Category Archives: God’s Word: The Bible

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 25, 2023

Posted under

Family, Friends & Fellowship, God's Word: The Bible, Holy Spirit, Knowing Him, Sharing Our Faith, Wisdom & Guidance

CONVERSATIONS WITH ESHA (1) – IT’S NOT ALL THE SAME

There may be so-called gods both in heaven and on earth, and some people actually worship many gods and many lords. But for us, there is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live. [1 Corinthians 8:5-6 (NLT)]

I recently met Esha while walking and we occasionally stop to chat. Although the bindi (mark) on her forehead told me she is a Hindu and the cross I wear told her I am Christian, our different faiths have not prevented us from talking about God and our beliefs. My younger son’s marriage brought many Hindus into our extended family and I try to understand this complicated religion.

When talking with my Hindu friends like Esha, they often say, “It’s all the same God.” While there is, indeed, only one God, the true God is not the one about whom they speak. Esha, like most Hindus, believes in one supreme god (often called Brahman) who manifests himself in a sort of hierarchy of lesser gods. Different Hindus worship different gods according to their own needs and perspective. One person may worship Ganesha while another Vishnu or Shiva.

Christians, however, believe that there is just one God and, as diverse as Christians are, we all worship the same God. While God is one in essence, He has three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As Father, He is creator of all things, all-powerful and all-knowing; as Son, He is Jesus Christ: God in human form who lived on earth; and, as Holy Spirit, He is invisible, yet present in people and across the world. These three persons, however, are not lesser gods or worshipped apart from one another. While each personage is distinct and fully and completely God, they are simultaneously and eternally just one. Christians worship one true God who eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Although most Hindus see their supreme god as genderless, the lesser gods are viewed as being male, female, androgynous, or even gender-fluid. Although God presented as a man with Jesus’ incarnation, God is a spirit and, as such, has no bodily parts, size, or weight. In spite of speaking of God as “our Father” and referring to Him with male pronouns, God is genderless. That we’re created in God’s image doesn’t refer to His physical characteristics. We are made in God’s image because He endowed us with His spiritual characteristics—we have mind, intellect, emotions, will, and moral capacity.

My friend Esha often speaks of God being everywhere and we agree on that point. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere all at once—throughout the entire universe—from the deepest depths of the ocean to beyond the farthest star known to man! He fills every part of heaven and earth with His holy presence. While there is no place God does not inhabit, Esha and I disagree on exactly how God does that. As a Hindu, she believes that God is in everything and everything is in God. To her, God is some sort of transcendent force or energy. Since this energy inhabits the universe, the universe is God and anything found in the universe is God. As a result, if the universe should cease to exist, so would God.

While Esha and I agree on God’s omnipresence, we disagree on His nature. Rather than  some sort of supernatural force or energy, God is a being! While evidence of God’s character and magnificence is found in His creation, He is as distinct from His creation as a painter is from his painting. God doesn’t need the universe to exist. As its creator, God would exist even if the universe ceased to exist!

There is only one true God, but the gods of faiths like Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Confucianism, and a host of other isms are not Him! That does not mean that we can’t be friends and respectful of one another’s beliefs. Let us remember that the same God made us and, regardless of our beliefs, we all are God’s children. Nevertheless, let’s never fall for the line that “It’s all the same God!” when it isn’t God at all.

And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life. [1 John 5:20 (NLT)]

Copyright ©2023 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

September 11, 2023

Posted under

Bible Stories, Church & Worship, God's Word: The Bible, Obedience, Prayer, Temptation & Sin

GOOD INTENTIONS

Then the rest of the people…joined their leaders and bound themselves with an oath. They swore a curse on themselves if they failed to obey the Law of God as issued by his servant Moses. They solemnly promised to carefully follow all the commands, regulations, and decrees of the Lord our Lord. [Nehemiah 10:28-29 (NLT)]

prairie starIn the years following the exiles’ return to Judah and the rebuilding of the Temple, adherence to the Law grew lax. Knowing how to live a Jewish life depended on knowing the commandments of the Torah but the people had drifted away from God and His word and were committing the same sins that got them exiled! More than fifty years after the Temple’s rebuilding, Ezra arrived in Jerusalem. As a priest and teacher of the law, Ezra was shocked to find such disobedience. He tore his clothes and pulled his hair in sorrow before kneeling in prayer. He led the people in prayers of confession and repentance after which they swore a solemn oath to follow the Lord’s commands.

