General Notes | IntelliBible

The Bigotry of Tolerance: A Christmas Message

December 25th, 2009

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As I write this its 6:00 am, Christmas morning. I just wanted to take a second a wish you all a Merry Christmas and I pray you all have a great day celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

The world has entered a phase where this day has become a non-holiday in the eyes of a lot of people, a loud minority that is "offended" because we do not believe as they do. These people who scream "tolerance" are attempting to silence Christians by removing the very core of the reason the holiday was established in the first place.

I am going to be spending the morning celebrating Christmas at a place where everyone is a believer, except one. Because of that one person, everyone else tends to dance around the issue and not bring up the name of the one whose birth we are celebrating. I'm guilty of it, too. In the past, I have tried to keep everybody happy by going along and not offending anyone by forcing them to hear the name of Jesus spoken out loud.

But, this is OUR holiday to celebrate the birth of OUR lord and Savior. We need to stand up and let people know. If someone wants to ignore the reason we all gather together on the 25th of December to exchange gifts, sing songs and praise our God, fine. I'm not "offended" by that. Let them go to work.

Why are the taking the day to celebrate something they don't believe in, don't care about and are actively trying to eliminate from our culture?

The bigotry of "tolerance" wants to keep the name of Jesus out of the holiday created to celebrate His birth and still be able to enjoy the superficial customs that have been added to it. They want their "holiday" dinner and their "holiday" presents without having a reason for the "holiday" in the first place.

You can walk around any town, get on television and radio and speak freely about any god you want. You can talk about the universe, allah, shiva, the goddess or any other "deity", but you can't say the name of Jesus without "offending" someone. It doesn't matter that suppression of that particular freedom is offensive to those of us who take the Creator of the universe seriously. There is something to think about there. If you were satan and wanted to suppress the only power that could cause you any harm, whose name would you attempt to keep off people's lips?

As offensive as it may be, I am proud to stand up and say

JESUS IS LORD

and today, Christmas, is set aside to celebrate the birth of the one who came to earth for the sole purpose sacrificing His life, paying for our sins, taking satan on face to face, throwing wide the doors to the bosom of Abraham to set free the ones that had been waiting for Him and giving everyone of us that accepts Him as Lord to enter into His presence forever.

Matthew 27 (New King James Version)

⁵¹ Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, ⁵² and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; ⁵³ and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Today is Christmas! Celebrate the birth of our Lord!

Randy Reed General Notes

Faith vs Works – Contradictions In The Bible?

November 30th, 2009

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In the class I lead every Sunday, we’ve been spending a lot of time in the Old Testament. It’s important to understand where our religion began and to know its roots. Christianity did not begin with the birth of Jesus Christ and the Old and New Testaments are not separate phases in our history.

The only difference in the state of man in the Old and New Testaments is the event foretold by the prophets, the coming and the sacrifice of the Messiah. We were under the law before the resurrection of Jesus, but the law did not provide our salvation. (I say “we” even though I am not, by blood, Jewish, because everyone who has accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah, has been grafted into the family of Abraham. Because of this, we are adopted and share the Jewish heritage.) Salvation was obtained under Old Testament law exactly the same way it is obtained today, through faith.

This is the point that Paul if trying to convey to the Jewish believers in Rome. The Jews living in Rome understood and believed that Jesus WAS the promised one, but were having difficulty with gentiles who had come to believe. All their lives the Jewish believers had followed the law and, since Christianity was not a new religion but a continuation of the same religion they had always held, they did not see any reason to stop practicing the traditions and laws they had been raised with. They also felt that the gentiles coming to the faith should also follow the same laws.

The biggest point of contention was the question of circumcision. Should the gentiles submit to circumcision in order to join the faith? Wasn’t it a condition of salvation? If not, was circumcision meaningless, a pointless tradition?

Paul puts their doubts to rest by affirming that the practice was, in fact, important and necessary.

Romans 3 (New King James Version)

¹ What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? ² Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.

Circumcision was a symbol of the covenant that God made with Abraham.

Genesis 17

⁴ “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. ⁵ No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶ I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. ⁷ And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. ⁸ Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
⁹ And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. ¹⁰ This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; ¹¹ and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.

Paul points out that Abraham wasn’t circumcised when God proclaimed him righteous.

Romans 3

⁹ Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. ¹⁰ How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. ¹¹ And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, ¹² and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

It was a way to remember the covenant that God had made with Abraham. It was not a requirement for salvation. Paul goes on to explain that this applies to all aspects of the law, not just circumcision.

Romans 3

¹³ For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, ¹⁵ because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.
¹⁶ Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

Circumcision began with Abraham, but the law was given to the people through Moses. Abraham, the father of the nation, was the great-grandfather of Joseph, who brought his family to Egypt. The Hebrew nation lived in Egypt for 430 years before Moses led them out.

If the law was how you got saved then Abraham was lost. It wouldn’t even be available for several hundred years.

So what was the purpose of the law? Are we still under the law? Jesus addresses this issue in the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 5

¹⁷ “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. ¹⁸ For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

The law held the people accountable and served as a reminder that in order to have your sins forgiven, a price had to be paid. Under the law a sacrifice was brought to the temple and the high priest acted on your behalf, offering the sacrifice as payment for your sins. It wasn’t the actual spilling of animal blood that bought forgiveness. It was merely a symbol, a shadow, of the price that was to be paid by the Messiah, when he came.

