The tray with breakfast for two makes sense, even the laptop, but not that red phone.
This could be the interior of a nonexistent alien spaceship from some galaxy too far away to ever reach earth or an artificially unintelligent machine executing a plan to save the captured phone. I think I’ll go with the aliens. Why not? It’s either that or there’s a bug in the simulator.
If only I could get my brain out of the vat.
What’s with those wires? They’re stardust evolved from the big bang! That must be what they are otherwise nothing makes sense.
Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo below by David Stewart as this week’s prompt.
Psalm 53:2, “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.” (KJV)
George loved to run his mouth going after his targets with the punishing rhythm of a piercing sword. He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong because words, surreal as they might make things appear with new moon star light or full moon madness, weren’t really swords, or were they?
Regardless, he was so successful that some were afraid they would not be able to survive without getting the mark of George on their foreheads and so they took it. Eventually those with sharper tongues pinned George to the ground. They ran through their mouths loud, rationalized nonsense spiced with curses until he admitted defeat and took their marks.
As ancient prophecy foretold such troubles would continue until they were stopped by the Anointed King, but in the meantime one would have to put up with a succession of starry-eyed new moon Georges with full moon mad king aspirations who preferred wounding to healing.
Denise offers the prompt word “rhythm” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. As I kept altering this story it got to a point that I thought it might also work for Eugenia’s challenge this week where she offered the prompt word “surreal”.
David Pawson asked in the lecture below (about 12:00) why are believers so certain they are saved?
Is the basis for our assurance the Scriptures? Not completely. The Scriptures are too objective. Pawson explained, “It says there that whoever believes is certain of Heaven, but how do I know I am included?” (about 13:50)
Is the basis for our certainty our holiness? Again, not completely. Our holiness is too subjective. Pawson explained, “If my assurance is based on my living a Christ-like life in the world, then frankly I am going to be beset by a nagging doubt again, because there are times that I know that I have not lived a Christ-like life.” (about 15:30)
Where then do we find assurance? Pawson answered: “The thing that clinches it every time is neither the Scripture nor your own sanctity, but the Spirit.” (about 17:10) Through our mouths the Spirit overflows as we testify that Jesus is Lord and God is Father. That overflow with joy is our certainty.
If we can make that testimony with our mouths, then we have all we need for the gift of tongues. This gift allows us to pray to God in languages we do not understand which keeps our minds from getting in the way. We do this privately for personal edification. That prayer is between ourselves and God.
How do we do it? Breathe in. Open the mouth. Move the lips and tongue and make sounds even if they are very quiet, under one’s breath. Trust the Spirit will come up with the perfect words of prayer and praise in agreement with the Father’s will and not our own.
Someone might complain that anyone, even those without the Spirit, could fake praying in tongues if they wanted to. True. They could, if they wanted to, but who in their right mind would want to do that for very long without the joy, thanks and praise coming from the Holy Spirit?
Nor does this mean that one must pray in tongues if one has the Spirit. It’s a privilege. One gets to do this for long periods of time if one wants to. When some demon is messing with your mind trying to push you over a cliff of anger, lust or self-centeredness or whatever, start praying in tongues. The demon won’t have a clue what you’re saying. Then send that demon over the cliff if it hasn’t already jumped.
Your body has become a temple of the Holy Spirit.
For more information on praying in tongues see Dave Roberson’s free pdf book, The Walk of the Spirit – The Walk of Power: The Vital Role of Praying in Tongues. This post is about what he referred to as “tongues for personal edification” in Chapter 5. Another useful resource is by Mahesh Chavda, The Hidden Power of Speaking in Tongues. Andrew Wommack explains how praying in tongues is done in his final lecture of the series How To Hear God’s Voice. To put this all in perspective, Ryan Reeves presents a general, historical overview of Pentacostalism.
Not all Christians accept praying in tongues. Indeed, I suspect most don’t, but I also suspect with the growth of Pentecostalism that will change. For example, John MacArthur rejected tongues because he claimed it is easy to falsify and Greg Bahnsen made a theological claim that tongues have ceased. However, I find praying in tongues to be an effective exercise that keeps my heart on the Lord and strengthens my faith.
