index - pBiblx2 shepherdpuplinux.us

kjv@Mark:9:1-29 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - the faithless generation seems to include His own disciples who had not prepared for exercism with prayer and fasting and a group of scribes that were using one mans plight to provoke a crowd of seekers. Only one man is depicted as seeking the Lord to help him with his unbelief.

kjv@Mark:9:13 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Whatever they listed, this is how they treated a prophet, and they felt fully justified in doing so. The Baptists head delivered on a plater as a token of appreciation for a party dance?

kjv@Mark:9:30-50 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - The top down view death and resurrection, sacrifice and service, accepting the service of those outside that bring honour to the Lord, receiving and not offending the small, purging self from offending actions. Bottom up, not understanding, being afraid to ask, needless debate, self exaltation, factionalism, offense, losing saltiness.

kjv@Numbers:32-33 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - We see the sin of establishing your position now outside of the position of the group future, becoming a discouragement to those continuing on the divine course.

kjv@Numbers:32-33 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - All of this time and effort, trial and frustration, plague and cursing, all because of the group's untrusting reaction to the discouraging report of 10 of 12 spies

kjv@Mark:10:1-31 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - the mind tends to reduce a passage like this to its most palatable speck. Here we find as the diciple's minds were being opened up they were "astonished" frequently at Jesus's fuller revelations. Doesn't mean that they understood or agreed yet, only that they were seeing how deep things really were becoming.

kjv@Mark:10:1-31 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - we see that at least in the case of divorce a legalized leniency was granted because of the hardness of mens hearts. Perhaps better stated as a civil protection for the offended party. God's better intention is that their softer hearts would not cause this course of action.

kjv@Mark:10:32-52 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Jesus just revealed something very deep about the inter-workings between the Father and himself; the limits of the Son's power. The disciples are consumed though in the inter-working amongst themselves.

kjv@Deuteronomy:1-2 > > RandyP :

Israel was not the first nor the last to go into another's land and possess it. Here we are re-familiarized with our old acquaintances the children of Esau and the children of Lot. Giants had been little problem for them.

kjv@Deuteronomy:1-2 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - A brief summary of the past forty years of Israel from God's perspective shows how different the reprobate mind see's things than from God. No doubt as they heard this rehash, they had concocted an entirely different storyline. The same would be true I'm sure in our modern lives as well.

kjv@Mark:11:1-19 > > RandyP :

If we don't separate the three events in this passage, the middle fig tree account becomes a symbol of how Jesus viewed the fruit of the temple. There was no fruit only leaves. Being out of season (coming new covenant) shows that it in no way could be expected to bare fruit either.

kjv@Deuteronomy:3:11 > > RandyP :

There seems to be quite an emphasis in the past couple chapters on giants being removed by the children of Esau and then children of Lot and now by children of Israel. God's hand is always at work in ways larger and all encompassing than we see from within our smaller circle of personal needs and situations.

kjv@Deuteronomy:3:24 > > RandyP :

A view worth keeping placed in the center of our minds eye.

kjv@Deuteronomy:3-4 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - How easily Israel forgets the voice from the fire on the mount, the shapeless form, the cloud by day, the flame by night, the bringing out, the moving about, the enemies they had already miraculously defeated, things that they had all heard and seen and been apart of to focus strictly on themselves and their self serving gods. Self is often too strong for just reason.

kjv@Mark:12:1-27 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Is of the mind that it is in control even when it is not. Here we see the intent revealed by parable, we see the attempt to trap Jesus in words being foiled, and the fear of what the people would think holding them back. And yet they will soon do exactly what the parable says that they will do. What control does it actually have?

kjv@Deuteronomy:8-9 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - If the forty wilderness years were designed to show and prove Israel's heart for God, what did it prove? Rebellious/Stiff-necked/Everyday. That it was not because of their righteousness, but because of God's promise. How differently they must have thought.

kjv@Deuteronomy:10:16 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - The heart here is pictured as having a foreskin needing to be circumcised. This appears then to be it's natural state. Circumcision appears to be the symbolic token of the covenant.

kjv@Mark:12:40 > > RandyP :

Are there then levels of damnation?

kjv@Mark:12:28-44 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Interesting how two sides can completely agree on the verbiage of the greatest commandment but see it's daily implementation as opposites.

kjv@Deuteronomy:11-12 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Two book ends, what is right in ones own eye, what is good and right in God's eye. Two people, the former being chased out because of their idolatry, a a rebellious/stiff-necked people who were not a people now partakers in a promise made long ago. All that they have to do is love and obey. Can they? Why?

kjv@Deuteronomy:13:3 > > RandyP :

Loving the Lord God is described here as a singular devotion to one specific singular God. All paths do not lead to God, they lead to adulterated idolatry which the one God will in no way tolerate. This idolatry seems to be the norm and a nearly irresistible force that must be combated individually and collectively daily.

kjv@Deuteronomy:13 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Many academics critics would see this as a harsh immoral passage. Muslims and others who see Judeo-Christian religions as soft and emasculated, say that this and other passages are where we've defiled God's name. Would God have said this to Israel had he not intended their compliance at that time? Having not followed through on this, history would record Israel as constantly being pulled away and apart just as promised. Our minds today still seek to rationalize this out. Tolerance versus its effect on the course of events, obedience and it's effect on public perception.

kjv@Mark:13:9-11 > > RandyP :

Interesting that the publishing of the gospel to all the nations is sandwiched between 2 versus depicting the being brought before counsels and kings for a testimony against them and how we are to proceed into these trials.

kjv@Mark:13:30 > > RandyP :

Generation may have been better translated "Age". The Greek conveys both meanings and it is obvious that the Son of Man did not return on clouds of glory in the Romans' temple destruction in 70 a.d.

kjv@test > > RandyP :

Test examplej

kjv@test > > RandyP :

test2 exj

kjv@Deuteronomy:22 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - While these punishments for sexual immorality seem harsh, it should be noticed that never once were the punishments so harsh so as to to a stop to the sin. People will sin no matter the penalty.

kjv@Deuteronomy:21:9 > > RandyP :

This is a concept not considered now days: the guilt of innocent blood and it's effect upon all the nation.

kjv@Deuteronomy:21:19 > > RandyP :

Makes one wonder how many parents would actually follow through on this knowing the punishment. What level of rebellion would constitute this penalty.

