I Can't Top This Story

I borrowed this from Wycliff Bible Translators.  See the link it the end of the story.

Two women cross the road in the town of Maroua, Cameroon. Nearby, a Wycliffe translation advisor working with the Hdi language noticed that all verbs end in either i, a or u, which changes the meaning, but the word for love, ‘dv-’, didn’t have a version ending in ‘u’. He asked the Hdi translation team about it. “Could you ‘dvu’ your wife?”

Everyone laughed. “Of course not! If you said that, you would have to love your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘dvu’ about anything. It just doesn’t exist.”

He (the translator) sat quietly for a while and then asked, “Could God ‘dvu’ people?”

There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded. “Do you know what this would mean?! This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love.”
The New Testament in Hdi is now ready to be printed and 29,000 speakers will soon be able to feel the impact of passages like Eph 5:25: “Husbands, ‘dvu’ your wives, just as Christ ‘dvu’-d the church…” Please pray for the Hdi as they receive God’s word for the first time. Read the full story at http://www.wycliffe.net/stories/tabid/67/Default.aspx?id=2922&pg=1&topic-id=24

Thank God for His continuing love,

Kathi

December 21, 2012

With all the hype about the world coming to an end - or the world/humanity changing in some quantum way - I have a thought or two on the subject.

Please remember that the Mayans worshipped a snake, Quetzalcoatl or Kukulkan.  While I respect their expertise in astronomy and time-keeping, (and make no mistake, they were masters at both), I distrust their source of information for any prophecies they left for us to find.

Nostradamus came up with his predictions by scrying, that is, staring into a bowl of water or crystal ball.  God says we should not tolerate anyone who uses divination or witchcraft, one who interprets omens, a sorcerer, one who casts spells, a medium, a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.  Deut. 18:10-12

Nostradamus's poems are approximately as general as an astrological forecast which can be read by individuals to mean whatever they think it ought to mean.  A few lines seem to be close to something that actually happened.  God says, "When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.  The prophet has spoken presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him." Deut. 18:22

As for December 21, 2012, here's what the Bible says: Be on the alert for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.  For this reason you must also be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will." Matt. 24:42, 44  (Bold letters are mine.)  Since so many people think something big, possibly Jesus' return will be on that day, you can be pretty sure He will not choose that particular day.

My preference is during the Feast of Trumpets.  Odds are that He won't pick those days either.  Sigh

If you are curious for expanded information on this topic, I highly recommend Mark Hitchcock's book 2012: The Bible and the End of the World.  Good book.

God bless us with His peace in these times.

Kathi

Inspired by Greatness

This morning I found this Scripture being quoted by one of my friends on facebook:

"Let them praise the name of the Lord for His name alone is exalted; His splendor is above the earth and the heavens. He has raised up for His people a horn, the praise of all His saints." Psalm 148:13-14

It reminded me of one other verse that always leaves me breathless when I consider it.  Isaiah 40:12a says: "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?" 

If you stretch out the fingers of your hand as far as they will go and measure from the end of your thumb to the end of your little finger, that is the span or breadth of your hand. 

God holds the universe in the span of His hand.  Just think about THAT for a minute and see if your perspective on God doesn't change for the larger.

Psalm 8 goes on to add:

3When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

4what is man that you are mindful of him,

the son of man that you care for him?

How God could even find us in such a vast expanse is incredible!  That He would be willing to come down to be with us is even more amazing. 

We see this skit in church every so often.  I'm going to add the link to it so you can enjoy it too. 

http://www.sermonspice.com/product/38133/the-birdcage

God bless us all,

Kathi

Jesus' First and Second Coming

Over the last number of Sunday school classes, I have been tracing Jesus' family from Adam and Eve through Abraham and David's family.  We've finally arrived at Jesus' first coming.

Yesterday, I went through the prophecies in the Old Testament that are so familiar even to people who only show up for church on Christmas.

Jesus would:

crush the serpent's head  Gen 3:15
be a blessing to the whole world    Gen 18:18
be born of a virgin  Is 7:14
be born in Bethlehem   Micah 5:2
go to Egypt for a time  Hosea 11:1
be raised in the Galilee  Is 9:1-2
be betrayed by a friend Ps 41:9
be sold for thirty pieces of silver Zec 11:12
      which would be returned and used to purchase the potter's field   Zec 11:13
suffer for us   Ps 22   Is 53
die for us      Ps 22    Is 53
die among evil people   Is 53:12
be buried in a rich man's tomb    Is 53:9
be raised from the dead.       Ps 16:10

I've heard it used as an argument that Jesus fulfilled all of the prophecies about the Messiah on purpose so that He would look like a messiah to anyone who was paying attention.

