Tag Archives: know

November 23, 2022 · 3:48 pm

Oh My!

Bible is amazing! I am daily ‘seeing’ things in my reading or listening to scripture. I will sometime listen to someone on a certain subject and there is another tidbit of insight to something else I may have been studying and it pieces them together to make it understood!

I in this year have seen or heard alot more of this in everything that I do, it is letting me take everything in to consideration when I am studying. I came across something today, that did exactly that for me. I am always bringing something up in a biblical or a worldly manner that tie each other together to form God’s hand in His eternal purpose for Us!

What I also have perceived that christians have failed in their responsibility to ‘know’ the scriptures. I am a believer in the Corporate identity of God’s people, but I also see the individualism or of small groups deeply studying the word. We have failed to ‘see’ things in the scripture, just as the Pharisee’s, or the scribes did not actually ‘knowing’ what the word means into what God is really about or what He was really doing in the lives of the Jews and the gentiles.

I believe that the train has left the station and is getting up to speed to make it to it’s destination! Hallelujah!! Let us strive for Wisdom in God to continue this Journey!!

Advertisement

Leave a comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

March 10, 2022 · 2:23 pm

Oh, How shall we live?

This seems to be a question that is always asked from the beginning of the resurrection of Jesus time. What do we do now?

Man has been asking questions, theorizing the who’s and what for’s ever since. I for once believe that there was a reason for this.

It is almost like when something happens to us in our lives, and we ask why did that happen? We will let it ponder in us to ‘blame’,or reason on why it could of happen to us. It is a monumental moment to find what the reason was to the incident to us. It could be days,months,or years before the logical understanding of why ‘it’ happened.

I believe this is what happened to the believers of the ‘way’ and their Messiah. What was the reason for Christ’s dying on a cross, and then rising up out of a grave and coming to life and showing his humanness to his followers.

If there was one question, there was a thousand questions to be asked.

Followers of the ‘Messiah’ were perplexed and bewildered of what to do or say in there Savior’s death and then a amazing resurrection. Why did Jesus die? Why did He arise? Even Jesus’s disciples were in awe to what it meant.

It seems that we are still asking these things to ourselves and to others. Our reasoning of the situation, has baffled us even with the theologians and their exegesis of the scriptures. It is this that we need to bring in the context of the times and what it meant for them.

Rom 12:1

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Unchecked Copy Box Rom 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

These two verses in Romans is a strong hint in what we are to do because of Jesus’s death and resurrection for all believers. This Apoplectic event was a ‘life’ changing moment in the life of mankind. It was/is a life changing alternative that will effect us all.

These verses, if we look close at them, will give us hints of what changed because of Christ’s death and resurrection. These two verses have the influence of the old covenant’s example to be used as a blueprint for the new.

Let’s start first with the middle of the first verse, “to present your bodies a living and Holy sacrifice,”, the ‘concept’ of a sacrifice is one used for the people to give in the old covenant was for their daily forgiveness of their transgressions. The bulls,lambs,goats were the sacrifices that were used then to accomplice this task. Christ was the ‘High Priest’ that gave ‘His’ own sacrifice as one that was the ‘High Priest’ in the Temple, giving a sacrifice for Israel’s whole nation. It is in ‘this’ sacrifice that has led to what our next step is to be. Christ’s example for us to follow as it was in the covenant of old.

This is to be the Holy and ‘acceptable’ vocation for us to follow. This ‘way’ is to be our daily spiritual Worship. It is not anymore to be a one of a human way to ‘sacrifice’ animals for our transgressions, but one of ‘our’ living the life of a ‘Holy’ one, We are now ‘white’,blemish free,Holy, as ‘like’ if we were Holy enough to go into the Holy of Holies. As if maybe we were now, a ‘Priestly’ one to be considered.

Spiritual Service of Worship. This tale statement at the end of verse one is one completing the thought. This small but powerful thought is also a ‘new’ vocation. This is changing of the ways of worship from the bringing the ‘animal sacrifices’, to actually ‘being’ the sacrifice in our ‘living’ as one that is truly ‘Holy’ and righteous, and a representative of Christ.