A decade after Ezra’s arrival, Nehemiah arrived and rebuilt the city’s wall. When the wall was completed, all the men, women, and children (old enough to understand) assembled in the square by the Water Gate. Ezra stood on a high platform and read to them from the Torah. After Ezra read, the Levites went among the people to help them understand each passage. The next morning, after further study, they found directions for the Feast of Booths and immediately reinstituted the celebration. Realizing they’d broken their covenant with God, the people assembled again to hear the Book of the Law. After confessing their sins, they again rededicated themselves to following God and keeping His law. They specifically pledged to faithfully observe both the Sabbath and the seventh Sabbath year, to pay their Temple tax and tithes, and not to neglect the Temple or marry pagans. Their vows were recorded and the document was ratified and signed by the leaders, Levites, and priests.

Good intentions aren’t enough and remaining faithful to God’s word requires daily vigilance. Nehemiah was called back to the Persian court for an unknown amount of time and, in the years between signing that covenant and his return to Jerusalem, the people managed to violate every promise they made. It was during this period that the prophet Malachi rebuked the priests and people for their willful disobedience.

Nevertheless, despite Malachi’s warnings and their good intentions, when Nehemiah returned, he found the people blatantly disregarding God’s Law. Tithes and offerings weren’t being made, provision hadn’t been made for the Levites, trade and work were being done on the Sabbath, intermarriage with pagans had resumed, and wood hadn’t been provided for Temple offerings. Many of the children couldn’t even speak Hebrew! Worse, in direct violation of the Torah, an Ammonite was given a room at the Temple. In his anger at finding God’s house despoiled, Nehemiah cleared the Temple (as Jesus would again nearly 400 years later). “Wasn’t it just this sort of thing that your ancestors did that caused our God to bring all this trouble upon us and our city?” asked Nehemiah. [13:18]

The city’s walls may have protected Jerusalem from attack, but they couldn’t prevent sin from entering the people’s lives. They’d done more than neglect bringing wood for the fire at the altar—they’d allowed the fire in their hearts to die! Despite their good intentions, they took their eyes off God and His word. The flame of faith needs more than good intentions; it needs both fuel and tending. Gen. William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, told his followers “Bear in mind that it is the nature of a fire to go out; you must keep it stirred and fed and the ashes removed.” The exiles had failed to keep the fire going. The book of Nehemiah closes with him making sure there was a supply of wood for the altar. Just as the fire on the altar was never to be allowed to go out, the fire in our hearts must burn continuously, as well!

Take care of giving up your first zeal; beware of cooling in the least degree. Ye were hot and earnest once; be hot and earnest still, and let the fire which once burnt within you still animate you. Be ye still men of might and vigor, men who serve their God with diligence and zeal. [Charles Spurgeon]

This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you. For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. [2 Timothy 1:6-7 (NLT)]

Copyright ©2023 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 31, 2023

Posted under

Bible Stories, God's Promises, God's Word: The Bible, Trusting God

SEVENTY YEARS

This entire land will be a place of ruins and an object of horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years. “Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” declares the Lord, “for their wrongdoing, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation.” … For this is what the Lord says: “When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.” [Jeremiah 25:11-12, 29:10 (NASB)]

leopard lacewing butterflyThe timelines in most Bibles indicate that the first captives were taken to Babylon in 605 BC and the first exiles returned to Judah in 538 BC. No matter how you figure it, the years don’t quite match Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years. Is “close” good enough for God or does He round up? If we are to trust Biblical prophecy, it should be accurate, and this apparent discrepancy is troubling.

First, we must determine exactly what Jeremiah prophesied would last seventy years. Thanks to a variety of theologians far wiser than I, my research led me to see three different overlapping seventy-year prophecies in Jeremiah’s words!

The first prophecy was that Judah and the surrounding nations would serve Babylon for seventy years. The original Hebrew was abad, meaning to work, serve, or labor for. Jeremiah 25:12 refers to seventy years being completed for Babylon rather than in Babylon. The Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire became the most powerful state in the ancient world in 609 BC when they defeated the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit II. For the next seventy years, all of the nations served them until Babylon was conquered by Persia in in 539 BC. The Babylonian kingdom could not withstand God’s promised judgment and, as prophesied by Jeremiah, it fell seventy years after it ascended.

