I Love You Laurie

On this day in beautiful, snowy, Georgetown Colorado, not so very long ago, surrounded by family and friends you said yes and became my partner, my gift from God, my wife. I thank the Lord every day for blessing me with you and eagerly await what He has planned for us.

Papal Power Grab

This is the Triregnum, the papal tiara, symbol of the office of the papacy. This understated little beauty is encrusted with gold, silver, pearls, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and other rare and valuable gemstones and valued at a minimum of $10,000 a sum of which can provide 77,000 meals for the needy. According to the Vatican this symbol of the papacy is three crowns symbolizing the three powers of the pope: Father of Kings, Governor of the World, Vicar of Christ. 

Of course the power the pope wields is the power that the world gives him, or what he is able to grab for himself. There's no biblical references or requirement for a vicar of Christ, there's no election for Governor of the World, and the whole Father of Kings thing, well that's possible considering the sexual excesses of past popes. However the bible says the requirements of a an overseer of a church or denomination are: 

1 It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. 2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 4 He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity (1 Timothy 3:1-4)

That's really about all the bible states for a leader of a church, and the Pope household falls a bit short of wife and children to be considered a biblically compliant overseer. The office of the pope is primarily concerned with their own trinity: Power, Money, and Getting More of Both.  And it's becoming obvious that the Vatican has figured out how to reclaim it's past glory. 

Nation Will Rise Against Nation

For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. (Mark 13:8)

I used to think this was a redundant statement, or worse I was thinking that nations meant only democracies and free societies while kingdoms referred to monarchies or dictatorships. Was I wrong!

A kingdom is any kind of country; free, socialist, monarchy. The word Kingdom was translated from the original βασιλεύς (basileia) which means kingdom, or power to rule a kingdom. At the time of the New Testament that's all there were. But a nation is different. The word we translate to nation comes from the Greek word ἕθνος (ethnos) from which we get our word "ethnic" from.

Merry Christmas Beloved of Christ

For unto us a child is born,

unto us a son is given:

and the government shall be upon his shoulder:

and his name shall be called

Wonderful,

Counselor,

The mighty God,

The everlasting Father,

The Prince of Peace.

Have a Blessed Christmas!

Merry and Joyous Christmas wishes, I pray that each of you draw closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the year to come. Here's an awesome video from Stand To Reason blog that explains exactly why Christmas is so unique of all holidays

REJOICE!

I have acquaintances who tell me "We don't celebrate <insert holiday here>" generally for "religious" reasons. But Christmas? How can someone not celebrate Christmas? Then again I know religions that celebrate nothing. That's the thing about Christianity - God gave us the independence to determine how we should worship Him. 

5 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks (Romans 14:5-6)

According to Paul's words here a Christian can rightly celebrate any day he or she wishes as a day for the Lord. I've been told "We don't celebrate birthdays" and my unspoken response was "Seriously? You don't set aside a day to give your Lord thanks and praise for the birth of your child?" They chose to not celebrate birthdays, that's their right, but they do not have the right to tell me I'm sinful for celebrating. The problem is that Graham Hancock is right; mankind is a species with amnesia. We forget stuff, and one way to remember stuff is a celebration. 

The Real Reason For The Season

I love the Christmas season, I love the trees, and the lights and the music, the gifts and the gatherings, and if there's snow I'm in heaven. (The best thing about living in Colorado is regardless of the weather, a White Christmas is only an hours drive away) Being human beings squabbles will arise as we overschedule, overtax, and overspend ourselves, and I even like those too because it's family. 

In all the hustle and bustle that happens around this time we all to easily forget what the reason for the season truly is. As John MacArthur points out in his sermon "The Ugliness of Christmas" the reason for the season isn't actually Jesus, Jesus came because of sin, making sin the actual reason for the season. 

