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I had a very animated professor at Bible college by the name of Dr. Emert. He taught us about the danger
of blaspheming God’s Son by claiming that He is anything less than God. He told how for some the earth
opened, for some fire fell from Heaven, and for some floods came. He told us that he had one response when
false cults come to proclaim their heresy. "I have just paid off my house and enjoy it very much. If you are going
to continue to spout evil doctrine that will anger the God of the universe, at least get off of my porch!
We live in a strange community, where it is not uncommon to see bumper stickers that say things like, I am Light, or Due to circumstances within our control Armageddon has been cancelled. But the one that really gets me is the one that reads simply, I AM. Thank God, the I AM doesn’t drive a VW van. If the guy driving that van has numbered our days, we’re in trouble. Somehow I don’t think he was the one that hung the stars in space and sustains all things by his word. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
"A classic type, common to many Renaissance paintings is the ’student.’ A favored follower, a protege or disciple, is always portrayed as very youthful, long-haired and clean-shaven...Throughout the Renaissance, artists portray St. John in this fashion. He is the ’disciple Jesus loved’ ....Only a colossal fool would paint a heresy where the monks could study it day after day. While no evidence suggest that Leonardo held the church in contempt, proof abounds that he was no fool." (Elizabeth Lev, "The Real Leonardo")
John 14:6 – “Jesus told him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.’”
This is so hard for prideful people to accept.
Elaine Pagels (author of The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ) says she had an epiphany while reading the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas during graduate school, particularly this passage: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” According to Pagels, “The strength of this saying is that it does not tell us what to believe but challenges us to discover what lies hidden within ourselves….” This Gnostic perspective essentially says that salvation is within ourselves, and that it is in a process of self-discovery that we find redemption.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a different perspective: “The fact that Jesus Christ died is more important than the fact that I shall die, and the fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the sole ground of my hope that I, too, shall be raised on the Last Day. Our salvation is “external to us.” I find no salvation in my life history, but only in the history of Jesus Ch...
He could have turned around
A 20-year-old man was arrested by the Omaha Police on the “suspicion of robbery and giving police false information,” which was one of many wrong turns for this young man. His first wrong turn was the desire to make some quick, easy money for whatever reason. His second wrong turn was to act on this impulse.
According to the newspaper1, the police reported, a 27-year-old Omaha woman stopped for gasoline at a convenience shop, early a week ago Thursday, when the young man walked up, grabbed her and tried to yank her purse away, which was wrapped around her arm. Of course he knocked her down, then took off running, heading northbound on 90th Street.
That was his third wrong turn, for he ran right pass the police precinct at 90th and Grant Streets, where two peace officers happened to be standing outside. The newspaper reported police spokesman Don Savage saying, "It’s nice when the suspects come to us. It makes our job a lot easier."
The two officers jumped into their cruiser and caught the suspect near 90th and Ohio Streets, where they arrested him. Then he made his last wrong turn in this situation when he lied to the police.
Obviously, his wrong turns, or poor decisions, made his situation poorer and his life more complicated.
This young fellow allowed his evil desire to drag him away to commit this misdemeanor, once he committed his crime the evil desire will probably result in jail time. If he doesn’t serve time in the Douglas County Correctional Center, at least many hours of community service and a hefty fine.
It’s unfortunate the young man didn’t follow the sensible advice of Psalm 34:14, which says, “Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”
He could have saved himself and his community a lot of grief by turning away from this wrong. If he decided to volunteer 1,000 hours of his free time to worthy community organizations and gladly paid taxes from the income of honest work, that would have been better. His community and he would have experienced prosperity and peace, which he originally was seeking deep down.
We can’t lord it over this fellow for who of us have not allowed our sinful desires to lead into wrong, which hurt us more than helped us, made us poorer rather than richer.
Life teaches us and the Bible says, “An evil man is snared by his own sin, but a righteous one can sing and be glad” (Prov. 29:6). I’m sure he isn’t very happy now.
Maybe you’re in tough dilemma as you read this. In order to make your circumstances better, turn from wrong and do something good and right; seek a win-win solution to your problem. I’m confident you’ll be happier and life will be more peaceful.
OMAHA1
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Suspect Takes Wrong Turn
An Omaha man picked the wrong way to run Thursday after he knocked a woman down and stole her purse.
He ran right past the northwest precinct of the Omaha Police Department.
"It’s nice when the suspects come to us," said Officer Don Savage, a police spokesman. "It makes our job a lot easier."
According to reports, a 27-year-old Omaha woman stopped about 1:20 a.m. Thursday for gas at a convenience store on north 90th Street. The woman told police that she was pumping gas when a man walked up to her, grabbed her and tried to take her purse, which was wrapped around her arm.
The man yanked on the purse, knocking the woman to the ground. He took off on foot, heading northbound on 90th Street.
His escape route, however, took him past the police precinct at 90th and Grant Streets, where two police officers were standing outside. Savage said the officers responded immediately, jumping into their cruiser and chasing the man. He was caught near 90th and Ohio Streets.