kjv@kjv@Deuteronomy:24:1 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Jesus would later declare that this divorce was given by Moses because of the hardness of our hearts. If this code than how many others for the same reason.

kjv@kjv@Deuteronomy:24:4 > > RandyP :

Divorce - Taking her back to be his wife after she had divorced her most recent was not allowed.

kjv@kjv@Deuteronomy:24:4 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Causing the land inherited to sin? The land has also been mentioned spewing the sinful canannites out.

kjv@kjv@Deuteronomy:25:2 > > RandyP :

The judge could not just judge and then be gone, he had to remain to witness the punishment.

kjv@kjv@Mark:14:63 > > RandyP :

Should a man's own testimony be used against him if the testimony of other witnesses not agree?

kjv@kjv@Mark:14:72 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Was it only then that Peter thought about Jesus's words. The phrase "Calling to mind" projects the notion of items being on screen and off screen and that somehow we are in control as to which is which.

kjv@kjv@Deuteronomy:26 > > RandyP :

Remnants of the greatness of Egypt are still visible and academically curious today. One must not lose sight however that for all her greatness as a world empire, she was built upon the backs and innocent blood of peoples in bondage to her, an odd greatness given to a certain few. In Israel, God sought a greater nation, a people keenly concerned about from where it came and who had delivered it out with a strong miraculous hand.

kjv@kjv@Deuteronomy:27 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - This section of "cursed be" makes it pretty clear the type of morality sought from Israel. The fact that they were so frequently cursed should show us the true nature of our reprobate mind, the nature to somehow justify and allow that which is clearly set out as sinful bringing about curse as if to tempt and test God's own patience and resolve.

kjv@kjv@Mark:15:7 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - A murdering insurrectionist considered in the same judgment as our Lord and savior and winning out in pardon? That is often a clue to just how un comfortable and threatened people are by the revelation of their own conscience.

kjv@kjv@Mark:15:14 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Pilate's question was never adequately answered, justice even in human terms did not matter in the least. The mob mentality and possible threat of their riotous reaction if action was done to the contrary was solely sufficient.

kjv@kjv@Mark:15:16-20 > > RandyP :

Reprobate - Mind, where else would this behavior be justified? How does the mind go from duty and responsibility to this as it often does. This is not just the behavior of a few distant Roman soldiers long ago, this is the mind set of many intellectuals and activist on our college campuses today, this is the direction of much political discourse. Slander, mocking, humiliation, for no other reason than self and mob exaltation.

kjv@kjv@Mark:15:21 > > RandyP :

Anyone that knew Alexander and or Rufus in that day could have asked to verify the accuracy of this account. The mention of them in scripture was deliberate and most impactful if we knew the context.

kjv@kjv@Deuteronomy:28 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - The choice was theirs as a nation, blessing or curse, but, He knew the choice that was to be made beforehand; the answer here is always the same product of the reprobate mind, the mind will of course find a way to reduce and justify this to something other than what it is. It was clearly stated that they were to be an example to all the nations good or bad; so what would the national mind choose?

kjv@kjv@Mark:15:27-47 > > RandyP :

Just a few chapters ago we read Jesus parable about the vineyard that was stole away from the distant master by the employees thereof. Jesus deliberately stated that the servants knew that the true heir had been sent yet put the son to death in order to retain possession of the vineyard. We would suppose that these mocking men now talked about were somehow blinded and just didn't know who Jesus was. The parable suggests something much different. Or why else would have Jesus said it as so?

kjv@Deuteronomy:29-30 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Two very clear cut choices given here. Every reason past present and future to choose the one, every blessing and reward. The difference between them are simply the choice of which God to serve. Which choice do you think that they collectively chose and why? Was it because this God is too hard? Unjust? unrewarding? unpredictable and rash?

kjv@Mark:16 > > RandyP :

There are many way Jesus could have chose to reveal himself after the resurrection. To whom, to how many, in what way, all a series of choices deliberately made to cause the best effect. He chose to unwrap this like a much anticipated and extremely valuable birthday gift one corner at a time.

kjv@Joshua:7-8 > > RandyP :

One man amongst the group can severely affect the battle at hand. The spoils of the first battle were the Lords, yet one man hid away a share for himself. The second battle became an embarrassment and turned deadly, the man was found out. The people must santify themselves against to morrow and best obey God's stated design and command.

kjv@Luke:2:25-52 > > RandyP :

It would be interesting to look at the remaining gospels in the same light as Simeons prophecy, the revealing of many a heart. To watch how the heart minimizes and compartmentalizes and justifies and schemes.

kjv@Luke:2:52 > > RandyP :

This is now the second time that this increasing is stated, detailed by His gaining favour amongst men and God.

kjv@Luke:2:25-52 > > RandyP :

The first intents revealed would be those of His parents who apparently did not know where the 12 year old Jesus would be found; the temple.

kjv@Luke:2:25-52 > > RandyP :

Joseph may not have lived to see the Jesus we've come to know. He is not spoken of after this event in Jesus' 12th year. Thus the Simeon prophecy of Mary's heart later being pierced at the crucifiction takes on an interesting light of completion.

kjv@Joshua:9-10 > > RandyP :

God had to make it clear that it was He that was delivering these amazing victories, therefore the hail and the sun not going down one day. This also ponts out one of the greatest/rare times of Israel's solid obedience with only a few ill advised glitches.

kjv@Luke:3 > > RandyP :

The preaching and baptism of true repentence by John was the preparation of the way for Jesus.

kjv@Luke:3 > > RandyP :

Message outline = Fleeing Wrath to come, bringing fruit worthy of repentence, the truer children of Abraham, present judgement, probing examples of what rather to do, position of John, many other things exhorted, critic of public leaders, baptism.

kjv@Joshua:11:20 > > RandyP :

It is not clear as to what the mechanism God uses to harden hearts is; allowing such or in someway forcing such. It would be easy not knowing why God would want such for us to have difficaulty with this passage. With such passages it is best to give God the bennefit of our doubt and seek through for a more understandable why.

kjv@Joshua:11:20 > > RandyP :

Why? Hearts tend to harden or soften on their own given situations whether reasonably our unreasonably. These peoples hearts had been hard and continue to be unreasonably hard to this day. Perhaps God knowing that their hearts would not soften (or only temporarily) set in motion the final hardening (atleast for this time). Neither do we know the demonic warfare occurring behind the scenes that God may have been cleansing out of the area.