Please note how many of these prophecies would have been completely beyond His control if he were an ordinary human.  No one picks their parents.  No one chooses their place of birth or where they live before they reach a viable age to live on their own.  No one willingly arranges to be crucified.  While we can pick a cemetery plot today, and it was even done back in Jesus' day what with family tombs and all, Jesus was nowhere near His family's usual place of interment if they had one.  He did not have a say in where He was buried.  No ordinary human decides to raise from the dead three days after they are put in a tomb.

There is a vivid description of crucifixion in Psalm 22 which was written hundreds of years before that particular form of torture was invented.  The same psalm says that Jesus' clothes would be divided by gambling. 

Therefore, since Jesus fulfilled every prophecy about His first coming, He will certainly fulfill every one of the prophecies about His second coming. 

The last few lines in the Bible say:

"I am coming soon."

To which the heartfelt response is:

"Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."

God bless us all,

Kathi

Dragons

Where does the idea or the prototype of a dragon come from?  Almost every culture has a dragon or flying serpent in its mythology.  I can think of two ways it could have come about.

The Bible says that Noah took two of every kind of animal with him on the ark (and seven each of clean animals).  Since he took two of EVERY kind, that would include dinosaurs - albeit they would have had to be young ones to fit on the ark. (Gen. 7:2-3)

All kinds of land animals were created on the sixth day.  Dinosaurs, many of them, were land animals.  Before the Flood, people only ate vegetation as far as we know. In Genesis 1:29-30, God tells Adam and Eve they may eat every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seeds in it. (By the way, all of the animals were also created to eat plants.  See v. 30)

It is possible that as people discovered more and more ways to disobey God, that they began eating animals and that the dinosaurs were hunted to extinction before the Flood.  I cannot prove that one way or another.  But assuming some were alive when Noah constructed the ark, then there were dinosaurs aboard it when the rains began to fall.

After the Flood, the earth was substantially different.  There were annual seasons instead of a uniformly warm planet.  (See studies done in the Antarctic that prove it was once warm and lush. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/03/from-leafy-to-lifeless-tropical-rainforest-once-covered-antarctica/ )
Certainly that would have affected the lifespan and size of the great lizards, but they might have continued to exist for some centuries past the Flood.  Stories like St. George and the Dragon lend some credence to this idea. Also explorers to the Dakotas claim to have seen flying lizards.  The Native Americans there called it a thunderbird.

Another possible origin for dragons would also begin in the Garden of Eden.  The talking snake that discussed eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was not shaped like our modern snakes.  When God cursed the snake, He said it would crawl on its belly and eat dust all of its life.  That wouldn't have been much of a curse unless the snake hadn't crawled before the curse was given.  So I pose the question, what was the snake's mode of getting around before he landed on his belly?  Legs almost certainly.  Even today, pythons and boas have vestigial legs.  That would make the curse even worse, to still have a reminder of what once was.  (Gen. 3:14)

So snakes had legs in the beginning.  What if that wasn't all?  What if they also had wings and could fly? 

No one doubts flying lizards (see the aforementioned pterodactyls and pterodons).  There is a species of snake in South America that leaps from tree branches, flattens out its body, and glides on the air for some distance.  http://www.flyingsnake.org/    South American mythology has an important god named Queztalcoatl or Plumed Serpent.  The idea of flying snakes had to begin somewhere - and some snakes seem to remember that they were once allowed to fly.

Take your pick of the choices, but I have to lean in favor of the snake in the Garden of Eden.  All the other references to dragons in the Bible link the name Dragon to Satan. (Rev. 12:13-17 and, just in case that doesn't do it for you, see Rev. 20:2)

Go with God.

Kathi

Here's the Original Quote

Chick-Fil-A CEO Cathy was interviewed by the Baptist Press for their Christian magazine.  Here's what he said: Cathy told The Baptist Press that, “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit,” Cathy said. “We are a family-owned business, a family-led business and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.” Supporters of gay marriage criticized Cathy for his comments saying they were “bigoted and hateful.” I somehow don't see the bigoted hatefulness in that statement.  I am not wrong to believe that I should stay married to the man I vowed "forsaking all others" and "until death do us part".  If someone wants to do something else, why are they allowed to say I am wrong and I can't say that they are?  There certainly is a lot of hate on one side of this argument  - and it isn't on my side. I think this may go to a deeper level than "tolerance".  This may fall under the category of conviction.  People who know they have something to hide or believe they have done something shameful tend to get defensive and aggressive when someone shows them a better or more honest way.  Morality cannot be legislated no matter how hard our government tries.  I've also noticed that some organizations demand that their employees do service work outside work hours or may allow them to do it on company time.  Angela's school did this in New Hampshire.  All well and good - except for the heart.  Charity begins in the heart.  So does morality.  Only Jesus can change a heart so these things flow outward instead of being forced upon one. And that is the state of the nation today.