have to bring and to yield to Him that absolute surrender. But remember, when you come and bring God that absolute surrender, it may, as far as your feelings or your consciousness go, be a thing of great imperfection, and you may doubt and hesitate and say:

     "Is it absolute?"

     But, oh, remember there was once a man to whom Christ had said:

     "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23).

     And his heart was afraid, and he cried out:

     "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).

     That was a faith that triumphed over the Devil, and the evil spirit was cast out. And if you come and say: "Lord, I yield myself in absolute surrender to my God," even though it be with a trembling heart and with the consciousness: "I do not feel the power, I do not feel the determination, I do not feel the assurance," it will succeed. Be not afraid, but come just as you are, and even in the midst of your trembling the power of the Holy Spirit will work.

     Have you never yet learned the lesson that the Holy Spirit works with mighty power, while on the human side everything appears feeble? Look at the Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. We read that He, "through the eternal Spirit" (Heb. 9:14), offered Himself a sacrifice unto God. The Almighty Spirit of God was enabling Him to do it. And yet what agony and fear and exceeding sorrow came over Him, and how He prayed! Externally, you can see no sign of the mighty power of the Spirit, but the Spirit of God was there. And even so, while you are feeble and fighting and trembling, in faith in the hidden work of God's Spirit do not fear, but yield yourself.

     And when you do yield yourself in absolute surrender, let it be in the faith that God does now accept of it. That is the great point, and that is what we so often miss--that believers should be thus occupied with God in this matter of surrender. I pray you, be occupied with God. We want to get help, every one of us, so that in our daily life God shall be clearer to us, God shall have the right place, and be "all in all."

     And if we are to have that through life, let us begin now and look away from ourselves, and look up to God. Let each believe--while I, a poor worm on earth and a trembling child of God, full of failure and sin and fear, bow here, and no one knows what passes through my heart, and while I in simplicity say, O God, I accept Thy terms; I have pleaded for blessing on myself and others, I have accepted Thy terms of absolute surrender--while your heart says that in deep silence, remember there is a God present that takes note of it, and writes it down in His book, and there is a God present who at that very moment takes possession of you. You may not feel it, you may not realize it, but God takes possession if you will trust Him.

     God not only claims it, and works it, and accepts it when I bring it, but God maintains it.

     I am using the 1895 Public Domain version. Below is an Amazon link for a modern copy.

Absolute Surrender

Proverbs 13:1-2
     by D.H. Stern

1     A son who heeds his father’s discipline is wise,
but a scoffer doesn’t listen to rebuke.

2     A [good] man enjoys good as a result of what he says,
but the essence of the treacherous is violence.

Complete Jewish Bible : An English Version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B'Rit Hadashah (New Testament)


The Great Divorce - A Dream
     C.S. Lewis

          5

     ‘Ah, but we must all interpret those beautiful words in our own way! For me there is no such thing as a final answer. The free wind of inquiry must always continue to blow through the mind, must it not? “Prove all things” … to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.’

     ‘If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.’

     ‘But you must feel yourself that there is something stifling about the idea of finality? Stagnation, my dear boy, what is more soul-destroying than stagnation?’

     ‘You think that, because hitherto you have experienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched.’

     ‘Well, really, you know, I am not aware of a thirst for some ready-made truth which puts an end to intellectual activity in the way you seem to be describing. Will it leave me the free play of Mind, Dick? I must insist on that, you know.’

     ‘Free, as a man is free to drink while he is drinking. He is not free still to be dry.’ The Ghost seemed to think for a moment. ‘I can make nothing of that idea,’ it said.

     ‘Listen!’ said the White Spirit. ‘Once you were a child. Once you knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them. Become that child again: even now.’

     ‘Ah, but when I became a man I put away childish things.’

     ‘You have gone far wrong. Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth. What you now call the free play of inquiry has neither more nor less to do with the ends for which intelligence was given you than masturbation has to do with marriage.’

     ‘If we cannot be reverent, there is at least no need to be obscene. The suggestion that I should return at my age to the mere factual inquisitiveness of boyhood strikes me as preposterous. In any case, that question-and-answer conception of thought only applies to matters of fact. Religious and speculative questions are surely on a different level.’

     ‘We know nothing of religion here: we think only of Christ. We know nothing of speculation. Come and see. I will bring you to Eternal Fact, the Father of all other facthood.’

     ‘I should object very strongly to describing God as a “fact”. The Supreme Value would surely be a less inadequate description. It is hardly …’

     ‘Do you not even believe that He exists?’

     ‘Exists? What does Existence mean? You will keep on implying some sort of static, ready-made reality which is, so to speak, “there”, and to which our minds have simply to conform. These great mysteries cannot be approached in that way. If there were such a thing (there is no need to interrupt, my dear boy) quite frankly, I should not be interested in it. It would be of no religious significance. God, for me, is something purely spiritual. The spirit of sweetness and light and tolerance—and, er, service, Dick, service. We mustn’t forget that, you know.’

     ‘If the thirst of the Reason is really dead …,’ said the Spirit, and then stopped as though pondering. Then suddenly he said, ‘Can you, at least, still desire happiness?’