kjv@Joshua:11-12 > > RandyP :

Hopefully we can sense what a thurrough route God caused in this land of Canaan given the numbers and armourment and alliances against Israel. One loss only is reported and that caused by a covetous foot soilder in Ai. There should be no doubt at that time nor this that the one real and true living God is in action and wants this to occur.

kjv@Joshua:13 > > RandyP :

Not only do we have the miraculous victory of God over the previous inhabitants of this land, we have the miraculous sustaining of the Israelites in this land for several centuries despite their frequent bends toward idolotry and corruption. Gods work is spotlighted throughout on the center of the world's stage.

kjv@Joshua:13 > > RandyP :

Dare we say that the Israelites never fully pursued possesing the remainder of the promised land once they had recieved their own private allotments.

kjv@Luke:4:1-32 > > RandyP :

Jesus clearly knows who he is and what has been set before him to accomplish, this test is not to prove something more to himself, this test is for our benefit to prove to us that he is divine and sinless. From this fact we must assume that Satan's intention here as well was/is towards our misunderstanding of the scriptures that he is quoting.

kjv@Luke:4:1-32 > > RandyP :

I can't imagine the horror of being dead set against Jesus, determining to forcably cast him out and he supernaturally escapes your grip. Especially after the obvious conjunctions to his historical points about Ellias.

kjv@Luke:4:22 > > RandyP :

Gracious words one moment, seeking to toss him headlong down a cliff the next. The teetering point for them seemed to be Jesus's hometown.

kjv@Luke:4:32 > > RandyP :

Astonished were they in an age nearly 400 years long without God speaking. Astonishing today in an age many consider scripture as being irrelevant. The power is still there for those who seek/receive it.

kjv@Joshua:14:10 > > RandyP :

The spys were sent early just weeks after the red sea. Caleb was forty then. The wilderness to Jordan crossing 38 or so years. By my count the taking of Canann was approximately 7 years by Calebs math.

kjv@Joshua:14:15 > > RandyP :

Hebron is where Abraham once pitched his tent, where Sarah died, where David had his his first royal residence. It is one of the most ancient cities existing even to this day.

kjv@Joshua:14-15 > > RandyP :

Divided by tribe by lot. The levites having cities but not land. An early form of seperation of church and state? An early attempt to sanctify the priesthood from the corruption and entanglements of state?

kjv@Luke:4:39 > > RandyP :

This may have been more than a typical fever being that it had to be rebuked. Many others had been remedied with the laying on of hands.

kjv@Luke:4:33-44 > > RandyP :

Interesting that there was a consious effort by Jesus to quiet the testimony of those who had been healed or depossesed. Often they were directed merely to go tell their priest in submission/accordance to the Levitical Law.

kjv@Joshua:16-18 > > RandyP :

The immediate thing that stands out in these passages is that not all the Canaanites were driven out as had been commanded, some were subjegated. We also see that there were still battles to be waged individually by some of the tribes in order to secure their allotment.

kjv@Luke:5:8 > > RandyP :

This particular miracle was done for the Disciples benefit. I was done in terms that a long time fisherman like Peter could most understand, that there is no other way than supernatural for this to have been done. The immediate effect on Peter was that he realized his sinful nature.

kjv@Luke:5:16 > > RandyP :

If good for Jesus, how much better for us to do so at times?

kjv@Joshua:19-20 > > RandyP :

And so begins a completely new stage in each of their lives. They have never known there own land and for the past forty plus years been provided for miraculously in the wilderness. Frame of mind and attitudes can quickly change as some squander their inheritance or become in indebted. Some would even have to flee to cities of refuge as setup here.

kjv@Luke:5:17-39 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - One man sees a miracle and suddenly sees his sinful nature before God. Other men see a miracle and become defensive and increasingly antagonistic. These men have constructed an expectation of a Messiah that helps them justify their growing hatred.

kjv@Joshua:22:10-34 > > RandyP :

Though this incident appears to resolve itself, doesn't at least appear that there is much friction between those tribes on the other side of Jordan and those on the Canaan? A decision is made to build a curious alter without announcing their intent, and the others would gather in a warlike stance without first determining the intent. Perhaps it is the english translanslation here but, building a testimony to stand between us and you for future generations seems to me biased and perhaps prejudicial and anticipating division and rift.

kjv@Luke:6:8 > > RandyP :

This knowing their thoughts may not be as supernatural as we'd first consider, it may have been quiet apparent. Their thoughts were not what is being said or how could this be true or to what extent does this mean, they were what we might do to this man. So much for logic and analytic deduction.

kjv@Luke:6:12 > > RandyP :

All night prayer? If prayer were simply petition we would wonder what the Son of God would have needing so much petition but, if it were to worship and commune and be in the presence of the Father and Spirit then to someone who was accustomed to praying forty days in a wilderness this would seem quiet brief. Prayer very well could be more important than even sleep.

kjv@Judges:1:19 > > RandyP :

Odd! Is He with them with them once and not with them in another. Makes me wonder if they themselves did not pursue this because of the iron chariots instead.

kjv@Judges:1:21 > > RandyP :

What was the criteria used here? Once you begin allowing for some foreigners don't you have to allow for the rest? Doesn't this contradict what you were told by God to do? What your other brethren are also attempting to perform? Doesn't this begin a snowball process of rationalized disobedience?

kjv@Judges:2:10 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - Look at how quick they forget God. All of the battles. All of the victories under impossible odds. All of the miracles. So much for rational thought, the heart instead does what it wants and from that proceeds to rationalize it. The heart certainly has it's problems with God.

kjv@Judges:2:15-16 > > RandyP :

Here we see both the anger and mercy of the Lord. He had sworn His covenant to them both in blessings and in reproof should they disobeyed.

kjv@Judges:2:17 > > RandyP :

Do you remember how they swore upon the rock just two chapters ago at the end of Joshua? One generation should not make oaths for the children of the next. Did they not take into account that Joshua may well have brought all this up because of something he knew all to well? There were already foriegn gods in their possession for them to have to put away.

kjv@Judges:2:22 > > RandyP :

They chose this course. God chose to use it to prove them yea or nay.

kjv@Luke:7:2-3 > > RandyP :

