Tag: Christianity

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

The sign of Jonah, the great eclipse of 2017 and the tearing down of statues.

Jonah was prophet during the reign of the second King Jeroboam (c.786–746 BC)

2 Kings 14:25 He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

Gath Hepher is only a few miles north of Nazareth,  in Galilee.  Jonah was a prophet coming out of Galilee. Yet the Pharisees said to Nicodemus in John 7:52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”

Jonah offered himself willingly, and in so doing became a type of Christ

This is the sign of Jonah. He was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah in a way was dead, buried and resurrected, a type of Christ.

Something had happened to prepare Nineveh, a Solar eclipse.

The path of totality of the Bur-Sagale Eclipse, which is one of the most famous solar eclipses in ancient history, occurred just north of Nineveh on 15th June, 763BC during the reign of King Ashur-Dan III of Assyria, and was recorded for posterity in the Assyrian Eponym Canon – a series of cuneiform tablets discovered in the 19th century.

 

 

Even though Jonah obeyed God and did His will, he was still full of hate towards the Ninevehites, remembering all the evil they had done to the Israelites during the ages.

God still provides a lesson for Jonah.

So God has compassion on children and animals. The Ninevehites repented after the sign of total eclipse, and then Jonah came after God had made the people receptive.

On Monday is the first day of Elul, the last secular month in th Jewish calendar. Elul is the month of last harvest, final gathering and repentance as preparation for the new year. The eclipse of April 8, 2024 is on the first day of Nisan, the beginning of the sacred new year in the Jewish calendar.

One cannot help but notice the two total eclipses form a cross right where the three mighty rivers Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio rivers combine into the lower Mississippi. They combine right over the New Madrid earthquake area.

Is this a sign from God mentioned in Isaiah 18:7 “At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Almighty from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
    from a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech,
    whose land is divided by rivers— the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the Lord Almighty.” ?

The Mississippi rever divides the United States into “West of the Mississippi” and “East of the Missisippi” We normally think of the Mason-Dixon line as the division between the North and the South, but another division would be the Ohio River and the Missouri river.

Right now there is much hate in the world. Monuments that have been standing for thousands of years are being destroyed.

Screen grab from CNN video showing the giant Buddhas of Bamyian being destroyed by the Taliban on March 12, 2001.

 

 

 

 

The Buddhas of Bamiyan (Persian: بت های باميان – bott-hâye Bāmiyān) were 4th- and 5th-century[2] monumental statues of standing buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan

Not to be outdone the Islamic State blows up tomb of prophet Jonah in Iraq Nineveh,July-25-2014.jpg

The tomb was the Muslims tomb of Jonah, not the Jews tomb of Jonah.

Yes, Jonah is mentioned in the Quran, Sura 37: 139 – 148 And Jonah was one of the messengers. When he fled to the laden boat. He gambled and lost. Then the fish swallowed him, and he was to blame. Had he not been one of those who praised. He would have stayed in its belly until the Day they are raised.5. Then We threw him into the wilderness, and he was sick. And We made a gourd tree grow over him. Then We sent him to a hundred thousand, or more. And they believed, so We gave them enjoyment for a while.

ISIS wants to change history and have it begin with them.

When Israel ceded the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority one of the first things the Palestinians did was to destroy Joseph’s tomb.

Slide15

Jihad: Joseph’s tomb was destroyed.

Old history now null and void.

In the p;ace where he laid

a new Mosque is displayed.

The fruits of Jihad: I’m annoyed.

 

This week confederate statues are being destroyed.

Have we not learned anything from history?

 

 

The Statue of Robert E. Lee, revered in history, now history?

The Statue of Robert E. Lee,

A symbol of South history:

FDR praised his name.

All the Democrats fame;

They try to erase memory.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is considered an enduring hero of the left, particularly for the New Deal. Few would say he was an avatar of white supremacy. Yet, he spoke at the dedication of the  Robert E. Lee statue in Dallas back in 1936 — and what he said about the general then is something that liberals everywhere would like to erase.

“I am very happy to take part in this unveiling of the statue of General Robert E. Lee,” FDR said at the dedication ceremony, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“All over the United States, we recognize him as a great leader of men, as a great general. But, also, all over the United States I believe that we recognize him as something much more important than that. We recognize Robert E. Lee as one of our greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.”

Things change. What once was the proud symbol of the Democratic South is now considered repugnant by people wanting to erase history, and in so doing repeat it.

Genesis 14, Abram rescues Lot, gives tithes to Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God.

That was a lot of information about a very minor tribal warfare! But Lot was captured.

This was a long pursuit, all the way to north of Damascus!

Back to Salem, which means “peace”. It is now called Jerusalem.

Melchizedek came out of nowhere! He is mentioned in the Psalms:

But the best description of him is found in Hebrews 7:

Now back to Genesis 14:

Genesis 9, the rainbow, the Noahic covenant and “the curse of Ham”.

Yes, the days of Noah are referred to in the New Testament, but even Isaiah waxes eloquent about the promises God made.

The rainbow is not mentioned much in the Bible, but Ezekiel mentions it in his famous vision in chapter 1 of Ezekiel, a vision which resembles a modern day helicopter invasion. (An end times vision?)