What this means, is somewhat hard to ‘see’ because we have been stuck in our ways. We are still in our ‘old’ ways of the old covenant. Our ‘worship’ has been hijacked into the believing that our ‘worship’ is still confined to the inside of a temple! Our vocation was and is to be a light among the darkness into the whole world.

Which brings us to the 2nd verse that I believe is the most troubling one that we have failed to utilize in our journey of Christ. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” We have not been transformed by the renewing of our minds! It is this that is not completing the union with Christ and his body. Our minds have not been ‘changed’ into that believing and ‘knowing’ God’s eternal purpose of his body. We are not transformed into ‘knowing’ Christ’s body and it’s function. The function of the body of Christ is intertwined together with the Head. It is made up of the same ‘Spirit’ and eternal purpose that God instituted.

The ‘will’ of God is not for the human way but for the Spirit led way of God. This an important thing to remember in our vocation, it is not in our humanly ways but in God’s New Kingdom it is God’s Spirit that drives our Lives.

We are not to put ‘New Wine’ into Old skins for it will only tear the old one apart!(paraphrased)

Is this what we are doing in Christianity?

Leave a comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding, New Perspective

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 8, 2021 · 11:08 am

Is knowledge passed on thru the generations of your family?

6:20–25 Teaching the children. Moses then expanded the command to teach children the facts of the faith (20–25; see v 7). The child’s question and parent’s response remind us of the pattern for the Passover celebration (Ex. 12:26–28). When the child asks about stipulations, decrees and laws (20) it is interesting that the parent answers by telling how God miraculously rescued the people from Egypt, in fulfilment of the ancient promise (21–23). The commands, then, come after the promise, and are part of God’s intention to bless his people (24b). Righteousness here has the sense of a true relationship between God and his people, and includes not only their keeping his standards, but also his commitment to save and keep them.

McConville, J. G. (1994). Deuteronomy. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 208). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.

This passage in Deuteronomy 6 is the fulfillment of the word being pass down thru the generations of time until it is written down in the hearts of all men.

So, it begs to ask, “Is this being done in our christian homes and communities?” Did we ever do this? In my studying of the scriptures, and the history of christianity it seems that the only time that this was even closely followed in thought or deed was the time of the Israelites in their daily reading of the ‘Law’ in the plaza of the temple. Which in turn was retold at the homes of the Israelites that evening. The ‘ritual’ of passing on the scriptures to the next generation is the foundation of knowledge being ingrained into a family, let alone a society that will incorporated a truth to hold on for eternity.

I am on a quest, a long and fulfilling quest to read alot. I am in the process of reading the apocrypha,the Pseudepigrapha, and Josephus. Now if you know anything about these chronicles is that they are long, very long. I am hoping to be finished with all three by the end of next year. That’s how long they are. They are either 1,000 pages long or 2,000 pages long or longer. What a deep and enjoyable journey to be on.

It is on this journey that while reading the Pseudepigrapha, which includes 2Enoch that I have started reading that I come across something that sorta blue my mind about reading the word in the Jewish ways and the lackadaisical effort that we have now in our religious life. This was a standard for God to Israel. But what I came across in 2Enoch is that when God Lifts up Enoch to a very High Standard of People, that He lifted Him up for real to God himself and to Heaven. God was to enlighten him upon everything that was and will be in the realm of God and his creation. It was to be Holy experience for Enoch. God told him of everything, in detail!

It is when God then tells Enoch that what he is to do with this knowledge and wisdom, to let Enoch go down to tell his family of his children and grandchildren and for them to continue the training of their heritage thru the ages. This is starting of the foundation of ‘God’s people’ being designed as there identity in the world. This is also the proclamation that is instituted in the new testament that Christians should claim these ‘laws’ to heart as a testimony to God.

This in my opinion is the downfall of christianity, for this I am always getting crucified but I will stand on it, Christians should stand on their own feet to proclaim their allegiance to God, and by doing this, they stand as a christian, without the overprotecting brick and mortal building and leader to coddle or to tell everyone the next step to christiandom! God’s people are represented not as a individual but as a body of people, a Bride for the coming kingdom. The example of the gathering of ‘the people’ was the bringing all the family of Enoch together to give them the ‘words’ from God. This was the same for Moses sharing the ‘words’ of God from Mt. Sinai down to the people of Israel.