     ‘Happiness, my dear Dick,’ said the Ghost placidly, ‘happiness, as you will come to see when you are older, lies in the path of duty. Which reminds me … Bless my soul, I’d nearly forgotten. Of course I can’t come with you. I have to be back next Friday to read a paper. We have a little Theological Society down there. Oh yes! there is plenty of intellectual life. Not of a very high quality, perhaps. One notices a certain lack of grip—a certain confusion of mind. That is where I can be of some use to them. There are even regrettable jealousies … I don’t know why, but tempers seem less controlled than they used to be. Still, one mustn’t expect too much of human nature. I feel I can do a great work among them. But you’ve never asked me what my paper is about! I’m taking the text about growing up to the measure of the stature of Christ and working out an idea which I feel sure you’ll be interested in. I’m going to point out how people always forget that Jesus (here the Ghost bowed) was a comparatively young man when he died. He would have outgrown some of his earlier views, you know, if he’d lived. As he might have done, with a little more tact and patience. I am going to ask my audience to consider what his mature views would have been. A profoundly interesting question. What a different Christianity we might have had if only the Founder had reached his full stature! I shall end up by pointing out how this deepens the significance of the Crucifixion. One feels for the first time what a disaster it was: what a tragic waste … so much promise cut short. Oh, must you be going? Well, so must I. Goodbye, my dear boy. It has been a great pleasure. Most stimulating and provocative. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.’

     The Ghost nodded its head and beamed on the Spirit with a bright clerical smile—or with the best approach to it which such unsubstantial lips could manage—and then turned away humming softly to itself ‘City of God, how broad and far.’

     But I did not watch him for long, for a new idea had just occurred to me. If the grass were hard as rock, I thought, would not the water be hard enough to walk on? I tried it with one foot, and my foot did not go in. Next moment I stepped boldly out on the surface. I fell on my face at once and got some nasty bruises. I had forgotten that though it was, to me, solid, it was not the less in rapid motion. When I had picked myself up I was about thirty yards further down-stream than the point where I had left the bank. But this did not prevent me from walking upstream: it only meant that by walking very fast indeed I made very little progress.

The Great Divorce   or   The Great Divorce

My Utmost For The Highest
     A Daily Devotional by Oswald Chambers

                Friendship with God

Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?
--- Genesis 18:17.

     Its Delights. This chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God as compared with occasional feelings of His presence in prayer. To be so much in contact with God that you never need to ask Him to show you His will, is to be nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you are rightly related to God, it is a life of freedom and liberty and delight, you are God’s will, and all your commonsense decisions are His will for you unless He checks. You decide things in perfect delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will always check; when He checks, stop at once.

     Its Difficulties. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He was not intimate enough yet to go boldly on until God granted his desire, there was something yet to be desired in his relationship to God. Whenever we stop short in prayer and say—‘Well, I don’t know; perhaps it is not God’s will,’—there is still another stage to go. We are not so intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as He wants us to be—“That they may be one even as We are one.” Think of the last thing you prayed about—were you devoted to your desire or to God? Determined to get some gift of the Spirit or to get at God? “Your Heavenly Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him.” The point of asking is that you may get to know God better. “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Keep praying in order to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.

My Utmost for His Highest

The Son
     the Poetry of R.S. Thomas

           The Son

It was your mother wanted you:
you were already half-formed
when I entered. But can I deny
the hunger, the loneliness bringing me in
from myself? And when you appeared
before me, there was no repentance
for what I had done, as there was shame
in the doing it; compassion only
for that which was too small to be called
human. The unfolding of your hands
was plant-like, your ear was the shell
I thundered in; your cries. when they came,
were those of a blind creature
trodden upon: pain not yet become grief.

The Greatness Of God
     by Ryan Nicholson

     The magnificence of God is beyond understanding. As the Lord told Job, “Have you ever given orders to the morning?” Like everyone, I take for granted the sun will rise and set… for that is what it was created to do. Of the 7 billion people greeted by God’s handiwork, I am barely a blip on the radar. I contributed nothing to the 66 books written in the Bible, nor will my name go down in History. None of that matters though for the God I take refuge in orchestrated the words written in the Bible, and laid the foundation of the world before history began.

     Pharaoh fought the Lord and paid a heavy price. His land was plagued and stripped of its natural resources because he took a stand and hardened his heart toward the Lord’s will. Egypt was the pinnacle of man’s accomplishment up to that point, and we still marvel at some of its works. Pharaoh rose and slept according to the orders given by the Lord, and as dawn broke on the day after Passover, God’s will was done.

     As I spoke to my father about God’s greatness, he brought to my attention once again how we all bow to the power of His will. On July 9, 1969, humanity traveled and landed on the moon. And the famous words: “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." We had achieved the ultimate in engineering, and the advent of the internet brought forth knowledge to our fingertips. All that came to a screeching halt with a microscopic virus that sent fear into the hearts of the masses. Despite the fear and mass hysteria, the sun rose each morning and set at night. God’s plan and orders are still in effect.

     If you had the choice to live with all of mankind’s resources at your disposal, to have your name written in history, and for people to speak your name for generations, or, to live your life as an unassuming citizen of humanity who watches the sunrise in the mornings. Though no one is speaking your name you call on the only name that matters, and thank God for His greatness. What would you choose?

     Ryan Nicholson is a follower of Jesus Christ and is married to Crystal. They have four children; Autumn, Connor, Heidi and Aubrey. Ryan is a District Manager for Pepsico. Links to his other articles are listed below:

Articles
Teacher's Commentary
     Three Lessons: Numbers 11:1–12:15

     When Israel moved away from Sinai after having been camped there so long, three incidents occurred which were truly “examples” for Israel (1 Cor. 10:11). Each involved a rejection of God, and each was the occasion of immediate judgment. Israel was being taught the difficult lesson of responsibility. As God’s people they had to respond to Him with trusting obedience. Any failure to respond led to tragic consequences.

     In these three experiences Israel was being graciously prepared for a coming choice that would establish the destiny of the entire generation.