Jesus knows the man and he is dear to Him and then the man hears of Him? The man sends Jewish elders in his place? The realness and grittiness of the lesser details is what is so engaging.

kjv@Luke:7:17 > > RandyP :

Notice here the importance of the power behind and with and in front of God's word. His teaching and revelation and sermons may have taken years to make their way out into the whole of Judea but, one miracle and the word spreads in days. Unfortunately, one miracle wont satisfy them for long as they will ask for more and more.

kjv@Luke:7:23 > > RandyP :

What a great verse to exhort others by in evangelism.

kjv@Luke:7:30 > > RandyP :

What was it that needed to be prepared ahead of the Lord? Here we see that publicans and general public were willingly baptized with the baptism of John, Phasies and Sadducee not. Having repented and been baptised the people were closer to seeing who Messiah was to be, those that had not done so were further and further from seeing being caught into the jealously of Jesus's astonishing popularity and buzz.

kjv@Judges:3:1-4 > > RandyP :

How many times we think that God's intent is to completely drive out all the bad things in our lives so that we can live peaceably and prosperously and without trial; that we could live our lives as we see fit. It is of course a vain imagination. The proving that God required here of Israel may not have been for His own satisfaction but, for they themselves to see and learn of. He knows our heart, that we will only call to Him when there is no other way out of our self induced troubles. It would be wise for us to know that and thus the proving.

kjv@Luke:7:31-50 > > RandyP :

A generation of men who find fault in God's anointed no matter what they do or don't do. A room of diner guests shown by a warm intimate living example the profound meanings of forgiveness criticizing the teacher for assuming the power to forgive. You see the course of our hearts and authority our heart confiscates. We ourselves should not justify wisdom....Wisdom shall instead justify us. Or not!

kjv@Luke:7:35 > > RandyP :

"Wisdom is justified by her children" - Reminder: The next time you invite a potential Messiah to your house for diner... don't criticize his epic discourse on love and forgiveness without sleeping on it a day or two first.

kjv@Judges:6:13 > > RandyP :

Why then has this befallen us? Because we did evil in the sight of the Lord. Because we did not obey His voice. Because within even his fathers household and local community they were worshiping Baal. Because God put these things in place to prove Israel whether they would obey His voice. Next question!

kjv@Judges:7:2 > > RandyP :

So often we read and study the Bible searching for our own personal needs and problems. Our eye is singular. Other times we think in terms that everyone needs to become involved or to be doing this. Occasions like this we think that if not everyone is doing this then there is no reason for us to continue. Instead we should see things more like God sees it, who will claim the glory? how many people does it actually take? has not God gone ahead of us to deliver the victory anyway?

kjv@Judges:7:13 > > RandyP :

The tendency is for us to limit God down to what we ourselves are able to do for Him (individually mainly as our expectation of the collective suffers). It must have been astonishing for Gideon to peek in the enemies camp by night and hear what God was in the process of doing for Israel.

kjv@Judges:6-7 > > RandyP :

Interesting to note that as much as God did in preparing this victory, He still required them to be of strong courage and to obey His specific directions to the tee in order to complete this deliverence. God made sure from the start that this was not a victory that they could glory in for themselves by limiting the participants down to the size of the average highschool graduation class.

kjv@Luke:8:3 > > RandyP :

Do you think that Herod was not aware of Jesus's devoted/fanatical following?

kjv@Luke:8:10 > > RandyP :

I have often felt of myself that if I just said the right words, or explained Jesus in just the right way that others would come logically and simply to the understanding of His salvation. The parable of the sower discusses the conditions present within the heart of man that keep men from being able to come to that conclussion, very little of it has to do with intellect. Jesus I feel is stating that until the heart is properly conditioned to receive it is not for them to understand. I further believe that these poorer conditions can re-enter our lives even as believers and that multiple conditions can co-exist. It might be perhaps better to say that we are each a composite of these conditions in one respect or another.

kjv@Luke:8:15-16 > > RandyP :

Notice how the two seemingly different parables are butted up against each other? They may not be as different as determined first glance. The sower ends with the fruitful keeping or doing of the word. The candlestick begins with the ludicrousy of attempting to hide the light one just lit.

kjv@Judges:8:33 > > RandyP :

Did Gileods downfall make it easier for Israel to run a whoring after his death? Was it bound to happen anyway? Could we say that at the very least his downfall prepared his family for the calamity about to befall them?

kjv@Judges:8:33 > > rpritts :

Did Gideons downfall make it easier for Israel to run a whoring after his death? Was it bound to happen anyway? Could we say that at the very least his downfall prepared his family for the calamity about to befall them?

kjv@Luke:8:22-56 > > RandyP :

Our lite and fluffy modern version of Jesus doesn't seem to account much for the fear people had regarding Jesus. An entire region of people because of the healing of a man demonically possed, a legion of demons whose fear of what He might do was a torment to them, even His disciples upon the boat at the rebuking of the wind and sea. Some were first glad to see Him thinking that He could help them but, once miraculous things began to happen people became markably uncomfortable near His presence.

kjv@Judges:10-11 > > RandyP :

It would e interesting to know more about the mechanic of how Israel pleaded to God. Was this unanimous? How long would it take to bring everyone into a unanimous agreement? Was it a majority? If we were to do this nationaly today how large of a coilition would have to be built?

kjv@Judges:10-11 > > RandyP :

Obviously, some men just make better warior leaders than other. The residents here had to swallow in their pride and previous exilement to gain the expertiese of this judge. It does not specifically say that they consulted God for this. It does appear that God however blessed the action.

kjv@Luke:9:6 > > RandyP :

Could this be a modified version of the gospel from what we now recite? Jesus had yet to die for the sins of the world, the disciples were unclear as to the reality of His approaching death, and as we see a few verses from here the disciples were directed not to reveal that Jesus was the Christ. If so, what did this gospel look like? Perhaps as Jesus had been teaching "The kingdom of God is like unto...."

kjv@Luke:9:11 > > RandyP :

The discples were sent to preach the Gospel, Jesus is here speaking of the Kingdom. Healing was partnered with both.

kjv@Judges:15-16 > > RandyP :