You are welcome to express your own views in the comments below.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Metzora 8 Nissan, 5782 – April 9, 2022 Torah:Leviticus 14:1 – 15:33 Haftarah:Kings II 7:3-20 Brit Chadashah:Matthew 8:1-17 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
Busy folk in the city paid no attention to the clouds splashing through the sky. The clouds got darker. They dropped thick, beautiful snow. The busy folk couldn’t get to work. The snow was so deep the snow plow driver didn’t see the sign to raise the plow in time. That made a mess.
People blamed the politicians who promised global warming. The politicians blamed the scientists. The scientists blamed Gaia. Since Gaia doesn’t exist, she couldn’t care less.
The clouds couldn’t care less either, because that’s not what clouds do. They splash through the sky dropping rain and snow.
Thomas enjoyed an ability to run off the neighborhood kids by just looking at them, but even he was surprised that Moshe’s one year old daughter was old enough to have the sense to start crying when their eyes met. Unfortunately not only was the girl precocious, but the memory of her eyes acted on Thomas like a match lighting up horrendous nightmares.
When Thomas was finally too afraid to go to sleep and ready to try anything he sought Moshe’s advice complaining about his dreams. With Thomas’s permission Moshe commanded, “All you demons influencing, tormenting, terrorizing or generally messing with my neighbor, Thomas, – LEAVE HIM – BaShem Yeshua HaMashiach!” Thomas fell to the ground screaming out demons like vomit.
After the demons left Moshe helped Thomas to his feet and explained to him the changes he would have to make to keep them from returning with reinforcements.
Bob Sorensen used the phrase “dust-to-Darwin” to describe evolution. This phrase succinctly describes the mythopoetic rationalization underlying evolutionary speculations. It brings two contrary things to mind. First, the word dust brings to mind Genesis 2:7 where we have a “dust-to-Adam” creation by God. Second, the word Darwin brings to mind those who promote a mindless, deterministic/random evolutionary explanation of how we got here.
The dust-to-Darwin problem is the realization that the speculations attempting to replace Genesis are no longer plausible, if they ever were. The problem for atheistic speculations is that science never has been on the side of atheism in spite of it being institutionally force-fed. That’s because experimental science doesn’t sit still. Scientists, some of them witlessly, keep pushing down the atheist fencing, because that fencing doesn’t fit reality.
For example, although mutations in DNA might look like the driving force of evolution, look closer and they point to genetic entropy and single, recent male and female ancestors. Although the fossil column might look like it could be dated to be hundreds of millions of years old, look closer and that dating falls apart when scientists estimate the entire geologic record would be eroded away in a mere ten million years assuming measured rates of erosion. Experimental science measured this entropy and erosion. Those measurements undermined speculative philosophy’s attempts to justify atheism.
Even more fundamentally, the dust-to-Darwin problem is that the philosophy of atheism offers no plausible way for any kind of dust to get here in the first place without God. It presents no plausible explanation for how that dust came alive without God. It has no plausible way to explain why men and women are inhabiting earth right now without God.
But the most serious part of the dust-to-Darwin problem comes when normal, ordinary people realize that they have been deceived, fooled into filtering reality through atheistic mythology.
Thomas longed to live in harmony with his neighbors but none of them deserved it. Everywhere he turned they would rush off just as he was warming up to explain again what they were doing wrong. They reminded him of those rats in his yard scurrying from one neglected debris pile to another.
In the evening, feeding on beer and popcorn, Thomas set his thoughts on the day’s alleged news and contentious commentary until he could stand it no longer and let his wagging tongue off its leash. At such breaking points he would rise, pace the floor, open his mouth, and without a clear understanding of what his hardened heart was leading him to say curse the stale air of his living room. Demons loved to party there.
23 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, 2 Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: 3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
The oral Torah is part of the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism in addition to the written Torah of the Bible. Not all Jews accept this second Torah. Those who don’t are called Karaite Jews.
Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jew, described this oral Torah in the first half of the lecture below. Given Yeshua’s (Jesus’s) objections to the Pharisees he suspected Yeshua was an early Karaite Jew (although Christian and Messianic believers know He is much, much more).
Being also a Hebrew scholar who studied the Shem Tov Hebrew manuscript of Matthew as well as one who found other manuscript copies of it Gordon attempted to answer a question about Matthew 23:3 that has puzzled some. In spite of Yeshua’s objection to the oral Torah of the Pharisees why did He tell His disciples to do whatever “they bid you observe”?