     Rejection of God’s guidance (Num. 11:1–3). It took only three days of journeying in desert country for the Israelites to revert to a pattern they had established before they arrived at Sinai. Forgetting all that God had done for them, they let discomfort dominate their thinking. They “complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord” (v. 1). This was an explicit rejection of God as the One who guided them, and who had guided them from the beginning. In their murmuring they denied His wisdom, and ignored the supernatural provision of the cloudy-fiery pillar that directed their every move.

     God immediately acted—in judgment. Fire destroyed some outlying parts of the camp. In panic the people turned to Moses, who prayed, and the fire was controlled.

     Rejection of God’s provision (Num. 11:4–35). Shortly afterward the people began to complain about something else. They became dissatisfied with their diet, and were ready to trade their freedom for the meat and vegetables they had lived on in Egypt. The manna that God provided was despised, and every man at the door of his tent complained and plotted because of a craving for meat.

     This rejection of God’s provision was a last straw to Moses, who had long felt the burden of leading a people who behaved like squalling infants (v. 12). God responded to Moses’ need by distributing his leadership responsibility and gift to 70 of the elders. And God responded to the people too. God had Moses inform the people that the next day they would have meat. Meat enough for a whole month, “until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it” (v. 20). “You have rejected the Lord who is among you” (v. 20), is the divine comment on their behavior and its meaning.

     God provided meat by bringing a great flock of quail (perhaps like the giant flocks of carrier pigeons which in the early days of our continent darkened the sky for days). The quail flew about three feet off the ground (v. 31), and for two days were gathered by the bushel. Meat for the millions had been provided.

     But when the people began to eat, a great plague struck the camp. Thousands and thousands of the murmurers died (vv. 33–34). The people who had rejected God and His provision bore the dreadful consequences of their choice.


The Teacher's Commentary
“Lord”
     as a Designation for Yahweh

     The fact should not be overlooked, of course, that in the history of the Bible and the effect of its message the rendering “lord” has been no less significant than the use of the name in the original. If the function of the two terms is not wholly identical, it overlaps to such a degree that the content of the statements, being equally orientated to the basic motif of the acknowledgment of the power of the divine will, can have a vital effect.

     The difference between אֲדֹנָי and אָדוֹן is that the form distinguished by the affirmative is reserved for sacral use whereas the simple אָדוֹן may be used of human lordship too. The first point about אָדוֹן is that in the OT it is a very broad term for the one who has power over men (
Ps. 12:4; of the king, Jer. 22:18; 14:5), and to a lesser degree over things (Gn. 45:8; Ps. 105:21 בַּיִת, which includes men). It is closely related to בַּעַל, “owner,” but with a distinctive emphasis on the emotional rather than the legal aspect, as may be seen in the address אֲדֹנִי, “my lord,” which predominates even in the legally established relation of a subject to his בַּעַל. The slave speaks thus to his owner (Gn. 24:12; Ex. 21:5) or the wife to her husband (Gn. 18:12). It is also common in the language of court (אֲדֹנִי הֶּמֶּלֶךְ, e.g., 1 S. 26:17), of veneration (Nu. 11:28; Gn. 31:35), and of the politeness enjoined by custom (Gn. 23:6; Ju. 4:18).

     A peculiarity of the word even in secular use is that it commonly takes the plur. form and plur. suffixes even when there is no ref. to several people. Since the same is true or בַּעַל (e.g.,
Is. 1:3), a simple explanation is perhaps to be sought in the need to raise the expression to the totality of the concept. This leaves only the difficulty of the extension of the ā in אֲדֹנָי, which is not demanded by any pause and which can thus be understood only as an intentional characteristic of the word in its function as a divine name and epithet. The hypothesis that this is not really an afformative as marked in the Mas., but that it is a part of the root and that the word is a non-semitic loan word considerably overestimates the philological value of the Mas., since Punic examples also show plainly the pronominal nature of the suffix. On the other hand, אֲדֹנָי also occurs in we-texts (e.g., Ps. 44:24), so that it is impossible to take it as a possessive form “my lord” in the biblical texts unless one assumes that an original vocative has become ossified as a nominative. Granted this assumption, one may assume, without detriment to the philological possibility already mentioned, that אֲדֹנָי as a divine name had its origin as an address in private prayer, of which there are in fact many examples in the Mas. The extension of the ā may be traced to the concern of the Massoretes to mark the word as sacred by a small outward sign. Since the fact that אדני was of four letters, corresponding to the tetragrammaton, was also probably of importance to them, one can also, perhaps, understand why it was that the my-form established itself in use in place of the our-form אֲרֹנֵינוּ (Ps. 8:2, 9; 147:5; 135:5 etc.).

     Used of Yahweh, אָדון like מֶלֶךְ denotes His sovereign power. It is a title which corresponds to His nature. Only seldom does it indicate His position as lord of the land. This is to be seen, perhaps, in the appositional combination “the Lord Yahweh” in
Ex. 23:17; 34:23, since the ref. here is to harvest festivals. As אֲבִיר יִשְׂרָאֵל, “the strength of Israel,” cf. Gn. 49:24, He is called אָדוֹן in Is. 1:24. From this one may conclude that Is. probably uses the word elsewhere only in this sense if it is really one of his own expressions in every case. In the main, however, OT statements concerning Yahweh as Lord already go far beyond the idea that He is just the lord of the land or people and more or less clearly presuppose the prophetic belief in Yahweh as Lord of all. The phrase “Lord of the whole earth” (Mi. 4:13; Zech. 4:14; 6:5; Ps. 97:5; Jos. 3:11, 13) gives us clearest evidence of the enhancement of the sense to embrace everything. This is perhaps also the meaning when אָדוֹן stands alone (only Ps. 114:7), and the meaning of אֲדנָי which is lengthened in form as well, admits of no doubt.

