Genesis 38, Judah and Tamar, Onan’s sin, the scarlet thread.

Not the most inviting country setting.

The sin of Onan was not that he spilled his seed on the ground, but that he disobeyed God. It has often been misunderstood.

The scarlet thread is meaningful through the Bible. Another time it was used as a signal was in Joshua 2:21 “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.”So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

Probably the best known Bible passage  is found is Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

And the color worn by Roman Catholic Cardinals is scarlet).

Once praised by Nancy Pelosi’s father, The statue of Jackson and lee removed under cover of darkness, a Limerick

Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee

Nancy’s father did praise mightily.

Times indeed now have changed,

PC crowd more deranged.

The ANTIFA creates a melee.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s father, the late former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., once lauded Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at a monument dedication ceremony in his city over half a century ago.

According to The Baltimore Sun, the statue, first erected in 1948, included a dedication ceremony of prominent city politicians like Pelosi’s father who led the municipality at the time.

At the dedication, D’Alesandro said of the monument, “Today, with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions.”

That was then,

this is now

The statue  was torn down and removed by Baltimore authorities under cover of darkness Tuesday night Aug 22 -23

 

Switching from coal to pellets to save the environment?

One way governments have been trying to combat climate change is to subsidize renewable energy such as wind, solar and biomass. Wind and solar makes some sense since they do not emit any CO2, but biomass?

Ever since the people began to use fire to cook their food, biomass has been the  fuel of choice. In forested areas wood was preferred, but if there were no trees grass was used, and if there was no grass people used and still use dried cow dung. It is used to cook the meal of the day in an open fire, a primitive stove or a clay oven. It is very polluting, and the fertilizing properties of cow dung is lost, depriving the land of replenishing the ground. The environment would benefit immensely by switching to electric. The fastest and least expensive way to electrify developing countries is to build coal fired plants. The only benefit of cow dung is that it is locally produced, and transportation is one of the hindering factors for modernizing.

The lawmakers in the British parliament are very concerned about Climate Change, and to that end they legislated a de-carbonization project. The DRAX group jumped at the opportunity.

DRAX  is not a take off of Drax the destroyer, it is actually worse.

They used to burn coal. Now they burn biomass.

And it is dirtier.

“emissions of particulates from the site [DRAX] were 897 tons last year compared to 382 tons in 2008 when they were still burning coal.”

“The power station uses about seven million tons of biomass or wood pellets a year, much of it imported, particularly from the US”

“Last year, DRAX received subsidies of £558 million for its biomass operation, a figure that is expected to rise to around £800 million this year as the third biomass unit comes on stream.”

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/08/18/drax-power-station-biomass-emissions-dangerous-worse-than-coal-claim-environmentalists/

So they switched from coal to wood pellets and subsidized it to the cost of about 100 dollars a ton, and since they are producing electricity it is running at less than 40% efficiency. It would be far better to burn them in a cast iron wood/pellet stove, and burn clean at about 80% efficiency. No subsidies needed. Wood pellets or wood briquettes provide a wonderful heat, and it works even if the electricity is gone in an ice storm. And it burns much cleaner than coal or improperly dried wood.

Genesis 36, Esau’s descendants and the rulers of Edom.

Edom, the hill country of Seir, is Southwest of the Dead sea, a dry near desert like land, but with winter rains and occasional rain at other times.

The descendants of Esau are well documented from Egyptian sources that corroborate the biblical account.

 

 

Genesis 35, The birth of Benjamin and Rachel’s death, Altar at Bethel, Jacob’s sons.

1 John 5:21  Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

 

From Wikipedia:  After an attack on Joseph’s Tomb and its subsequent takeover by Arabs ceded to the Palestinian Authority after the Oslo accord, hundreds of residents of Bethlehem and the Aida refugee camp, led by the Palestinian Authority-appointed governor of Bethlehem, Muhammad Rashad al-Jabari, attacked Rachel’s Tomb. They set the scaffolding that had been erected around it on fire and tried to break in. The IDF dispersed the mob with gunfire and stun grenades, and dozens were wounded. In the following years, the Israeli-controlled site became a flashpoint between young Palestinians who hurled stones, bottles and firebombs and IDF troops, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

At the end of 2000, when the second intifada broke out, the tomb came under attack for 41 days. Fatah operatives and members of the Palestinian security services who were responsible for curbing militant activity against Israelis actively participated in it. In May 2001, fifty Jews found themselves trapped inside by a firefight between the IDF and Palestinian Authority gunmen. In March 2002 the IDF returned to Bethlehem as part of Operation Defensive Shield and remained there for an extended period of time. In September 2002, the tomb was incorporated on the Israeli side of the West Bank barrier and surrounded by a concrete wall and watchtowers.