The story of Samson is a hard one to figure; not the best of role models for sure. Israel is controlled by the Philistines so they are not in God's favor. Samson is God's anointed judge for that time yet he almost seems to flaunt the fact that nothing bad can happen to him; he pushes and crosses the line often. Not even Israel can be too pleased with his example. Given the chance to better their situation with their captors, they capture and turn Samson in. He is still God's anointed, they are still on God's bad side. Samson is then filled with might from the Holy Spirit and avenges his captors convincingly. He eventually meets his flaunting demise, but, for Israel you don't mess with God's anointed no matter.

kjv@Judges:18-19 > > RandyP :

An interesting look into the lives of the peoples of this time. When it is said that they "did what was right in their own eyes" that's just what they did. One man made him idols and made him his own personal levite priest to go along side. Another was a priest who was sold out to the highest bidder. Another is a well intending hospitable man who attempts to protect his guests from the townsfolk mob giving his concubine over to the ritual lusts of the men of his town. Then he sends pieces of her body to the leaders of the eleven other tribes inciting a civil war. Everyone involved surely found a way to justify themselves and their despicable actions no doubt.

kjv@Luke:10:25-42 > > RandyP :

Contrasted today are two individuals, a young man attempting to justify himself by debating the good teacher Jesus on a point of Law, a woman graciously but busily hosting a gathering Jesus and His disciples justifying herself by shaming her spiritually inquisitive sister. How easy it is for us to be both of these persons unintentionally. To tell Jesus on the one hand how things must be intellectually and to tell others how things must be practically/domestically/culturally.

kjv@Judges:20-21 > > RandyP :

Every man did what was right in his own eyes? Apparently the tribe of Benjamin thought it right to defend a clan of ritualistic rapists and murderers. Better to go to war with the eleven other tribes than deal justly with the evil in their own midst.

kjv@Judges:20-21 > > RandyP :

Israel had the permission of God, they had the numerical advantage, they had done the prayer and fasting and worship and their cause was just and yet they lost convincingly these first few attempts. Who knows the reasoning that God pursued the eventual victory in this way, but, no doubt His purpose holy and just even if unknown to us. Given Israel's response post victory to the desperate need of their making to continue observing Benjamin's right to inheritance with new wives, they must have felt that God reasoning must have included the future ability of the twelve tribes to resume as one nation. We too must be aware that not every victory, even by God's direct blessing protects us from initial defeat or partial culpability. Victory may come at great sacrifice and frustration.

kjv@Judges:20-21 > > RandyP :

Every man doing what is right in his own eye? One city chose not to engage this civil war at all. They hid themselves from the ranks of Israel. In the end they paid the price of restoration by the blood of there own citizens and the servitude of their female virgins. The responsibilities of a nation are all mens. Pacifism, not standing against the blatant injustice of others, not standing for the effort toward restoration of justice whatever the cost, hiding behind some supposed morality free from the greater morality of other people's rights and just penalties afforded has unforeseen longterm consequences.

kjv@Luke:11:23 > > RandyP :

So much for "all paths lead to God".

kjv@Luke:11:27-28 > > RandyP :

Possibly a prediction of a future rift in the church body? And which side He would rather choose?

kjv@Luke:11:1-13 > > RandyP :

The idea that the author here put these two teachings so closely together brings up some interesting thoughts. The first teaching is not to shut out a needing neighbor no matter how inopportune the moment. The second to ask and knock no matter how inopportune the need. We assume that this asking is just of God given the concluding verses, but it is also true asking of man. How many of us will ask of God, knowing that God will provide, but, not ask of man through God may well intend to do His providing, and then reason that God doesn't want to answer because He hasn't provided. It is an odd logic on our part when considered this way. God does implore the first neighbor to give; right?

kjv@Luke:11:17-18 > > RandyP :

This statement from Jesus may well be just as much about Satan's tight control over his host and methods and means and pressures he must use as it is about the goodly kingdom we casually assume He is talking about by hurriedly reading through. How hard it must be to keep the loyalty of his scandalous permissive and yet ultimately defeated troops.

kjv@1Samuel:3:13 > > RandyP :

Some of the greatest sins for which we are judged are not in us performing the acts ourselves but in us not restraining those we know who are performing them. The judgment is the same. So the next time you think "I have not sinned" think back on whom it is your responsibility to restrain and have not.

kjv@1Samuel:3:17 > > RandyP :

kjv@1Samuel:3:13 extends sin to include those knowingly do not restrain others from sin. Here in kjv@1Samuel:3:17 we perceive a further guilt to those who have been given a special revelation of knowledge from the LORD and withhold it.

kjv@Luke:12:1-34 > > RandyP :

Interesting that religious hypocrisy is addressed so closely to the fear of others, the covetousness of brothers and dispute over inheritance, mis-appropriation of riches and insecurity over God's provisions. We could take the course of interpretation that these are separate unrelated items or we could consider more deeply the possible connections. I find the fear and insecurity angles possible indications that all items might be connected.

kjv@kjv@1Samuel:4-5 > > RandyP :

Often times we use the articles of God for our own constructs thinking His power is for us to use however we see fit, that God will just empower us wanting us to succeed in every endeavor. Maybe not the Ark but, our church membership or a cherry picked passage of scripture or oils and incense or (fill in the blank). God was not behind this use of the Ark nor was He consulted, the people simply assumed it so and thus paid the price.

kjv@kjv@1Samuel:6 > > RandyP :

The Philistines, even at this later point were remarkably aware of the Exodus accounts particularly the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. It is somewhat amusing that they still kept to their gods thinking that if they just sent the Ark back with golden mice and hemorrhoids The God would leave their gods alone.

kjv@Luke:12:48 > > RandyP :

This passage refutes the liberal notion that the second coming is is not literal if the wise servant is accountable for watching and being prepared.

kjv@Luke:12:48 > > RandyP :

The later part of this verse was recently used by an American President to argue raising taxes on the rich. What riches have to do with being watchful and prepared for the second Lords coming knowing the marital will of the Lord, I am not sure.

kjv@Luke:12:56 > > RandyP :

It is thought that no one can know the time and they leave it at that. Here we see that the indications will be discern-able just as a shift in the weather.

kjv@Luke:12:57-59 > > RandyP :

That this teaching about settling up with ones adversaries before going to the judge is so close to the earlier talk of being watchful and prepared for the Lord's return indicates the urgency and type of preparations to be made.

kjv@1Samuel:7:13 > > RandyP :