Gordon observed that in the Hebrew manuscript of Matthew Yeshua told his disciples to do whatever “he” bid you observe where the “he” referred to Moses, not the Pharisees. If this section of the manuscript is more authentic, the puzzlement can be explained by a scribal error.
His explanation is in the second half of his talk starting about 1:15:50 in the video. For more details see his book, The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus.
I am grateful to Benjamin Andreessen’s very detailed posts on this and similar topics in his MeWe group Hebrew Shalom.
Seemingly faraway in time and space Athaliah was the daughter of Jezebel and King Ahab and the wife of Jehoram son of King Jehoshaphat of the southern hill country.
She observed how her mother handled the problem of Naboth when he refused to trade his vineyard to please her father. In her husband’s name Jezebel directed two false witnesses to accuse Naboth of cursing God and king resulting in him being stoned to death. As her father took possession of the vineyard like windfall from the forbidden tree in the middle of the garden a prophet gave Ahab a piece of God’s mind.
That her mother got away with stuff like that bewitched Athaliah allowing toxic ingredients of cold-blooded manipulation to manifest. She was ready to usurp the reign of the southern hill country.
Some people pronounce the divine name in the Bible represented by the four Hebrew letters, yud-hey-vav-hey, YHVH, יְהוָ֤ה, as “Yahweh”, but is that correct?
The following are some arguments in favor of Yehováh (accent marked on the last syllable to distinguish it from “Jehovah”) as the divine name.
Benjamin Andreessen in a recent post to his Hebrew Shalom MeWe group noted that Nehemia Gordon found manuscripts with full vowel pointings and cantillation marks for the divine name Yehováh. He also gives a brief history starting with the Samaritans and leading to Gesenius for why Yahweh might even be considered today as a possible ancient pronunciation suggesting there is not enough evidence to support it.
Navah provides an explanation favoring the Yehováh pronunciation and an explanation why the Hebrew letter vav would have been pronounced in ancient times with a “v” rather than a “w” sound as it is done by many Hebrew speakers today. He takes a different view of Gesenius than Gordon does.
The following video summarizes Al Garza’s argument for Yehováh.
Justin J. Van Rensburg created fifteen video responses to Gordon (see the Hebrew Gospels). His arguments are based on “ketiv qere perpetuum” explained in video 3, that some readings of the vowel pointings are gibberish explained in video 5 and a claim that the vav had a “w” pronunciation in ancient times in video 15.
Brown-Driver-Briggs constructed vowel pointings for the Yahweh sound, but that assumes the vav had a “w” sound in ancient times and the visible vowel pointings in the Masoretic text were faulty. They also used the JEDP documentary hypothesis to classify the evidence. Since I maintain that Moses wrote most of the Torah, I find what they have to say suspicious.
If anyone has more information, or a strong opinion one way or the other, you are welcome to comment.
There is a third position presented by the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues Steering Committee (One Law, Two Sticks, 1-15-2014, page 10) : The problem with praying to God by His so-called “sacred name,” was that nobody was really quite sure what it was. Some said it was “Jehovah,” while others decided it was “Yahweh,” and there were other forms as well. This position would prefer a title such as Lord or Adonai than a specific name.
Until recently this third position was the one I followed saying “Maythe Lord bless you” rather than may Yahweh or Yehováh bless you. However, it raises the question: Should I be invoking a title when the Hebrew text offers an explicit name?
This issue concerns me because I have unwittingly believed things that I later wished I had not. Until I read Andreessen discuss the “Yahweh heresy” and its suspected origins in “liberal Theology” I had no problem with the ancient Yahweh pronunciation although I didn’t use it. Now I wonder whether the introduction of Yahweh a couple of centuries ago had been part of a larger deception. I don’t want to be fooled any more.
In the video below Nehemia Gordon provided evidence for the divine name being Yehováh citing 16 rabbis who explicitly stated that the correct vowels were sheva, cholam, and kamatz. He did not find anywhere in the database of historical Jewish documents the name Yahweh (about 29:00 in the video). This is the view I now favor.
Weekly Parashah Readings Parashah: Tzav 16 Adar II, 5782 – March 19, 2022 Torah:Leviticus 6:1 – 8:36 Haftarah:Jeremiah 7:21-28; Jeremiah 9:22-23 Brit Chadashah:Hebrews 7:24 – 8:6 Resources:Chabad, Hebrew4Christians,Weekly Torah Readings, Calendar
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 