     The uncertainty of the ketib̄ אֲדֹנָי has already been recalled (→ 1059). It is a fact, however, that this ketib̄, even where it is grounded in the text as in
Is. 6, in the majority of cases serves the purpose of avoiding the name of God, like the qerē which derived from it. In Is. 6:11 the prophet uses the vocative אֲדֹנָי spontaneously under the unweakened impression of the nearness of the majesty of the Holy One, and we could only ask whether אֲדֹנָי was not used there. The desire to avoid the name because the majesty which fills the whole earth encounters man is as clear here as it is rare elsewhere. On the other hand, the introduction of אֲדֹנָי at the beginning of the account in Is. 6:1 and then again in 6:8 gives rise to the impression that there is a didactic desire to impress firmly on the reader the thought expressed in the hymn of the seraphs by choosing a word which will correspond to the reverent attitude of the prophet. The common formula of Ezekiel, אֲדֹנָי יהוה or יהוה אֲדֹנָי (212 times according to Baudissin’s reckoning) is to be understood in the same way. It is in a sense an elucidation of the name as an expression for the divine majesty, and the moving of the accent from the name to the title is unmistakable. Thus the use of the ketib̄ אֲדֹנָי seems to have started a development of the technique of transmission which finally in the qerē led to a complete exclusion of the divine name from the text. Such tendencies were probably strongly stimulated also by the Sodom stories in Gn. 18 f., which used the courtesy title “my lords” for the visitors to Abraham and Lot, among whom, as the reader learns only from the context, was the “judge of the whole earth” (18:25), who had come down (18:21). There can be no doubt that this usage was valued as most instructive by the Mas.

     The substitution of אֲדֹנָי which is restrained in the ketib̄, but which is then carried through so radically in the qerē that the very sound of the divine name is completely excluded, implies no less than a total exegesis of the Holy Scriptures of Israel. In combination with the κύριος usage of the LXX it signifies an act of immeasurable consequence in the history of religion. The considerations which prepared and supported it can no longer be reconstructed with full certainty, → 1070. Even the question already mentioned (→ 1059) whether the LXX or the original gave the first impulse admits of no satisfactory answer. One can hardly adduce a definite missionary trend, at least as a leading motive, since the age of active missionary work had not yet dawned for Judaism when the LXX was completed and it had already passed when the last Massoretes established the qerē. On the other hand, missionary activity may be inferred from the wording of the LXX in many passages.

     There is tremendous missionary force in the conclusion of
Ps. 134 (135) when, after the house of Israel, Aaron and Levi, the φοβούμενοι τὸν κύριον are also summoned to praise the Lord. It stands beyond all doubt that this extension of the terminology used to denote God, which theologically derives from the prophets, played an essential part in the dissemination of the OT message. If it implied a weakening of the link with history, it did not break this link. If it softened its numinous dynamic for Israel, at the decisive point it surrendered the national character of the Canon and thereby interpreted its deepest meaning. The God to whom the Canon bears witness is called “Lord” because He is there shown to be the exclusive holder of power over the cosmos and all men, the Creator of the world and the Master of life and death. The term “Lord” is thus a summation of the beliefs of the OT. It is the wholly successful attempt to state what God is, what the Holy One means in practice for men, namely, the intervention of a personal will, with approximately the pregnancy and binding force which constitute the distinctive mark of the name Yahweh.

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Volume III)

Swimming In The Sea of Talmud
     Shabbat 75a

     D’RASH

     A married man is seen at a romantic little restaurant having a candlelit dinner with a woman who is not his wife. Within days, the community is all abuzz about the “affair.” Only later is it discovered that the other woman was actually his sister, in for a visit from out of town.

     A woman buys an expensive new luxury car just one month after becoming the treasurer of the elementary school PTA. People begin to ask jokingly if the two facts are somehow related, but the kidding becomes serious when someone claims to have heard that significant funds are missing from the bank account. Only after the treasurer is accused of embezzling does it come out that the rumors were false and that the woman had recently received a modest inheritance upon the death of her mother.

     Congregants spot the local rabbi walking into a fast-food restaurant during the afternoon break on Yom Kippur. By the time services conclude that evening, many of the members have already heard a story of how the rabbi ate nonkosher food on the holiest day of the year, a fast day. At the next synagogue board meeting, the embarrassed rabbi has to admit to indeed entering the restaurant, but to relieve a weak bladder.

     The concern about mar’it ayin is a troubling one: Why should someone who is doing the right thing have to be worried about what someone else mistakingly thinks? Yet as we see in the above examples, “what the eye sees” can lead to a wrecked marriage, to criminal charges, and to a ruined reputation. In warning us to be sensitive to such things, the Rabbis teach us about the world—not as it should be, but as it is. We are reminded that no matter where we are, someone may well be watching us. The Rabbis would also teach us that no matter where we are, Someone is always watching us.

     Can you cut off its head without it dying?

     Text / Our Rabbis taught; “One who catches a snail and crushes it is liable for one [sin-offering].” Rabbi Yehudah says: “Crushing falls into the category of threshing.” They said to him: “Crushing does not fall into the category of threshing.”
Rava said: “What is the reason of the Rabbis? They hold that threshing applies only to things grown in the ground.” Maybe he is also liable for taking a life! Rabbi Yoḥanan said: “When he crushed it, it was already dead.” Rava said: “Even if you say that it was alive when he crushed it, he was intent on something else when its life was taken.” But did not Abaye and Rava both say that Rabbi Shimon admits “Can you cut off its head without it dying?” Here the case is different—it is better for him while it [the snail] is alive, because the dye is clearer.