The second of Jeremiah’s prophecies may have been about the Temple. In 25:11, he prophesied that the land would become a chorbah (meaning a ruin or desolation) and a shammah (meaning waste or horror). While I’d interpreted this to mean untended fields, the Babylonians left the poor and uneducated Jews behind to tend to the land. Rather than the fields, the prophet may have been referring to the ruins of Jerusalem and its demolished Temple. Indeed, the city of Jerusalem was desolate and “an object of horror” after the Temple’s destruction in 586 BC. In 516, exactly seventy years after its destruction, the second Temple was restored and there was feasting and celebration at its dedication. The city had returned to life and the second of Jeremiah’s prophecies was fulfilled.

Nevertheless, Jeremiah’s mention of bringing the people back in 29:10 certainly implies deportation. If the third overlapping prophecy is about the exile, how do we reconcile the dates? Let’s start with what we know for sure! The exile began in 605 BC when Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne. The Babylonian army besieged Jerusalem for the first time and returned to Babylon with Temple gold and the first of the exiles. We also know that Persia’s Cyrus issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to Judah in 538 BC.

What we don’t know is what part of the year Cyrus’ proclamation was made, how long preparations took, the date the Jews departed, or when they arrived in Jerusalem. We can, however, make an educated guess! If the proclamation was made toward the end of 538, preparations for departure may not have started until sometime the following year. The Jews weren’t slaves in Babylon—they’d integrated into the economy and many had prospered. Except for the oldest exiles, Babylon was the only home they knew and a decision to resettle in Judah would not have been made quickly or easily. Those who decided to return had homes to sell, businesses to liquidate, possessions to pack, and livestock and provisions to gather. Along with everything else they packed, the exiles brought at least 61,000 gold coins, 6,250 pounds of silver, and 100 robes for the priests. Ezra tells us that Cyrus returned 5,400 articles of gold and silver taken from the Temple; cataloguing and carefully packing those items certainly took time. The exiles’ caravan consisted of 42,360 Judeans, 7,337 servants, and 200 singers (for a grand total of 49,897 people). There were 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys. Regardless of when the proclamation was made, it’s not unreasonable to think that organizing and preparing for their departure may have lasted the better part of a year or more, bringing the departure date well into late 537 or early to mid 536.

The distance from Babylon to Jerusalem is over 500 miles as the crow flies; the exiles, however, weren’t crows and their route was about 900 miles. 80 years later, it took Ezra four months to make that journey (with fewer people, livestock, and supplies) so it probably took this first group at least that long (and probably longer) which easily pushes the timeline for their arrival well into 536! Even though Cyrus’ proclamation was made in 538, the Jewish exile didn’t end until that first group set foot back in Jerusalem which probably was in 536. In ancient times, any part of a year counted as a year and, counting inclusively from 605 to 536, that’s seventy years!

It seems that Jeremiah made three overlapping but equally accurate seventy-year prophecies. The first dealt with Babylon’s seventy years of power, the second was about the Temple’s seventy years of desolation and ruin, and the third concerned the Judean exiles’ years away from Jerusalem. As it turns out, “close” isn’t good enough for God and He doesn’t round His numbers! Jeremiah’s prophecy was right on the money!

He took into exile those who had escaped from the sword to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept the Sabbath until seventy years were complete. [2 Chronicles 36:20-21 (NASB)]

Copyright ©2023 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 28, 2023

Posted under

Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, God's Word: The Bible, Temptation & Sin, Wisdom & Guidance

BOOMERANGS AND BOMBS

The man who sets a trap for others will get caught in it himself. Roll a boulder down on someone, and it will roll back and crush you. [Proverbs 26:27 (TLB)]

Because the wicked are unfair, their violence boomerangs and destroys them. [Proverbs 21:7 (TLB)]

coyoteEven without knowing what a petard is, we probably know that when someone gets “hoisted by his own petard,” he’s been foiled by his own scheme. When Shakespeare’s audience heard this phrase spoken by Hamlet in 1600, they knew a petard was a bomb. In the bard’s day, hoisted had more than one meaning. Along with lifted, it meant removed or taken out. Taken literally, Hamlet’s phrase meant that his enemy would be blown up by his own bomb!

Proverbs has much to say about evil schemes backfiring and, when reading them, I often think of the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote. This hapless canine continually plotted ways to capture the noisy Roadrunner and he probably holds the record for having the most schemes backfire. For example, when he dropped an anvil on the bird from a hot air balloon, the balloon rapidly lost altitude and sunk to the ground just in time for the anvil to land on the coyote’s head. When he tried to capture the bird using a boomerang covered in glue, Coyote ended up stuck to the weapon when it returned to him. He literally was the one hoisted by his own petard when he mistakenly tossed a grenade’s pin at the bird rather than the grenade in his paw. While the bird safely whizzed down the road, the schemer was blown into the air when the grenade exploded.