And the rainbow displays its promise again, Aug 3, 2017 over the White House. It means different things for different administrations.

doublerainbow

Then in Revelation the rainbow is mentioned again,

Ham saw Noah’s nakedness, but the curse is on Ham’s son, Canaan, not Ham himself!

It is from the Muslim literature and oral tradition we find “The curse of Ham”. It is not found in the Bible (or the Torah), nor is it found in the Quran.

Ka’b al –Ahbar (ca 652 A.D) wrote that Ham lay with his wife and gave birth to a black boy and girl. He claimed they were not his. They are, his wife responded “for the curse of your father is upon us.” The story goes on, and all blacks come out from four black children of Ham. Wahb ibn  Munabbih (ca 730 A.D.) wrote that Ham was a fine white man, but because of his Father’s curse God Almighty changed his skin color to black. He then became the father of all the black people. In the story collection “One Thousand and One Nights, A.K.A Arabian Nights” it is also found: Noah blessed Shem and Cursed Ham. (Source: The curse of Ham. By David M. Goldenberg)

 

 

 

Genesis 4. Cain and Abel.

 

Sounds pretty good to me. Cain worked the soil, and with the sweat of his brow he gave thanks to the Lord for it. Notice it does not say first fruits, only some of the fruits of the soil.

Abel offered the firstborn of his flock.

It takes faith to do the right thing. think of it! To sacrifice the firstborn!

 

And God ordained it so, that the acceptable perfect offer is the firstborn of the flock of sheep or goats. This got later codified in Leviticus.

This is a little jewel from the story of Gideon.

Slide33

The expression “my brothers keeper” is used often, but how many really know where the expression is coming from in this increasingly Bible illiterate world.

Yet, in the New Testament, after Jesus there is even better things promised.

Where is Nod? Here is a map from 1702. Nod is what is now Iran.

And with Abel dead and Cain gone, Adam and Eve started over.

 

Genesis 3. The Fall of Man.

Why the serpent? It has since the fall of man become the symbol of sin and Moses used this symbol during the Hebrews wandering in the desert when a disease broke out.

And Jesus himself used this symbol to explain its messianic and redemptive value.

And the serpent figures most prominently in Revelation, the last book of the New Testament.

Back to Genesis 3:

Satan quotes God, but changes one vital detail. Eve corrects the snake, but adds one touch.

 

Satan’s approach is always the same, repeated in the temptation of Jesus 40 days after His baptism:

The approach is: First flatter and appeal to vanity. If that doesn’t work, quote scripture to test God’s promises. Finally, if that doesn’t work, promise power and authority.

Fig leaves are lousy. They break very easily and does not cover well.

No, Adam and Eve did not die physically, but they both died spiritually, their perfect communication  and trust in God was broken.

Yes, the human mitochondria and RNA tend to suggest we all come from one mother.

And people have been dreaming of finding the tree of life ever since.

 

Genesis 2. Adam and Eve.

 

And this is the reason we are having a seven day week, starting with what we call Sunday, or more precisely Saturday evening after sunset, and ending the seventh day with a day of no creative work. This is called sabbath.

This is the second name of God, the covenantal name Jehovah, or Jahwe.

Jews and Christians have Jahwe or Jehovah as the main name for God, since Elohim just means “the strongest strong one” and is valid for any God. This is where Islam parts from Judeo – Christian belief, not accepting Jehovah, only Allah, (and 98 more names for God, the hundredth being known only to Allah himself.)

 

We are still in the early days of a functioning eco-system, and rains have not started yet. Yet there is plenty of water on the earth, the earth was formed before the sun was turned on. Yes, water was created before the luminaries.

So, the question is, where was the garden of Eden?

The river Euphrates and Tigris are mentioned, so the simplest guess is it must be between the two rivers.

And indeed, some early map puts the garden downstream of Babylon, a vast marshy land with meandering rivers between Euphrates and Tigris. On the map below the lower river is Euphrates.

But, the Muslims have another explanation, placing Eden nearer the Red Sea, this time in Ethiopia and Sudan.

And they place importance on Pishon and Gihon, being the Blue Nile and Atbarah river

The problem with this interpretation is manifold, Eden is East of the promised land, not south, and Euphrates is the most prominent of all rivers in the middle east.

So this will place Eden south of Babylon. An alternate location, is near the beginning of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris,

Tanotherhis interpretation is favored by the Kurds, a proud people living in Eastern Turkey and Syria, Northern Iraq and North West Iran. They are very proud of being the cradle of civilization.

The garden of Eden is still a picture of ideal conditions, peace and prosperity.

Only one restriction. I see trouble ahead. More to follow.

It means Adam named all the birds and beasts as he encountered them. His offspring continued the process, and it is still going on.

I have chosen to take this description spiritually. Feel free to take it literally, remembering, this is easy for God to do, compared to the rest of Creation.

Yes, Jesus himself took the spiritual lesson and applied it to mankind. God’s idea is, one man, one woman, one lifetime. This indeed would abolish a whole host of diseases, not to mention the hurt that comes from breakups, betrayals and falsehood.