     Context / “Hillazon in rabbinical literature is a land or sea snail (Sanhedrin 91a). Among the latter there are species in whose bodies is a gland containing a clear liquid, which when it comes into contact with the air becomes greenish: this is tekhelet which, after the addition of various chemicals, receives its purple color, the “royal purple” of literature.” (Encyclopaedia Judaica, volume 15, p. 914) The dye of the ḥillazon was used, among other things, for the “thread of blue” in the tzitzit or fringes attached to four-cornered garments like the tallit. (Numbers 15:38)

     The Mishnah lists thirty-nine major categories of labor that are forbidden on Shabbat. Among them is hunting a deer (and by extension, all forms of hunting and trapping). The Rabbis here are debating the violations involved in catching a particular species of snail that was the source of much sought-after dye. The shell of the snail first had to be crushed and broken so that the dye could be squeezed from the snail. The Rabbis teach that doing this on Shabbat violated one prohibition, and thus a single sin-offering had to be brought to the Temple. Rabbi Yehudah holds that a second violation was involved: The crushing of the shell would fall into the classification of “threshing,” another of the thirty-nine categories of forbidden labor. (Both threshing and crushing required force to break and remove an outer shell in order to get the sought-after inner product.) The Rabbis disagree, saying that “threshing” applies only to things like wheat that grow from the ground.

     A question is posed: If crushing the snail is not the same as threshing, is it not the same as “slaughtering,” which is among the thirty-nine labors? Rabbi Yoḥanan answers that in this case, the snail was already dead; the only violation is hunting. Rava holds that even if the snail was killed, the person who crushed it is not liable, because he never intended to kill it, only to extract the dye. This seems to contradict a principle that Rava himself, along with Abaye, stated on another occasion: A person cannot say “I wanted only to cut off the animal’s head; I never intended that the animal should die!” Rabbi Shimon is the authority who held that a labor was permitted, even if it resulted in a forbidden action, so long as that forbidden action was unintentional. (For example, walking on the grass on Shabbat is permitted, even though the act of walking may cause the grass to be uprooted, so long as it was not the intent of the person to uproot the grass.) But even Rabbi Shimon admits that if the forbidden result was inevitable, then the labor is forbidden. Cutting off the animal’s head always leads to death, regardless of the intention, and is therefore forbidden.

     The contradiction between Rava’s two statements is resolved by saying that not only is the death of the snail unintentional, it is counter-productive. The quality of the dye is much better when it comes from a living snail.


Swimming in the Sea of Talmud: Lessons for Everyday Living
The Imitation Of Christ
     Thomas A Kempis

     Book Three - Internal Consolation

     The Eleventh Chapter / The Longings Of Our Hearts Must Be Examined And Moderated

          THE VOICE OF CHRIST

     MY CHILD, it is necessary for you to learn many things which you have not yet learned well.

     The Disciple

     What are they, Lord?

     THE VOICE OF CHRIST

     That you conform your desires entirely according to My good pleasure, and be not a lover of self but an earnest doer of My will. Desires very often inflame you and drive you madly on, but consider whether you act for My honor, or for your own advantage. If I am the cause, you will be well content with whatever I ordain. If, on the other hand, any self-seeking lurk in you, it troubles you and weighs you down. Take care, then, that you do not rely too much on preconceived desire that has no reference to Me, lest you repent later on and be displeased with what at first pleased you and which you desired as being for the best. Not every desire which seems good should be followed immediately, nor, on the other hand, should every contrary affection be at once rejected.

     It is sometimes well to use a little restraint even in good desires and inclinations, lest through too much eagerness you bring upon yourself distraction of mind; lest through your lack of discipline you create scandal for others; or lest you be suddenly upset and fall because of resistance from others. Sometimes, however, you must use violence and resist your sensual appetite bravely. You must pay no attention to what the flesh does or does not desire, taking pains that it be subjected, even by force, to the spirit. And it should be chastised and forced to remain in subjection until it is prepared for anything and is taught to be satisfied with little, to take pleasure in simple things, and not to murmur against inconveniences.

The Imitation Of Christ

Take Heart
     March 20

     They are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name …so that they may be one as we are one. --- John 17:11.

     With what [further] arguments [does] he plead with the Father? ( The Whole Works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel ... )

     He adds, in the beginning of John 17:11, a third argument in these words, “I will remain in the world no longer.” Consider the sense of it as a proposition and the force of it as an argument. This proposition, “I will remain in the world no longer,” is not to be taken universally as if in no sense Christ would be any more in this world but only as to his corporeal presence. This, which had been a comfort to them in all their troubles, was soon to be removed from his people.

     And here lies the argument: “Father, consider the sadness and trouble I shall leave my poor children under. While I was with them I was sweet relief to their souls, whatever troubles they met. In all doubts, fears, and dangers, they could turn to me, and in their adversities and needs I supplied them. They had my counsels to direct them, my reproofs to correct them, and my comforts to support them. Yes, the very sight of me was unspeakable joy and refreshment to their souls. But now the hour has come, and I must go. All the comfort and benefit they had from my presence is ended, and except you make up all this to them another way, what will become of these children when their Father is gone? What will be the case of the poor sheep and tender lambs when the shepherd is struck?”