A 20-year-old was arrested on suspicion of robbery and giving police false information. (Source: “Suspect Takes Wrong Turn,” Omaha World-Herald Sat., 10.9.99, Sunrise ed., sec. Vol. 135, No. 4, Midlands, Region: pg. 33.)
There was once a pastor who decided he was going to do something different for a change, so instead of a sermon, he gave everyone two sheets of paper. On one sheet, the heading read, “THE PROBLEM IN THIS CHURCH IS …” and on the other sheet, the heading read, “WHAT THIS CHURCH NEEDS IS …” He had them fill them out and hand them in. The next Sunday, he gave the results. On the sheet that listed the PROBLEMS, such things were listed as: • Should not serve coffee in church • Should serve more coffee in church • Should have shorter sermons • Should have longer sermons • The music we have is terrible • It’s terrible we don’t have more music like what we have On the sheet with the heading of WHAT IS NEEDED, things were listed like: • Need to spend money on more chairs • We don’t need to spend any more money • Pitch all the songs and start over • We need a new preacher We can see the humor in that illustration, but there is something else we can see, too. We can see the unhappiness of those in the church. We can see the lack of unity as a body of Christians, and there is one more thing … we can see a church that has dropped the ball in its teachings, because nobody mentioned Jesus Christ. I would say the biggest problem that church had was that everybody was focused on what they wanted, and nobody was focused on what Jesus wanted. Too often, we are mainly concerned with what we want, and sometimes that is not healthy for the church. I am reminded of the little church that needed a pastor, but they were small and couldn’t afford to pay very much. The only one they could afford was a 74-year-old pastor. He and his wife moved into the very small and very old one bedroom, one bathroom parsonage next door and he began to ready himself for his first sermon. Come Sunday, he got up and spoke for exactly 30 minutes. Later that afternoon, the elders came by the parsonage and praised him with many praises, then asked him how everything was going. He told them the bathroom was too small and when he and his wife were getting ready for church, it was very difficult. The elders just kind of let that go over their heads and they bid goodbye for the day. The next Sunday came and the pastor got up and again spoke a very good sermon for exactly 30 minutes. Later that day, the elders again came by the parsonage and told him how glad they were they hired him. Then they asked how it was going. The pastor again told them about the very small bathroom, to which they again let it go over there heads. The third Sunday, the pastor got up and preached for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Later, the elders came by and asked him why he talked so long. He apologized and told them that the bathroom was so small that he accidentally put in his wife’s false teeth that morning and he said, “…and you know Momma, when they get started they just don’t stop.” That afternoon, the crew came by to start building their new bathroom. That new pastor was focused only on what he wanted, and sometimes we have to do that, but never at the expense of not caring how we treat others in the church.
First of all, the Gospel of Phillip is a Gnostic text that is widely considered by scholars to have been written at least a century after the canonical gospels. So it’s not authoritative.
Second, even that debunked book does not refer to Jesus having married Mary Magdalene, but simply states that he kissed her. The word used does not even denote a romantic kiss, but denotes something more like a kiss on the cheek or forehead.
A kiss was a common way for men to greet each otherPhillip, in mentioning that Jesus kissed Mary, is telling us that he treated her like other disciples.
When the spiritual leaders fail to lead people toward God and teach the people His way then people will break the faith they have with God. Breaking the faith is common in a society when the leadership breaks down and fails to do its job. Breaking the faith means the people of God walk away from God and his ways and follow after false and deceptive ways that lead to their demise. Breaking the faith means people no longer trust God nor His way and, therefore they substitute the right way for the wrong way. When people break the faith and quit trusting and following God’s path then an impact is made on their personal lives which in turn affects their family’s lives. One main thing that happens to people who walk away from the faith is that divorce enters into their family unit. This breaking of faith leads to a breaking up of many marriages. The result of families disintegrating and falling into the trap of divorce and sin leads to individual family members being hurt and devastated. Emotional wounds are caused in ...
“I’ve become convinced that the problem with believing the Bible is not based on what we don’t understand about the Bible – but it’s based on what we do understand about the Bible.
“What we do understand challenges everything about us. Jesus calls us to follow him, and that means we have to give up our life. That, I think, is the major reason why people don’t want to believe in the Gospels, because it involves self-surrender, the hardest thing in life to do.” (Dr. Scot McKnight, Biblical scholar, professor of religious studies at North Park University, Chicago. Quoted in Exploring the Da Vinci Code, Lee Strobel and Garry Poole)
“Constantine did not collate the Bible. The Old Testament had been compiled even before Jesus’ time. The New Testament’s formation began by the end of the first century (about 90 or 100)—almost two hundred years before Constantine. In fact, recognizing which books of the New Testament were authoritative was a century-long process within both the Easter (based at Constantinople) and Western (based at Rome) churches. They independently agreed on which books belonged in the New Testament.”
Richard Abanes in The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code
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