If you obeyed the law prior to the crucifixion, that was good. But if you BELIEVED that God would forgive you while you performed the sacrifice, THAT was great! The sins of the people living before Jesus paid the price could not be washed away until the real sacrifice was made. Because of this, everyone who dies prior to the crucifixion went to a place called “The Bosom Of Abraham”. It was a place of rest until the sacrifice of Jesus made it possible for them to enter Heaven.

Nothing is different between the Old and New Testaments. The process and the requirements remain the same. Salvation has always been obtained through faith, not works.

But wait! What about “faith without works is dead”?

James 2

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without you^] works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! ²⁰ But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?^] ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? ²² Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? ²³ And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”^]And he was called the friend of God. ²⁴ You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

This is the scripture that was used when I was growing up in the Mormon church to prove that the “born agains” were wrong and headed for hell. I have to admit, it was very difficult for me to come to grips with the concept of salvation through faith after all those years of indoctrination.

So how does this all fit together? Is this one of contradictions in the Bible that people love to throw at you?

I look at my relationship with Jesus in the same way I look at my marriage. In fact, the Church is “the bride of Christ”. I am legally married to an amazing woman, and I would never do anything to jeopardize that relationship. I don’t play around and I work everyday at making her happy (I’m not always successful, but I try J). But its not the legal documents that make me want to please her, it’s because I love her.

If I would tell her I love her then go out and play around, it would make what I said meaningless. How could someone possibly love someone else if they are fooling around on the side? This is the “works” part of the marriage.

Saying that you believe in Jesus doesn’t mean anything unless you are doing something about it. You aren’t saved by sitting in church every week. God doesn’t take roll. You aren’t saved by a confession of faith followed by nothing, a continuation of the life you lived before.

You are saved by REAL faith. The kind of faith that motivates you to work toward a stronger relationship with Jesus. Faith that drives your works, not empty faith, not empty works.

It’s important that the works you do are done out of your desire to please God. If you find yourself going through the motions because this is what you are supposed to do… stop! This is how you cross the line into legalism. Get back to the reason you started doing whatever it is in the first place.

Faith without works is dead, and so is works without faith.

Randy Reed Faith, General Notes bible study guide, christian bible studies, contradictions in the Bible, faith without works

The Name Game – Adam Adam Bo Badam

September 15th, 2009

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If you’ve been reading any of my studies here, you’ll know that I like to look into the names contained in the scriptures. There is nothing placed in the scriptures without a purpose and the names are certainly evidence of that. The first time I was made aware of the importance of Bible names was in a study by Dr. Chuck Missler from Koinonia House. He listed the names from Adam to Noah and came up with something very interesting. (I should note that while I get a lot of material from Chuck Missler, he is not my only source. If you steal from one person it’s called plagiarism. If you steal from many it’s called research.)

This is an abbreviated version of Missler’s study:

Adam	from adomah, and means "man"
Seth	Adam’s son was named Seth, which means "appointed"
Enosh	Seth’s son was called Enosh, which means "mortal," "frail," or "miserable." It was in the days of Enosh that men began to defile the name of the Living God.
Kenan	Enosh’s son was named Kenan, from which can mean "sorrow" or "dirge".
Mahalalel	Kenan’s son was Mahalalel, from mahalal, which means "blessed" or "praise"; and El, the name for God. Thus, Mahalalel means "the Blessed God." Often Hebrew names included El, the name of God, as Dani-el, "God is my Judge," Nathani-el, "Gift of God," etc.
Jared	Mahalalel’s son was named Jared, from the verb yaradh, meaning "shall come down".
Enoch	Jared’s son was named Enoch, which means "teaching," or "commencement."
Methuselah	Methuselah comes from two roots: muth, a root that means "death" ; and from shalach, which means "to bring," or "to send forth." Thus, the name Methuselah signifies, "his death shall bring."
Lamech	Methuselah’s son was named Lamech, a root still evident today in our own English word, "lament" or "lamentation." Lamech suggests "despairing".
Noah	Noah is derived from nacham , "to bring relief" or "comfort".

Summarizing it would look like this:

Adam	Man
Seth	Appointed
Enos	Mortal
Kenan	Sorrow
Mahalalel	The Blessed God
Jared	Shall come down
Enoch	Teaching
Methuselah	His death shall bring
Lamech	The despairing
Noah	Rest, or comfort

Reading it in a sentence, it looks like this:

Man was appointed to be mortal, in sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching, and His death shall bring the despairing rest and comfort.

The entire plan of salvation is spelled out in the names of the men born before the flood. Now before you throw up your hands and say “Yea, but that could have been written in later by Christians who just wanted it to be true” remember, this is in the book of Genesis, in the Torah. The Hebrew text of the Torah was translated into Greek 400 years before Jesus was crucified and both versions are around today. If the Christians added this in later, why would the Jewish scriptures in every synagogue in the world contain that change.