 

Who rebuked David Duke and who flew the rebel flag?

How racist was once David Duke?

Yes,  Trump gave resounding rebuke.

But Bill Clinton, Al Gore

showed their symbols galore.

Their rebel flag flown was no fluke.

In a 1991 CNN interview, Donald Trump remarked that he hated seeing support for David Duke because it shows there’s a lot of “anger” and “hostility in this country” and said President George H.W. Bush “had to come out against him.”

On the other hand this was Bill Clinton and Al Gore’s campaign flag in 1992

Who is the racist?

It is true the flag was not official Clinton campaign material. It was only used in the Southern states, and so they could deny any connection, even knowing about it in the Northern states, Targeted marketing.

The Great Eclipse of 2017 and Trump voters.

“It has been dubbed the Great American Eclipse, and along most of its path, there live almost no black people,” Ristroph wrote in a mind-numbing, 4,500-word post in The Atlantic.

Boston Globe added this map, showing the path of totality goes almost exclusively through counties that voted for Trump.

But nearly the whole country voted for Trump according to this map.

The map shows the great divide of the country. Republicans are in the majority in rural areas, Democrats dominate the cities, especially the inner cities.

People living in rural areas are different from people dwelling in inner cities in many ways, but I will mention only one thing, their attitude to Climate Change.

Rural people see the sun rise, watch the clouds form, marvel at the tremendous stability of the weather in spite of storms, tornadoes, hail, snow, rain and floods. It is all coming from the sun, and has nothing to do with increasing CO2. Things were worse during the dust bowl years, max temperatures were higher, hurricanes worse, and so on.

They will be vindicated when they experience the sudden drop intemperature during the eclipse. It is all from the sun.

Not so the inner city dwellers. They experience global warming. The heat from the street and the stench from diesel engines are enough to make believers of them. In addition they rarely if ever experience a sunrise and a sunset, and the pollution and decaying buildings convince them global warming is real.

For a city dweller all Climate Change is man made. By en large they do not know about the Ice Age and all the climate changes that has taken place since then, they believe this is unprecedented and disaster looms.

To them everything they see is man-made and even we cannot fix the weather we can sure fix the earth’s climate since we made this mess in the first place.

Paul’s letter to Philemon, slavery and redemption.

The Apostle Paul wrote this short letter to Philemon in A.D. 60. Philemon was a slave owner and Onesimus  was a runaway slave. Paul was in prison in Rome, and somehow Onesimus had a conversion to Christianity after running away.

Paul is sending this letter to Philemon together with the letter to the church of Colossi using Tychius and Onesimus as the letter carriers!

Colossians 4:7 Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. 8 I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. 9 He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here.

Senders are Paul and Timothy!

Philemon had the right to punish Onesimus and recapture him as a slave, but because of Paul’s faith in the redemptive powers of Christ he is sending him anyway.

Paul promises to pay back the money Onesimus stole from Philemon when he ran away. This is how business between Christians should be conducted!

This is just a short letter from one man to another. So why is it in the Bible? Paul had written many other letters to individuals and none of them made it into the Bible. (Paul’s letter to Titus was really for the church in Crete which was being formed and for universal use on qualifications for leadership in churches.)

It is my belief this short letter is included in the Bible is because of slavery. Paul’s co-writer Timothy writes in 1 Timothy 1:7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. 8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

If Philemon had recaptured Onesimus he would have been a slave trader, and this letter is in the Bible to affirm that slave trading is out of bounds to Christians.

On the other hand Muhammad, the prophet of Islam Owned, bought and sold slaves, making him a slave trader, and slave trading has been the tradition of Muslims through the ages. Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in the 1950’s, and Mauritius abolished it in 2007. As of now there is no country that has slavery as an official policy, but world-wide human trafficking is on the rebound.

What we need is a revival among followers of Christ and an awakening among people to turn to true Christian values