Is this Hand against the Philistines evidence of the effect of one holy man or just coincidence that the amount of time was similar to the time of Samuel?

kjv@1Samuel:8:1-8 > > RandyP :

This problem with the children of great men seems to be frequent in the Bible accounts. We just read about Eli. Interesting though that God was ready to continue working through with that until the people spoke up to Samuel. God saw moving from a system of His judges into a monarchy as a rebellion against His direct rule; even though the next two judges were deceitful brats. His rule was not intended to be perfect in our eyes, our rule though was even less perfect and out right rebellious. He allowed the transition being capable of working even with that, but, which rule serves His needs best?

kjv@1Samuel:8:9-22 > > RandyP :

This was Samuel's protest, this is what bad would happen by having a king over Israel. It may not seem all that bad of a deal to us now who live under a 30% tax rate (45% corporate) and have lost a good deal of our liberties to social engineering projects and entitlements and elites notions of a one world economy. What does sound bad is that God would no longer hear Israels voice which should have brought them second thoughts. Doesn't sound like it was even a consideration; they just wanted to be like everyone else.

kjv@1Samuel:9:16 > > RandyP :

Though He is sorely displeased with Israel seeking a king, God is unchanged about doing what He was all along going to do about fulfilling of the covenant and prophecies. This is not a set back or a plan "b". This is another in a long series of Israel's reprobate actions "doing what is right in their own eyes" which God is well aware of. He works His will regardless. It is important for us to see this in our lives and our nations as well.

kjv@Luke:13:1-5 > > RandyP :

I take this to mean not that bad things won't happen to repentant believers, clearly we see that they do, but, that they will not be without salvation and God's hand. For Jesus suggests that it is not because of their sin that these two calamities happened, yet, repentance would have still been in order; it is always in order.

kjv@Luke:13:6-9 > > RandyP :

Because of proximity, does this relate to the previous discussion about calamity and repentance? How does our spiritual caregiver dig around the tree and feed it? Are there not the fruits of repentance?

kjv@Luke:13:12-17 > > RandyP :

This peculiar passage does not quote Jesus as saying "your sins are forgiven" as He does so many times. In fact it says that she is loosened from the bounds of Satan. Not all illnesses nor healings are presented this way. We should not assume, we should approach from a preparatory base of prayer and fasting. Many say "why pray" or "why fast". It is precisely because we don't know what is ahead of us and we just can't simply assume that we know.

kjv@Luke:13:17-21 > > RandyP :

If connected in context to the rest of the remainder of the chapter we'd see that this astounding kingdom growth is a result of a caregivers' nurturing care towards repentance (even by calamity), the bounds of Satan being identified and loosed, legalism and tradition and religious expectation being loosed, certain adversaries being shamed in their confrontation, and praise of the multitude for what He has done. Not a bad summation of the Gospel...eh?

kjv@Luke:13:23-30 > > RandyP :

Instead of just being critical of the concept of "How could a loving God judge" one should at least consider the mechanisms of His judgment to perhaps see why that He might. In this account kjv@Luke:13:25 the master of the house simply shuts the door; the window of opportunity is closed. For how long a time must the master be expected to leave His door open? Is it not His to open and close as He sees fit? Has he not said to strive to enter the straight gate? And yet many have not made the effort, have rather chosen to enter however they wished whenever they wish just expecting to enter His house to do whatever they wish? What kind of master would he be towards His other more considerate guests? Are the outsiders right then to criticize His judgment and not there own judgment instead?

kjv@1Samuel:14:6 > > RandyP :

How true! Where often our Reprobate Mind reduces matters down to where it feels more in control, Where when that level of control is outside our grasp we limit God's control down to levels that we are more comfortable with, we like Jonathan need to allow God to be the truer image - the much larger God that He needs to be.

kjv@1Samuel:14:52 > > RandyP :

Wasn't it that when Samuel protested there being a king over Israel initially that this very thing was part of his argument? The taking of Israel's sons and daughters for whatever the king saw fit?

kjv@Luke:14:7 > > RandyP :

Surely this parable has larger application than just weddings or feasts. How about ministry? Where it is often our intention to serve the Lord by becoming a pastor, worship leader, elder, licensed counselor; it may be God's will for us do something less attention and honor grabbing as investing ourselves and our free time in the lives of others.

kjv@Luke:14:12-15 > > RandyP :

The term social networking comes to mind here as we've all been to gatherings where we are there basically to derive some benefit for ourselves. Contacts are made, business cards shared, you can help me and I can help you, possible resources and referrals are gathered.

kjv@Luke:14:12-24 > > RandyP :

The two teachings here really should be taken together. The feast that God has invited us to we surely cannot recompense back to Him. The feast that we invite others to should be similar. In a greater context the feast that we are inviting others to as Christians is the Lord's feast, it should not our inspiration to host such an effort in order to derive personal benefit.

kjv@Luke:14:12-24 > > RandyP :

Nor should we excuse our not participating in joining the Lord's feast for any of our many personal reasons.

kjv@Luke:14:1-24 > > RandyP :

Three seemingly unrelated stories that may have a common thread: presumed positions at a feast. There is the man that presumes that he is a much honored guest. There is the man that presumes that he'll receive recompense from his own guests. There are many men that do not accept the lord's invitation presuming that there are more urgent priorities yet awaiting. I doubt if the Lord is just discussing diner etiquette. The feast in this case is His triumphant wedding feast. The thread of teaching is the presumption of who is there, why they are there, the presumptions they make going into it, who is willing to accept their truthful position.

kjv@1Samuel:15:35 > > RandyP :

Repented God? When there is an apparent contradiction (see: kjv@1Samuel:15:29) the Spirit is not hiding the truth of the matter from us, He is beckoning us to consider how that the two things might be mutually and emphatically true at the same time. These are underlined highlights meant to foster a deeper searching/understanding. If we trust that there is an spiritual answer from the start, diligence will eventually prove to be much more fruitful than if we let it slip by.

kjv@1Samuel:15:20 > > RandyP :

Doing what is right is not simply performing the action, it is also in performing it in the right manner. Saul did obtain what he saw to be the objective; defeat the Amalekites. God's objective was further into proving the obedience of Israel; Saul being chief.

kjv@1Samuel:15-16 > > RandyP :

