Category: faith

Hebrews 2, Don’t neglect your salvation.

Psalm 8:4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:

Psalm 22:22 I will declare your name to my people;
    in the assembly I will praise you.

Isaiah 8:17 I will wait for the Lord,
    who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.

18 Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion

 

Hebrews 1, the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

(This was my first teaching the adult Sunday School class some years ago, hence the original power point background.)

My guess is that Aquila and Priscilla taught Apollos, who wrote it down, and Paul added input, especially chapter 13.

Back to the beginning of the introduction:

This is all one sentence in Greek, and together with Genesis 1:1-4 and John 1:1-14 are some of the best opening paragraphs of all literature, and should be taught in all English classes at least once.

Psalm 2:7  I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son;
    today I have become your father.

Deuteronomy 32:43 (ESV) “Rejoice with him, O heavens;
    bow down to him, all gods, (Septuagint and Dead Sea scrolls, this part missing from the Masoretic text) for he avenges the blood of his children]
    and takes vengeance on his adversaries.
He repays those who hate him
    and cleanses his people’s land.”

Could it be that the Masoretic text has omitted this part of the verse to lessen the divine aspect of Jesus? Anyhow, the author reminds the Hebrews that the Dead Sea scrolls  and the Septuagint contain this phrase.

 

 

Genesis 47, Jacob and Pharaoh, Israel settles in Goshen, Joseph enslaves the Egyptians.

Jacob is at this time 130 years old. “My years have been few” is an understatement” but Jacob compares it to the pilgrimage of his grandfather Abraham.

Joseph had been granted absolute power to rule over Egypt. Pharaoh continued to reign over Egypt, so Joseph started to do Pharaoh’s bidding.

But, as we see, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Through taxes on grain produced during the good years, Joseph had amassed all the grain supply for the government. He is now selling it back at a far higher price than he bought the excess harvests over and above the taxed harvests during the good years.

These are the steps to gain total control over the people.

  1.  Establish government monopoly over the food supply.

2. Collect all the money and other valuables in exchange for some of the food.

3. Take control over the livestock and other ways of sustenance.

4. Take over the land in exchange for some of the food.

5. Reduce people to servitude and slavery in exchange for some of the food.

6. Once the famine is over, keep the people as sharecroppers to keep the system stable.

 

Genesis 46, Jacob goes to Egypt, total sixty-six, not counting wives, daughter and grand daughters.

The discrepancy between sixty-six and three score and fifteen is that 9 wives were not counted, nor any of Jacob’s grand daughters, Two of his son’s wives had obviously already passed away.