     And yet, to move and engage the Father’s care and love for them, he subjoins [a fourth] consideration in the very next words, “but they are still in the world.” The world is a sinful, infecting, and unquiet place. And a hard thing it will be for such imperfect creatures to escape the pollutions of it, or if they do, yet the troubles, persecutions, and strong oppositions of it they can’t escape. “Seeing therefore I must leave your children, those from whom the glory is to rise, in the midst of a world where they can neither move backward nor forward without danger of sin or ruin—since this is so, look after them, provide for them, and take special care for them all. Consider who they are and where I leave them. They are your children, left in a strange country; your sheep, in the midst of wolves; your precious treasure, among thieves.”
--- John Flavel

Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

On This Day | March 20
     The Last Day

     Thomas Cranmer had the misfortune of being archbishop of Canterbury for King Henry VIII, but he survived by bending to the wind. He approved the king’s divorces. He condemned the king’s wives when necessary. He renounced the pope when expedient. He took no heroic stands.

     But Thomas grew as the years passed. He composed and compiled The Book of Common Prayer and increasingly loved Reformation theology. When young King Edward died, Thomas sought to deny the throne to fiercely Catholic Mary.

     Mary nevertheless assumed rule, and she forced the archbishop to watch as his two best friends, Latimer and Ridley, were burned at the stake. Thomas was imprisoned and subjected to torture. After months of coercion, the old cleric broke down and signed a series of recantations. Queen Mary then planned a spectacle: Cranmer publicly reading his recantations and reaffirming loyalty to the pope and queen at the church of St. Mary’s.

     On the eve of the spectacle, March 20, 1556, Thomas sat wearily at a small desk in an Oxford jail reading the speech planned for the next morning. His hand slowly gripped a pen, trembled, and started writing a second version.

     The next day was cold and rainswept. Thomas was escorted to St. Mary’s with the two speeches secretly stowed in his shirt. He rose to speak, saying, I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life, and that is setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth.… He declared that his recantations had been signed under duress, and he boldly embraced the pure gospel.

     Guards rushed through the aisles. Thomas was pulled from the pulpit and hustled to the stake. As the fire was lit, the old man thrust his arm into the flames, saying that the hand that had signed the recantations should be the first to burn.

     Thomas Cranmer had waited till the last day of his life to be heroic. But it was the last day that counted.

     When the council members heard Stephen’s speech, they were angry and furious. But Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit. He looked toward heaven, where he saw our glorious God and Jesus standing at his right side.
--- Acts 7:54,55.

On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

Morning and Evening
     Daily Readings / CHARLES H. SPURGEON

          Morning - March 20

     “My beloved.”
--- Song of Solomon 2:8.

     This was a golden name which the ancient Church in her most joyous moments was wont to give to the Anointed of the Lord. When the time of the singing of birds was come, and the voice of the turtle was heard in her land, her love-note was sweeter than either, as she sang, “My beloved is mine and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.” Ever in her song of songs doth she call him by that delightful name, “My beloved!” Even in the long winter, when idolatry had withered the garden of the Lord, her prophets found space to lay aside the burden of the Lord for a little season, and to say, as Esaias did, “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard.” Though the saints had never seen his face, though as yet he was not made flesh, nor had dwelt among us, nor had man beheld his glory, yet he was the consolation of Israel, the hope and joy of all the chosen, the “beloved” of all those who were upright before the Most High. We, in the summer days of the Church, are also wont to speak of Christ as the best beloved of our soul, and to feel that he is very precious, the “chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.” So true is it that the Church loves Jesus, and claims him as her beloved, that the apostle dares to defy the whole universe to separate her from the love of Christ, and declares that neither persecutions, distress, affliction, peril, or the sword have been able to do it; nay, he joyously boasts, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

     O that we knew more of thee, thou ever precious one!

     “My sole possession is thy love;
     In earth beneath, or heaven above,
     I have no other store;
     And though with fervent suit I pray,
     And importune thee day by day,
     I ask thee nothing more.”



          Evening - March 20

     "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church." Ephesians 5:25.

     What a golden example Christ gives to his disciples! Few masters could venture to say, “If you would practise my teaching, imitate my life;” but as the life of Jesus is the exact transcript of perfect virtue, he can point to himself as the paragon of holiness, as well as the teacher of it. The Christian should take nothing short of Christ for his model. Under no circumstances ought we to be content unless we reflect the grace which was in him. As a husband, the Christian is to look upon the portrait of Christ Jesus, and he is to paint according to that copy. The true Christian is to be such a husband as Christ was to his church. The love of a husband is special. The Lord Jesus cherishes for the church a peculiar affection, which is set upon her above the rest of mankind: “I pray for them, I pray not for the world.” The elect church is the favourite of heaven, the treasure of Christ, the crown of his head, the bracelet of his arm, the breastplate of his heart, the very centre and core of his love. A husband should love his wife with a constant love, for thus Jesus loves his church. He does not vary in his affection. He may change in his display of affection, but the affection itself is still the same. A husband should love his wife with an enduring love, for nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” A true husband loves his wife with a hearty love, fervent and intense. It is not mere lip-service. Ah! beloved, what more could Christ have done in proof of his love than he has done? Jesus has a delighted love towards his spouse: He prizes her affection, and delights in her with sweet complacence. Believer, you wonder at Jesus’ love; you admire it—are you imitating it? In your domestic relationships is the rule and measure of your love—“even as Christ loved the church?”