Old Testament accounts such as these are hard for modern audiences to fathom. Our image of God's nature and God's intentions are much more docile. We must remember that God is establishing a key peace in His argument; the depiction of man's sinful nature and His case for a incarnate/redemptive Christ. What is spirit is spirit, what is flesh is flesh, and the two minds are at complete enmity with each other. Spiritual God is having to use fleshly matters to convince the fleshy mind of the accuracy of a hated spiritual message; not only for the Israel of that time but, also us who are reading this now as well.

kjv@1Samuel:15-16 > > RandyP :

The awkwardness of these difficult passages may also arise from the fact that modern readers are trying the Bible from a self help viewpoint. One then must ask how does this difficult portrayal of God's nature help me? We thereby exclude the grander contexts of what God had to get us to a point where He could help us, what He had to stick to, what He had to insist upon, what He had to battle through to get us to a point of realizing our truly reprobate sinful nature. Difficulty here does not reveal so much about difficulty with God as it reveals difficulty with us.

kjv@Luke:14:25-35 > > RandyP :

Others often portray Jesus as divine Prophet in the line of a few others that come and go every several hundred years or so. Jesus never once hinted toward any before Him nor after other than Moses. In fact as written here, He insisted on complete and sole devotion to Himself and Himself only. Anyone who attempts to include Him in the succession of messianic figures has much re-explaining of His words to do.

kjv@Luke:14:25-35 > > RandyP :

Again, there seems to be contradiction here between loving all and hating father and mother. As we've seen before, there is something more that the Spirit wants us to search out. The truth of His teaching here must first come in the form of a kjv@Proverbs:1:7 kjv@Proverbs:1:22-23 approach. Clear the heart, clear the mind, honestly seek the Lord, you'll be shown the answer. How different might it be from we first considered?

kjv@1Samuel:17-18 > > RandyP :

The Lord was with David and had gone ahead of Him in the battle, but, David knew that he would have to go out and in obedience and adaptability physically claim the victory. We don't see that the Lord had spoken to him directly, but, that His anointing had emboldened the lad along with the prior experience fighting lion and bear. Others had tried to outfit him as they saw fit to protect him, in this particular case their armor was a hinderence.

kjv@Luke:15:1-10 > > RandyP :

Notice that in both examples the treasure is lost and the shepherd/woman put aside all else to find it. In order to bring the treasure back though the treasure must repent. There is a rejoicing for each finding/repentance. The intellectual process of somehow figuring God out and finding our way back to Him is not at all discussed.

kjv@1Samuel:21 > > RandyP :

Curious to know whether this is David working God's plan or David spilling out from under God's plan working his own plan. Samuel seems to be the one who has not quiet committed to David here. Where is his taking David under his wing? Where is his counsel not to fear Saul but to fear God instead? Where is his reproof against all these lies and secretive coalitions? Sure they have a nice spiritual retreat together but, to what result? God's anointed pretending to have gone mad?

kjv@1Samuel:19-20 > > RandyP :

Surely, God could have removed Saul at anytime; that is not the question. Did God not pull the trigger yet because David was not yet ready? Israel? Saul's obtaining the throne was nearly immediate; it was new, it was the first of it's kind in Israel. Now however, allegiances have been made, deals struck, coalitions working behind the scenes towards their own interest and gain. The next king would have to be well prepared and established to be ahead of this game. David is obviously not at that point right now. It does not appear that his eye is solely on the Lord.

kjv@Luke:15:11-32 > > RandyP :

This is a very well known scripture. Many a sermon has been delivered on the prodigal son, the prodigal son's forgiving father, only brief mention of the son's brother. Who is being portrayed here as the son's brother however? One that did not leave, one who did what was expected, who had a poor reaction to the father's jubilant behavior, that receives a full inheritance in the end. I have thought perhaps the Angels, the Jews, those Christians raised un-rebelliously in religious homes. Who do you think?

kjv@1Samuel:22-23 > > RandyP :

What a sorry state of affairs for Saul, the murder of godly priests, the public accusation of his son, chasing David around the region while the Philistines are invading, disloyal subjects that wont obey his command to kill David. Worst yet he still attempts to bless his allies with the blessing of the LORD.

kjv@1Samuel:24 > > RandyP :

David is being told by his men. Saul is being told by his men. There is a whole lot of information being told that has other mens hands written all over it. The mark of a leader is to sort through the clutter and do the right thing. David has recently at least has been seeking the Lord and perhaps been searching through the ancient parables. Saul is delivered into his hands and he does the unexpected. His goodness has but a momentary effect on Saul however, but, people on both sides of the camp are beginning to see the truer heart of a future leader.

kjv@Luke:16:16 > > RandyP :

Many criticize Paul for his insistence that in Christ the Law has past having been fulfilled in Christ. How is what Jesus said here any different?

kjv@Luke:16:8 > > RandyP :

Not commending the unjust for being unjust, commending for at least being shrewd. The optimum would seem to be in being just and shrewd.

kjv@Luke:16:1-18 > > RandyP :

If I understand the illustration enough, debts are being settled with God which is good. Debts up till now have not been settled because of the mis-deeds of the steward. Now that the matter has been called out by the master, the steward feels more urgently that it is in his best future interest with others to settle all the accounts given him. The accounts were of course valued much higher, higher than anyone could pay, but, they were settled none the less. When concerning mens debts to God that is a very good thing even if done for the stewards selfish reasons. Who then have you been set to steward over? Have those peoples account with God been settled? What would be wise for you to do right away?

kjv@Luke:16:1-18 > > RandyP :

Let's take this unjust steward up a level further. What makes the unjust steward unjust? I would suggest un-forgiveness. The Lord has forgiven him his debt and yet he holds others accountable for what they owe him in full. Why does the Lord's cutting him off make him feel that he must suddenly settle with the others? He is put back down on their level to fend for himself. Therefore he is shrewd in meeting the others halfway or more (all the way if need be). Why doesn't the Lord take offense to this exchange? Because it is closer to what He has called for all along. Does the Lord actually cut off the suddenly not so unjust steward off? You be the judge.

kjv@1Samuel:25 > > RandyP :

Nabal acted as if he did not know who David was and acted disrespectfully within the parameters of that culture. Who didn't know who David was. Abigail risked her life by going secretly to David; more so returning back to Nabal. His heart turned like stone. There are plenty of men like him that are simply harsh and foolish to their wives even though their wives have saved them from tribulation and sword. Good deeds are rewarded with scorn and brutality for no other reason than that is just who they are; Son's of Belial, worthless/destruction.