The institution of the building,the Temple,synagogue,church, was the example of ‘where’ God’s being would come down to earth for the ‘still in touch’ with his creation symbolism since the denial of man that God was their God, only man was. It was changed in a instance when the God of man sacrifice’s his Son, for the freeing of man’s sin, to bring him back to his creator. This action by God changes the way God is communing with his people it is not a point on a corner but all of creation(the world),the land that he has promised his people is now God’s and theirs too.

Let us remember these things as we try to commune with Him, He is in Us, and We in Him. Our thinking that we are only with him in a box, is limiting God and us in our journey to the promised land. Let us stand our own and proclaim that God is alive and well in one of his creations and that there others beside us, around town, in the country, in another country, all over the world that as not as a individual but as a body of Christ, the sum of all people create the whole of God’s people.

Let us be responsible and ‘know’ and ‘See’ God in his covenants and his knowledge of Wisdom.

Leave a comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding, Kingdom of God

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

June 30, 2021 · 12:11 pm

It’s the eternal purpose,people!

I sometimes wonder how christianity has gotten where they are by what I read in the scriptures.

Maybe if you read it enough times you start to see things that weren’t there the first time, or second time, or third time. But it is that continuing searching that it starts to show that underlying theme or storyline that come into focus for you. You just wonder with the pharisee’s and the saduccees that were known for their reading of the scriptures over and over again, why they didn’t see things that were connected to each other that would spin itself into a deep and amazing story for mankind. Maybe their ritual, or tradition was to just ‘say’ the scriptures was just a mundane chore for the day? Maybe, this was the problem with Israelite’s in that they were to much in the tradition of reading the scriptures that their was no meaning in it.

I have come to rely on history. In history we see not only actual events of time, but of the social events before and after said big event. It is how we base our understanding of mankind in all thru time. It is in this realm of digging into history we see even more and more of people in their own stories, communities of understanding everything around them and their actions and beliefs to those events. We, right now are doing the same thing, we just might not know it, we are acting and reacting to all the events around us, and to some extent to things far away from us with advent of the internet.

I have become over the last twenty years have been that forensic detective that doesn’t just ‘see’, or ‘read’, or ‘hear’ something without digging past the obvious things. This should be the mark of Jesus follower, digging deeper every day that you are a christian. What I have learned thru the years of studying the bible is that it is a goldmine of information about God and his people and his world. I once was asked ‘How long should it take to read the bible?’, the usual ‘church’ answer would be the 1 or 2 year plan that the church gives out. But this is not the ‘idea’ for what the bible is. It is to ‘know’ the Bible! My answer to the question was “50 years”, I think my answer may have been to short in its answer,tho! We can only scratch the surface with God. But I do believe that we should ‘see’ what God is telling us and showing us on what his intentions for us.

The models of what we have perceived to be the existence of God’s people in the world and how they are to be in the world, and how they are to meet, act, or to exist has be skewed in that we have not understood the eternal purpose of God.

I want to point out that this is because of a few things. One is the misunderstanding of God’s eternal purpose in mankind. We are very,very limiting of God. We have put God into thousands of little buildings all across the U.S., when the scriptures says the opposite. God will be, and is Everywhere. This was and is His Goal. But we have failed to see this in His New Covenant. It is actually following the first covenant of the Jews with God in that we were supposed to build a temple and place God there!? What’s with that? Just maybe we have not reached the understanding of the New Covenant with Christianity yet? I don’t know either. But I do ‘see’ the dawn of the light coming into the world.

The second thing, is that the failure of christians failing to read and to study the scriptures in a way that is done in a more deep and investigative way to find the truth of God. We have realized way to much on the person in front of congregation to give them snippets from the bible, as does the media on the national news. Look how that has gotten us! Until we realize that as a God believer that we dig deeper and deeper into God’s word to know him. This is not going to be a easy fix, but it can be done with the fortitude of God’s people. Where two or three people are gathered together, there also is God. He will guide and direct us in his word. I strongly suggest in having a small group of people that are in agreement in your quest in finding the truth in the word of God.