Morning and Evening

Amazing Grace
     March 20

          HIGHER GROUND

     Johnson Oatman Jr., 1856–1922

     I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)

     How sad it is to observe someone who has never lived up to his real potential. It is tragic to watch an individual who has great ability that is never used simply because he or she lacks the incentive to pursue a worthy goal. Similarly, it is disappointing to see a Christian fail to evidence spiritual growth of any kind. Scripture teaches that Christian maturity or Christlikeness is a process in which we advance from one level to the next, step by step. But the secret of such development is to have an intense desire to fulfill the purpose God has for our lives.

     “Higher Ground” has been a favorite with many Christians since it was first published in 1898. It expresses so well this universal desire for a deeper spiritual life, continuing on a higher plane of fellowship with God than we have ever before experienced.

     The author of this stirring text was Johnson Oatman, Jr., a businessman who wrote 3,000 gospel songs in his leisure time. Oatman was ordained by the Methodist Episcopal denomination but never pastored a church. His hymns were always well received, even though he was paid no more than $1.00 for any of his texts.

     The music for “Higher Ground” was composed by Charles H. Gabriel, music editor of the Rodeheaver Publishing Company. He wrote the music and sometimes the texts for more than 8,000 gospel songs, many of which were especially popular in the Billy Sunday-Homer Rodeheaver campaigns from 1910–1920. This song was used often in the great camp meetings of this era and the singing of it would often bring forth shouts of “Glory, hallelujah!”

     I’m pressing on the upward way; new heights I’m gaining every day— Still praying as I’m onward bound, “Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
     My heart has no desire to stay where doubts arise and fears dismay; tho some may dwell where these abound, my prayer, my aim is higher ground.
     I want to live above the world, tho Satan’s darts at me are hurled; for faith has caught the joyful sound, the song of saints on higher ground.
     I want to scale the utmost height and catch a gleam of glory bright; but still I’ll pray till heav’n I’ve found, “Lord, lead me on to higher ground.”
     Chorus: Lord, lift me up and let me stand by faith on heaven’s table-land; A higher plane than I have found—Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.


     For Today: Matthew 6:33; 1 Corinthians 9:24–27; Philippians 3:12–16.

     Reflect on some particular area of life that with God’s enablement could be lived on a higher level. Use this musical prayer to help ---

Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions

A Guide to Fervent Prayer
     A.W. Pink | (1886-1952)


          Chapter 1 Hebrews 13:20, 21

     This prayer contains a remarkable epitome of the entire epistle — an epistle to which every minister of the Gospel should devote special attention. Nothing else is so much needed today as expository sermons on the Epistles to the Romans and to the Hebrews: the former supplies that which is best suited to repel the legalism, antinomianism and Arminianism that are now so rife, while the latter refutes the cardinal errors of Rome and exposes the sacerdotal pretensions of her priests. It provides the Divine antidote to the poisonous spirit of ritualism that is now making such fatal inroads into so many sections of a decadent Protestantism. That which occupies the central portion in this vitally important and most blessed treatise is the priesthood of Christ, which embodies the substance of what was foreshadowed both in Melchizedek and Aaron. In the Book of Hebrews it is shown that His one perfect sacrifice has forever displaced the Levitical institutions and made an end of the whole Judaic system. That all-sufficient oblation of the Lord Jesus made complete atonement for the sins of His people, fully satisfying every legal claim that God’s Law had upon them, thereby rendering needless any efforts of theirs to placate Him. “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). That is to say, Christ has infallibly, irrevocably set apart to the service of God those who have believed, and that by the excellence of His finished work.

          The Resurrection Declares God’s Acceptance of Christ’s Work

     God’s acceptance of Christ’s atoning sacrifice was demonstrated by His raising Christ from the dead and setting Him at the right hand of the Majesty on high. That which characterized Judaism was sin, death, and distance from God — the perpetual shedding of blood and the people shut out from the Divine presence. But that which marks Christianity is a risen and enthroned Savior, who has put away the sins of His people from before the face of God and has secured for them the right of access to Him. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness [liberty] to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:19-22a). Thus we are encouraged to draw nigh to God with full confidence in the infinite merits of Christ’s blood and righteousness, depending entirely thereon. In his prayer, the apostle makes request that the whole of what he had set before them in the doctrinal part of the Epistle might be effectually applied to their hearts. In a brief but comprehensive sentence, Paul prays that there might be worked out in the lives of the redeemed Hebrews every grace and virtue to which he had exhorted them in the previous chapters. We shall consider the object, plea, request, and doxology of this benedictory invocation.

          The Divine Titles Invoked Discriminately

     “The God of peace” is the One to whom this prayer is directed. As I intimated in some of the chapters of my book called Gleanings from Paul: Studies in the Prayers of the Apostle, the various titles by which the apostles addressed the Deity were not used at random, but were chosen with spiritual discrimination. They were neither so poverty - stricken in language as to always supplicate God under the same name, nor were they so careless as to speak with Him under the first one that came to mind. Instead, in their approaches to Him they carefully singled out that attribute of the Divine nature, or that particular relationship that God sustains to His people, which most accorded with the specific blessing they sought. The same principle of discrimination appears in the Old Testament prayers. When holy men of old sought strength, they looked to the Mighty One. When they desired forgiveness, they appealed to “the multitude of his tender mercies.” When they cried for deliverance from their enemies, they pleaded His covenant faithfulness.

          The God of Peace

     I dwelt upon this title “the God of peace” in chapter 4 of Gleanings from Paul: Studies in the Prayers of the Apostle (pp. 41-46), but would like to explicate it further with several lines of thought.