Knowledge of God Is Exclusive to Christians

This sounds pretty inflammatory, only Christians can have knowledge of God? How dare we think like that? Well, for one reason, Jesus told us: 

All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. (Matthew 11:27)

That's an important verse, and an important concept: "nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." Jesus tells us flat out that only He knows God The Father, and He chooses to whom He will reveal that knowledge. This entire verse is keeping with the ancient law or custom known as the Jewish Law of Agencies. This simply states 

"A person's agent is regarded as the person himself." Therefore any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principle." (The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, R.J.Z. Werblowski and Geoffrey Wigoder)

So to know Jesus is to know God, which is what Jesus stated. Christians know (or strive to know) Jesus. We love Jesus, we follow him, we cling to his every word. We talk to him in prayer, we give him praise and glory and we try to emulate him as a little brother would copy the thought, word, and deed of a much older, wiser brother. As we do this we learn about God. 

When our Coexist friends start preaching their "All Paths Lead To God" screed, their rhetoric should bring a tear of sadness to the Christians eye. These people reject Jesus, so how can they know God? And why would they preach such unsubstantiated stuff? It's more than likely the god of this world putting ideas into their heads.

3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

The Pope Gets His Theology From Cartoons

Happy To Be A Catholic Dog

I'm glad I visited Rome when I did, back in the late 70's. Not because it was a wonderful time, for those of us in the military it wasn't all that wonderful, but because it wasn't so weird in Rome back then.

Mr. Pope, who really isn't a James Bond villain, just made one of the most nonsensical, unbiblical, pronouncements since he began his attack on the bible in March 2013. 

"One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God's creatures." - Mr. Pope

Before discussing Mr. Pope's statement, let's look at the bible verses that he based his statement on: 

The Gospel According To Luke

If you hold to the concept that you can't believe a gospel because the author did not personally know Jesus while he was alive then don't read Luke. Luke never personally, physically met Jesus. They didn't have dinner together, Luke never heard Jesus preach, Luke didn't help distribute the bread and fish to the thousands. So obviously the Gospel of Luke cannot be trusted, right? 

The inaccurately titled blog The Church of Truth (which in reality is merely an atheist screed attacking something they can't possibly understand) goes to great and unsuccessful efforts to prove the falsehood that the bible can't be trusted and one of their great weapons is the completely inaccurate assessment that if the author of a Gospel didn't know Jesus while Jesus walked the earth, then that Gospel is not worth considering.

If you believe this assessment, then I urge you to consider doing the following: go to your nearest university, go into the research library, find the history section, and burn it to the ground. Statistically NONE of those books in there, other than autobiographies and memoirs, were written by someone who had "skin in the game", the vast majority of history books were are written long after the fact by researchers and historians who interviewed witnesses, acquaintances of witnesses, historical records and other history books.

The Gospel According to John

The Gospel of John was the last written and the most individual Gospel of the four. While the three synoptic gospels were written before the fall of Jerusalem and have specific audiences in mind, the Gospel of John was written long after the end of Jewish temple worship and not directed to a specific group or culture, but to the world as a whole. John's presentation is unique also, due to the fact that John focuses on Jesus the Savior, not the Kingdom of God. The synoptic gospels present Christ the Messiah who is offering the promised Kingdom of God to the Jews, in John the kingdom is only mentioned five times in three verses.

The primary purpose of this gospel is actually stated in the gospel itself, the reader doesn't have to dig for meaning or implied reasoning, it's all right there:

30 Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 20:30-31)

Another unique thing about John is that it only covers 20 days in Jesus' life on earth and not in sequence. John does not record Jesus' birth, genealogy, childhood, baptism, temtation, transfiguration and assention of Jesus, but instead begins with the fact that Jesus is God (John 1:1-4). John records no parables and this is the only gospel to refer to Jesus as the "Lamb of God", an image familiar to Jews. The Jews understood the sacrifice of a lamb symbolized the taking away of sin.

The Gospel According To Mark

There is no internal documented evidence that the Gospel of Mark was written by Mark, or John Mark, the idea that the Gospel According to Mark came from the early church. The most important evidence comes from Papias (c. a.d. 140), who quotes an even earlier source as saying: 

Mark was a close associate of Peter, from whom he received the tradition of the things said and done by the Lord;

this tradition did not come to Mark as a finished, sequential account of the life of our Lord, but as the preaching of Peter—preaching directed to the needs of the early Christian communities;

Mark accurately preserved this material.

So if you don't want to outright reject the entire Gospel According to Mark  as many scholars wish us to do, then you can rightly call it the Gospel According to Peter as it appears that John Mark was acting as Peter's secretary.