It’s not just fiction’s villains and Looney Tune characters whose devious plans backfire—we see plenty of petard hoisting in Scripture. When Israel’s King Ahab and Judah’s King Jehoshaphat joined forces against the king of Aram, Ahab tried to defeat the prophecy that he’d die in battle by disguising himself so he wouldn’t be recognized. To ensure his ploy would succeed, he put a bull’s eye on Jehoshaphat by insisting he wear his royal robes. Told only the kill Ahab, Aram’s soldiers mistakenly chased after Jehoshaphat but stopped when they discovered their error. Although Jehoshaphat remained unharmed, Ahab’s ruse backfired when he was fatally wounded by a random arrow.

Jealous of Daniel’s government position, King Darius’ officials plotted to have the pious Jew arrested and put to death for praying to Jehovah. But, after Daniel emerged from the lions’ den unscathed, those schemers (and their families) met their fate in that same lions’ den! When Moab’s King Balak hired Balaam to curse Israel, his evil plan backfired when Israel was blessed and Moab cursed! When Haman’s wickedness was revealed in the book of Esther, the evil man really was hoisted up and impaled on the 75-foot sharpened pole he erected to kill Esther’s cousin Mordecai.

Many years ago, my son and his wife gave us a boomerang. In theory, when thrown correctly, a boomerang flies in a circular path before returning to its starting point, but the only way that boomerang returned was if the dog brought it back to us! Evil plans, harmful schemes, and spiteful behavior, however, have a way of boomeranging and we don’t have to be Wile E. Coyote to have our maliciousness backfire or explode. If we wrong others or scheme against them, gossip, betray friendships, sabotage other people’s plans, or start pointing fingers, our strategies may well return to us. Remember the old phrase, “What goes around, comes around”? While that may not have been true for our boomerang, it appears to be true for malice, animosity, and evil plans.

The wicked man conceives an evil plot, labors with its dark details, and brings to birth his treachery and lies; let him fall into his own trap. May the violence he plans for others boomerang upon himself; let him die. [Psalm 7:14-16 (TLB)]

God has made the sins of evil men to boomerang upon them! He will destroy them by their own plans. Jehovah our God will cut them off. [Psalm 94:23 (TLB)]

Copyright ©2023 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 24, 2023

Posted under

Bible Stories, Church & Worship, God's Word: The Bible, Prayer

THE REST OF THE STORY (THE LORD’S PRAYER – 2)

Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen! [Psalm 41:13 (NLT)]

Praise the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does such wonderful things. Praise his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen! [Psalm 72:18-19 (NLT)]

The version of what we call “The Lord’s Prayer” in Luke 11 and the one we find in Matthew 6 are somewhat different. The shorter version in Luke was given to His disciples (probably on the Mt. of Olives) while the one in Matthew was taught to the crowd gathered on the hill by the Sea of Galilee as part of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s quite likely that Jesus gave this prayer example several times during his three-year ministry, each time with slightly different wording. Both versions, however, are probably shorter than the prayer most Protestants recite today. Missing is the phrase, “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen.” Because this phrase was not found in the two earliest Greek manuscripts of Matthew’s gospel, most modern Bible translations do not include it. Although found in later manuscripts, most Biblical scholars believe it to be a later liturgical addition to the original prayer. So, how did we come to pray this prayer in its longer form?

That those additional words were not found in the earliest New Testament manuscripts doesn’t necessarily mean Jesus never said them; after all, the gospels don’t include everything our Lord did or said. If the additional words did not come from Jesus, they probably came from any one of several psalms, 1 Chronicles 29:11, or some other Jewish prayer. Jesus never said this was the only prayer to be said nor did He tell His followers to stop saying the prayers they learned in the temple. The Apostles and early church were Jewish and Jewish prayers often ended with what is called a “doxology.” Meaning to speak glory and praise, a doxology is a short, hymn-like verse exalting the glory of God. It’s understandable that this prayer, taught to Jewish disciples by a Jewish Jesus, took on some of its Hebrew heritage and flavor with the addition of this doxology.

