Technically it was Jesus’ half brothers, since Jesus was adopted by Joseph.
From Leviticus 12:3 And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. It was an absolute command, and had to be performed on the eighth day, even if that was a Sabbath.
Five thousand men, not counting women and children.
Twelve baskets left over after all were satisfied!
The Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias) is about 8 miles wide at its widest point.
“I am, not fear ye”
Some comments on “eat of my flesh and drink of my blood.” Jesus explained that the Word was his flesh, but he didn’t explain what the blood meant. The disciples knew from Genesis 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Jesus was clearly pointing to the future complete atonement on the Cross, but this was before the Cross, so how were they to get it? It did not make sense until fifty days after his death, burial and resurrection when the Holy Spirit came “like a mighty wind”.
Then it became clear that His flesh symbolizes the word of God and his blood symbolizes His sacrifice on the cross and saving us from all our sin.
Alone in the world the New World Translation (Jehova’s Witnesses) claims that “the word was a god”. But then again, JW do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as one person of the triune God.
Tekna – teachable ones, not just sons
Verse 16 is very interesting. The second half reads in Greek “και χαριν αντι χαριτος” which literally translates “and grace instead of grace” King James translation reads “and grace for grace, which lost a lot in the translation. The first “grace” is in the accusative, the second in the genitive. A better translation would be ” and proactive, dynamic grace instead of grace more like mercy. The Old Testament concept of grace is more like mercy, the New Testament concept of grace is best expressed in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Isaiah 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Notice the world “sin” is singular.
There are many songs on “the Lamb of God”
Here is an example of the importance that the sin is in singular.
Proverbs 3:11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: 12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. (KJV)
Again, the new covenant is mentioned.
This is the fifth and final warning in Hebrews. Let us review them:
It always helps with a song to wake up to in the morning.
This warning is real and echoes the words of Jesus
It is the confession that is the key to building the church.
In this chapter we got four more “let us” to encourage and admonish us.
Here let me interject a story from my childhood. In Sweden at that time we had Christianity as a subject first thing in the morning every day in the lower grades. My younger brother was in first grade, the teacher always started with Genesis, and had come to this passage in the Bible. I was in middle school in town, and his elementary school was local. Anyhow, upon hearing the story he exclaimed “It is the same with my big brother, he eats and eats and is never getting any fatter” The story spread from our village to town, and I got yet another nickname.
It was an early dream of Climate change.
Climate Change is “best” solved by taxation of the abundance, but unlike today that abundance was not to be spent immediately, but be put in storage for the lean, dry years.
The famine is recorded in hieroglyphs, like in the tablet below.
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
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.
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.
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,
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.
Think about that!
Or, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (KJV)
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:
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 