     First, it is a distinctively Pauline title, since no other New Testament writer employs the expression. Its usage here is one of the many internal proofs that he was the penman of this Epistle. It occurs six times in his writings: Romans 15:33, and 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:11; Philippians 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; and here in Hebrews 13:20; “the Lord of peace” is used once in 2 Thessalonians 3:16. It is therefore evident that Paul had a special delight in contemplating God in this particular character. And well he might, for it is an exceedingly blessed and comprehensive one; and for that reason I have done my best, according to the measure of light granted to me, to open its meaning. A little later I shall suggest why Paul, rather than any of the other of the apostles, coined this expression.

     Secondly, it is a forensic title, viewing God in His official character as Judge. It tells us that He is now reconciled to believers. It signifies that the enmity and strife that formerly existed between God and elect sinners is now ended. The previous hostility had been occasioned by man’s apostasy from his Maker and Lord. The entrance of sin into this world disrupted the harmony between heaven and earth, severed communion between God and man, and ushered in discord and strife. Sin evoked God’s righteous displeasure and called for His judicial action. Mutual alienation ensued; for a holy God cannot be at peace with sin, being “angry with the wicked every day” (Ps. 7:11). But Divine wisdom had devised a way whereby rebels could be restored to His favor without the slightest diminution of His honor. Through the obedience and sufferings of Christ full reparation was made to the Law and peace was reestablished between God and sinners. By the gracious operations of God’s Spirit, the enmity that was in the hearts of His people is overcome, and they are brought into loyal subjection to Him. Thereby the discord has been removed and amity created.

     Thirdly, it is a restrictive title. God is “the God of peace” only to those who are savingly united to Christ, for there is now no condemnation to those who are in Him (Rom. 8:1). But the case is far different with those who refuse to bow to the scepter of the Lord Jesus and take shelter beneath His atoning blood. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Notice that it is not that the sinner shall yet fall beneath God’s wrath of the Divine Law, but that he is already under it. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. 1:18). Furthermore, by virtue of their federal relationship to Adam, all his descendants are “by nature the children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3), entering this world as the objects of God’s judicial displeasure. So far from being “the God of peace” to those who are out of Christ, “The LORD is a man of war” (Ex. 15:3). “He is terrible to the kings of the earth” (Ps. 76:12).

          “The God of Peace,” a Gospel Title

     Fourthly, this title, “the God of peace,” is therefore an evangelical one. The good news that His servants are commissioned to preach to every creature is designated “the gospel of peace” (Rom. 10:15). Most appropriately is it so named, for it sets forth the glorious Person of the Prince of peace and His all-sufficient work whereby He “made peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20). It is the business of the evangelist to explain how Christ did so, namely, by His entering into the awful breach that sin had made between God and men, and by having transferred to Himself the iniquities of all who should believe on Him, suffering the full penalty due those iniquities. When the Sinless One was made sin for His people, He came under the curse of the Law and the wrath of God. It is in accordance with His own eternal purpose of grace (Rev. 13:8) that God the Father declares, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow” (Zech. 13:7). Justice having been satisfied, God is now pacified; and all who are justified by faith “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:” (Rom. 5:1).

     Fifthly, it is therefore a covenant title, for all that was transacted between God and Christ was according to everlasting stipulation. “And the counsel of peace shall be between them both” (Zech. 6:13). It had been eternally agreed that the good Shepherd should make complete satisfaction for the sins of His flock, reconciling God to them and them to God. That compact between God and the Surety of His elect is expressly denominated a “covenant of peace,” and the inviolability of the same appears in that blessed declaration, “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee” (Isa. 54:10). The shedding of Christ’s blood was the sealing or ratifying of that covenant, as Hebrews 13:20 goes on to intimate. In consequence thereof, the face of the Supreme Judge is wreathed in smiles of benignity as He beholds His people in His Anointed One.

     Sixthly, this title “the God of peace” is also a dispensational one, and as such, it had a special appeal for the one who so frequently employed it. Though a Jew by birth, and a Hebrew of the Hebrews by training, Paul was called of God to “preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8). This fact may indicate the reason that this appellation, “the God of peace,” is peculiar to Paul; for, whereas the other apostles ministered and wrote principally to the Circumcision, Paul was preeminently the apostle to the Uncircumcision. Therefore he, more than any, would render adoration to God on account of the fact that peace was being preached to those who were afar off as well as to those who were nigh (Eph. 2:13-17). A special revelation was made to him concerning Christ: “For he is our peace, who hath made both [believing Jews and Gentiles] one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition [the ceremonial law, which under Judaism had divided them] between us;. . . for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace [between them]; And that he might reconcile both unto God” (Eph. 2:14-16, brackets mine). Thus, on account of his having received this special revelation, there was a particular propriety in the Apostle to the Gentiles addressing God by this title when making supplication for the Hebrews, just as there was when he employed it in prayer for the Gentiles.

     Lastly, this is a relative title. By this I mean that it is closely related to Christian experience. The saints are not only the subjects of that judicial peace which Christ made with God on their behalf, but they are also the partakers of Divine grace experientially. The measure of God’s peace that they enjoy is determined by the extent to which they are obedient to God, for piety and peace are inseparable. The intimate connection there is between the peace of God and the sanctifying of believers appears both in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, and here in Hebrews 13:20, 21. For in each passage request is made for the promotion of practical holiness, and in each the “God of peace” is supplicated. When holiness reigned over the whole universe, peace prevailed also. There was no war in heaven until one of the chief of the angels became a devil, and fomented a rebellion against the thrice holy God. As sin brings strife and misery, so holiness begets peace of conscience. Holiness is well pleasing to God, and when He is well pleased all is peace. The more this prayer be pondered in detail, and as a whole, the more the appropriateness of its address will appear.

A Guide to Fervent Prayer

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     ==============================      ==============================


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