The version of the Lord’s Prayer with which most of us are familiar comes from a Christian manual written before 300 AD. Bearing neither date nor author, some scholars believe it was written as early as 65 to 80 AD. The only complete copy has two titles: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles and The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles. Known now as the Didache, meaning teaching, it is not part of the Biblical canon because it is not considered God-breathed or divinely inspired. Nevertheless, as a sort of handbook for the early Christians, it gives us valuable insight into the early church. Beginning with a statement of faith, the Didache may be the first Christian catechism. Its second section describes how to perform rituals like Baptism and the Eucharist and gives instructions to recite the Lord’s prayer three times a day. This direction reflects Christianity’s Jewish heritage since Jewish men were supposed to pray the Amidah three times a day. The Didache’s third section covers ministry and dealing with traveling teachers while the fourth includes several passages from the New Testament and reminds believers that Jesus will return.

As famed radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know the rest of the story.”  As for me, knowing the rest of the story—that the Lord’s Prayer was regularly prayed by the earliest followers of Jesus—makes it an even more meaningful prayer to say.

Neither pray you as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, thus pray you: Our Father, Who are in heaven, hallowed be Your name; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth; Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debt, as we also forgive our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; For Yours is the power and the glory for ever and ever. Pray this three times in the day. [Didache 8:3-11]

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. [1 Chronicles 29:11 (NLT)]

Copyright ©2023 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.
Standard

Posted by

Posted on

August 17, 2023

Posted under

Bible Stories, God's Plan, God's Word: The Bible, Holy Spirit, Miracles

THE APOSTLE PAUL (Part 2)

Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you. I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed. [Galatians 1:8-9 (NLT)]

chickoryIn his letter to the Galatians, Paul refutes the message of those who preached that adherence to Jewish laws was required of all believers. His are harsh judgmental words from a man who never even walked with Jesus on earth. Why was Paul’s Gospel the definitive one rather than the one the Galatians heard preached by the Judaizers? For the first two chapters of his letter, Paul explains the source of his apostolic authority.

Paul clearly states the divine origin of his message in verse 12: “I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.” Saying that he came to the Gospel neither by his own understanding nor by another person’s teaching, Paul claimed his message came from a divine source—the Lord Himself! Indeed, nothing but divine intervention can explain Paul’s incredible conversion from a fanatical persecutor of Christians into an equally fanatical evangelist for Christ’s church! No one with Paul’s background and personality could have been convinced and converted by anyone other than the Lord! He is the poster boy for the Holy Spirit’s transforming power!

To emphasize that he didn’t get the gospel from any man, Paul explained that he spent three years in Arabia after his conversion before returning to Damascus and finally going to Jerusalem to meet Peter. Strict chronology seemed unimportant to Scripture’s writers and, without any punctuation or breaks between words, sentences, paragraphs, or chapters in the original writing, it often is unclear. As best as scholars can figure, Paul’s time in Arabia probably began in Acts 9 between verses 19 and 20. Since any part of a year was considered a year, Paul spent anywhere from as little as 14 months to as much as 36 months in Arabia.

In Paul’s day, Arabia referred to Nabatea, a large and prosperous kingdom east of Galilee extending as far north as Damascus and beyond Petra to the south. When considering those three years, I used to picture a confused Saul retreating into the Nabatean desert to study Scripture and try to reconcile the Christian-hating, Gentile-detesting Pharisee he’d been with the Christ-loving, Gentile-welcoming evangelist he became! I was wrong!

Although it resulted in temporary blindness, Saul’s conversion didn’t result in confusion; meeting Jesus brought clarity to the man. From the moment of his conception, God had been preparing Saul to meet Jesus on that road to Damascus! When that happened, everything he’d learned in the Hebrew Scriptures finally made complete sense! The Apostle has been described as a man who wouldn’t learn to swim by reading about it. He’d jump in the deep end and start paddling and that’s exactly what Saul did following his conversion. Acts tells us he “immediately began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues.” [9:20]

To further emphasize that his message did not come from men, Paul told the Galatians that, when he finally went to Jerusalem (after his time in Arabia), he stayed only two weeks and met just Peter and James. It was some fourteen years after his conversion that Paul went to Jerusalem and finally met with the leaders of the church. At that time, he shared with them the message he was preaching to the Gentiles “to make sure that we were in agreement…and the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching.” [Galatians 2:2,6] Independent of the other Apostles, Paul preached the very same gospel they did because, like them, he learned it from Jesus! Paul’s apostolic authority came from God Himself!

“Who are you, lord?” I asked. “And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. Now get to your feet! For I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant and witness. Tell people that you have seen me, and tell them what I will show you in the future.’” [Acts 26:15-16 (NLT)]

Copyright ©2023 jsjdevotions. All rights reserved.