The third thing is maybe(it is) the glue that holds this all together. Jesus died on the cross, rose again to be with the father, it is in this action that God has sent someone to follow us in our journey here on earth to unite God’s people together. It is the “Holy Spirit”, this is our “Christ is in Us, We are in Him” fact that we seem to forget or just don’t understand. I tend to think the latter. Christ living ‘in’ us, We ‘in’ Him means we are in fellowship with Him, and We are ‘WORSHIPING’ Him. This is the design of God’s ultimate purpose! Why do we not see this? The Holy Spirit is our temple,church, body,bride whatever you want to define it as. (It is not to have a fellowship with other people in a building, it is to have fellowship(worship) our God. Period. This reasoning of other people as fellowship has to go away to understand the true meaning of worshiping of God!)

Now, taking those three things as corrections in our understanding of our eternal purpose as God’s people, and He our God we should be able to ‘see’,’know’,’hear’,what God’s purpose for us in the world, it is that ‘WE’,All His People are His, unto all the nations, forever and ever! Praise His Name!

Leave a comment

Filed under Kingdom of God

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 14, 2021 · 2:57 pm

Knowing Scripture

2 Timothy 3. 16 Every Writing is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for setting aright, for instruction that is in righteousness,(YLT)

Romans 4.3 For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

Act 1:16 “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.

John 19:28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scripture would be fulfilled, *said, “I am thirsty.”

Scripture is important. In the course of history of man and of christianity, oral speech was king, it wasn’t until their was a need for man and christianity to have it written down for reference for personal or for a group. They was the norm for all to agree to for posterity’s sake. This did not take away the importance of the speech or the actual words of the one who was being quoted.

These scriptures along with multiple others are the assurance of God’s plan for mankind to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the “Word’ of God. God’s desire is for us. It is thru the communication of himself and his selected representation of the first ‘Godly’ people the Israelites that we ‘hear’ the word given to us to live by and to know.

Gal 1:8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! This is to my point that it is our failure to ‘know’ the storyline of all the scriptures as an assembly of people that can walk and talk our way thru these scriptures to know Him, our creator,Lord and Savior.

I want to press upon you the need to get together with some of your friends in fellowship and read slowly and earnestly the WORD of God and ‘SEE’ what is written down from the oral tradition of God, His People and His Kingdom. This has to be High Priority for christians to come together as one in God, and walk and talk with him.

Start a small bible study this week with no more than 5 people to keep it simple with plenty of opportunity for everyone to talk,listen, ask questions about the scripture. Most importantly is to not have anyone in charge! This is to be a uninhibited bible study with no ‘leader’ in charge. This is for complete understanding of the scriptures with alot of questions and alot of different answers with the Spirit of the Lord, giving the ultimate answer to all.

Good Bible study to all, and Let me know how it goes!

In Christ’s name, Doug

Leave a comment

Filed under Deeper Understanding

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

October 15, 2014 · 10:13 am

Just thinking out loud

I seem to do this quite abit lately. I am seeing and hearing things around me that make me wonder if it has anything connected to God’s design for us.

This is sometimes scarry, and sometimes exciting and sometimes both. The catalyst for all this watching and listening is knowing what God’s desire is for his people.

I have been on long and winding road of a journey with the  “God of Israel” for 5+ years (although,I think God has been working on me for longer than this),and it has led me to some rather interesting discoveries of God and his people. The first discovery which could be the most important one is “who is this God of Israel?”(notice that I phrased the question from the outside of the jewish realm arena). This is because my understanding of this God is from not being a jew or knowing the jewish ways.

My peep view of this God thru the auspices of my scholarship thru pastors,schooling and beginning realities of translation from Luther, has to say the least -limited and as I have found out,scewed.

Let me be broad and general in this next statement. “Christians do not know who this God of Israel is.”

Let me tell you why I say this. We don’t know the God’s people, the Jews.(this is in the sense from the old testament period only). How can you understand a God of a people if you do not know the people? This has led me to the understanding of who God is and why He was the God to the Jews and Israelites. Another understanding that is key to this paradigm is the social and political atmosphere of the time. To know the climate of the period of people, their history and the outlook on the future is enormous to seeing who these people are.

As christians we have been oblivious to the knowing of the Jews and their God. Isn’t it about time we find out?

Leave a comment

Filed under New Perspective

Tagged as , , , ,