Currently, I’m doing a study of the Book of Esther. Here are some of the key characters in Esther:

Ahasuerus	“king”, “might man” or "I will be silent and poor"
Vashti	"beautiful" or “you will waste away”
Mordecai	"little man", “bitter brusing”, “bitterness of my oppressed”
Hadassah	"myrtle" queen Esther’s Jewish name
Esther	"star" or "she that is hidden"
Haman	"magnificent", "well disposed", "alone", "the rager or rioter"

Honestly, I haven’t found anything in Esther as profound as Missler’s Genesis list, yet. The lists of the princes’ and eunuchs’ names have a lot to say, however. You can see those lists in The Book of Esther – Part 3. I also find it interesting that the names fit the people extremely well.

The one name that is absent from Esther is the name of God, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t very much involved. Like the treasures found in the Bible, sometimes His presence is blatantly obvious and sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to see it. But one thing is certain, He is ALWAYS there.

Randy Reed General Notes

The Book Of Esther – Part 9 – Eunuch Needs A New Pair Of Shoes

September 12th, 2009

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Esther 4 (New King James Version)

¹ When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. ² He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. ³ And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Can you imagine what it was like for the people at the time? They weren’t arrested or confined in any way. They just woke up one morning, picked up the morning paper and read an article that said the king had ordered their extermination one year from today.

They had no place to go. The empire was the entire world to them. They couldn’t run and they couldn’t hide. They were to go on with their lives normally until they got a knock on the door and the men in the black suits and sunglasses would say “Excuse us, we’re here to slaughter you and your entire family. Thank you for understanding”.

Mordecai was beside himself. He knew two things for certain.

The king, himself had signed the decree to exterminate all the Jews.
By law, a king’s decree could NEVER be reversed, even by the king.

Verse 2 gives us another insight into Mordecai’s position.

² He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.

Mordecai couldn’t enter the king’s gate, not because he was a common person or a Jew, but because he was dressed inappropriately. This backs up my personal feeling that Mordecai was part of the king’s court and not just a beggar at the gate, as he’s sometimes portrayed. See Part 6 of this series for more information on this.

Esther 4

⁴ So Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them. ⁵ Then Esther called Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and she gave him a command concerning Mordecai, to learn what and why this was. ⁶ So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square that was in front of the king’s gate. ⁷ And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries to destroy the Jews. ⁸ He also gave him a copy of the written decree for their destruction, which was given at Shushan, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and that he might command her to go in to the king to make supplication to him and plead before him for her people. ⁹ So Hathach returned and told Esther the words of Mordecai.

It’s clear that Esther had no idea about the decree. I can see her stepping into the Jewish mother role here. She sends new clothes out to Mordecai and tells her servants to make sure he gets out of those awful sackcloth and ashes clothes and clean himself up. Mordecai has no part of it and the servants return to Esther.

At this point Esther gets curious and wants to know why Mordecai is acting like this. She calls one of the eunuchs the king has appointed to attend her and tells him to find out what is going on. This eunuch is named here and every time I see a name I have to wonder why go to the trouble of identifying a servant that has no significant role in the story. This particular eunuch’s name is Hathach (jth Hatach in the King James).

Translated, his name means:

Gift

One who strikes (or hits)

Why do you strike? (or hit)

Nothing earth shattering, but I just find it funny that the guy Esther sends out to Mordecai to learn of his despair is called “Why do you strike?”. He is the one who returns with the message that the king, her husband, has authorized the people to strike out and exterminate the Jews. There is an old saying among the rabbis that “Coincidence is not a kosher word”.

Mordecai tells Hathach everything he knows and even gives him a copy of the king’s decree to show Esther. He also points out that Haman is paying a huge sum of money to the king in order to do this. If you look closely, you’ll notice that Mordecai tells Hathach how much Haman is paying before he gives Hathach the decree. I doubt, very much, that the payoff would have been disclosed in a public decree that was sent all over the known world. This is another clue that Mordecai held a position in the court that make him privilege to certain information that was probably not public knowledge.

Mordecai tells Hathach to explain all this to Esther and command her to intervene with the king. Mordecai, a court employee, has just told a eunuch, a servant to the queen, to command the queen of the known world to beg the king not to slaughter his people. He is her uncle, but she’s now the queen. He was taking a huge chance here (as was Hathach) to be commanding the queen. Surprisingly, she does not react as expected. She sends Hathach back with a word for Mordecai.

¹⁰ Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a command for Mordecai: ¹¹ “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king, who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, that he may live. Yet I myself have not been called to go in to the king these thirty days.” ¹² So they told Mordecai Esther’s words.

She tells Mordecai (with a snippy little reminder that ““All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know…”) to go to the king without being summoned would be certain death. The only way to get away with it is if the king points his fancy yellow walking stick at you. She also points out that she hasn’t been summoned to the king in a month. I doubt this arraignment would go over very well today.

Mordecai sends Hathach (who is probably needing new shoes right about now) back with another message.

¹³ And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

I’m going to stop here and pick this up next time. The reason I’m doing this is because this section is probably one of the most profound statements made in the entire Bible and I want to spend a little more time on it. Go back and read verse 14 again.