kjv@1Samuel:25-26 > > RandyP :

I think that David knows even as the words fall from his lips that Saul will not be even minded for long. For Saul, every step he takes against David becomes more and more an embarrassment but, he is the last to admit that he himself is the cause. We see two men today very much the cause of their own problems. David in turn leaves while pondering the possibilities chooses to reserve retribution to God's hand in both cases.

kjv@1Samuel:26:9 > > RandyP :

In more practical terms for us here today, we should consider the similar office of the President anointed no matter who it is that fills that office. What business is it of ours to disrespect that office by slander or any other means even if the man fulfilling that office does so himself. Not even the next President in succession would profit against the Lord by such a foolish course of action.

kjv@Luke:16:19-31 > > RandyP :

What on earth would properly persuade men of Heaven? Isn't their mind already made up? The question then is: what is it that has made their mind up? We would like to think that we have with reason and deduction concluded the answer from the facts. While they blame believers of being lead by our hearts, the critic's case is no different than ours. Intellect follows the heart. Reasoning and deduction are being employed by both of us to substantiate and justify it's desire. Not even the dead returned to warn us could sway either of us, for there is always enough other evidence to keep us where we are most comfortable desirously/logically.

kjv@1Samuel:28:10 > > RandyP :

Now really? Swear by the Lord in a covenant with the witch of Endor? What is he thinking?

kjv@1Samuel:27-28 > > RandyP :

Why Saul thought that the departed spirit of Samuel would answer him when God would not shows just how deranged his mind has become. Everything that he is thinking and doing is confused and turning against him. The question is whether the witch was speaking God's truth or a demons truth the Saul believed so whole heartedly that he carried it out to it's fulfillment. Honestly, why would God speak to him in this manner when God had not spoken to Saul in any other manner. Why would the witch tell Saul any thing other than this, Saul having killed a great many of her demonic persuasion? It was quiet a show she and her demon put on!

kjv@1Samuel:28:13 > > RandyP :

This message cannot be from Jehovah so neither can the remainder.

kjv@1Samuel:29 > > RandyP :

Here we see David in the awkward position that I doubt he should have been in to begin with. Would he of really attacked Saul alongside the Philistines when he wouldn't have on his own previously? My thought is that David had been buying time by means of his own contorted resources in Philistine and God is now flushing him out of his safe hole via the princes of Philistine.

kjv@Luke:17:4 > > RandyP :

There is always the question asked whether it is appropriate to forgive a person if they just keep going back doing the sinful things against you making their repentance almost as usury. I think of the troubles I've seen with addicts and compulsive liars/thieves. Jesus says yes. That doesn't mean that you have to hand them the knife with which they'll stab you in the back. By all means protect yourself and your possessions. Limit their opportunity. The forgiveness is as much for your sake as it is for theirs. A great many are suddenly controlled by both their lack of unforgiveness and feelings of violation.

kjv@Luke:17:1-2 > > RandyP :

The child abuser or molester certainly knows his fate. Why is it then that they continue? One could ask that of the whole host of sins. Escaping our sinful destructive natures is never so much a rational deductive decision. We like to see the nature separate from the person, a steal trap tight into the bone of the rabbit's hind leg; if he pulled hard enough or if we opened the claws he could pull his leg out. It may well be instead that the nature is the rabbit's and the trap was set by the good master to protect his crops.

kjv@Luke:17:5-10 > > RandyP :

God gives us our faith and He increases it. By this faith we could move a tree far from it's nest but, in the end we had only done as He commanded. Where of then can we boast or take leave of duty. We are yet unprofitable servants. "Prosperity" and "God Within" teachers should be ware. Paul later combines this type teaching, faith as to move mountains but having not love for one another as being futile.

kjv@1Samuel:30-31 > > RandyP :

So few characters in the bible are portrayed in a favorable light; odds are that we wouldn't be either. Even the few we look up to are as human and mistake prone and sinful as anyone else. What is it then that separates a Saul from a David? We could say that Saul fought honorably for the country he loved. We could say that he wanted everything to be passed down to his sons. We can say that he tried many times to show us that he was religious. We could say that he had to make hard political decisions in a time of tremendous up evil and national transition. We could say that David was an adulterous murderer, a divisive political figure, a poor husband, a poor father, handled his daughter's rape poorly, even lacked the political alliances to keep himself being forced back into exile later by his own son. Yet these two men's eulogies in the end greatly differ. I think I know the answer. I am banking on that answer in my own mixed up life. I will leave it to the reader to conclude for themselves.

kjv@Luke:17:20-37 > > RandyP :

There are two things the Lord is revealing here to keep separated I believe, the Kingdom of God and the Day of the Lord. The kingdom is within us. It is unseen by eye. It is not a place as we would know the word place. It is at hand. The Day is coming, only the Father knows when, as a thief in the night, the five bridesmaid lamps run out of oil, Daniel Ezekiel and Revelations end of the world kind of stuff. The Pharisees were so wrapped up in the notion that the Kingdom was earthly, that the Messiah was going to establish the earthly Kingdom first and upon doing that His Day would come. How then could two people be working in the field together and one be snatched away to the Kingdom? No the Kingdom is spiritual, the Day is day of final judgment, then there will be a millennium of earthly rule, then there will be an eternity in the new earth/heaven/Jerusalem.

kjv@2Samuel:1 > > :

No doubt this is how David truly felt about the matter of Saul and Jonathan. He had repeatedly stated that Saul was anointed of God, we never hear him say that the anointing had been removed, we are not even sure other than by perhaps his own anointing that he even knew about the removal. If he felt this way I'd have to ask if it wouldn't have been better for him to have position himself nearby to come to Saul's defense/rescue if need be? Isn't it because of his self-preserving alliance with the Philistines that he'd become distracted and effectually eliminated from any proper service? I have often wondered whether God had moved David to where he needed to be or he had moved himself away from where God needed him to be.

kjv@2Samuel:2:4 > > RandyP :

Keep in mind that we are beginning to see signs of a split in the nation between Israel and Judah. A split that will physically divide them in the next generation at the death of David's son King Solomon.

kjv@2Samuel:2 > > RandyP :

As you would expect, things get out of control in a hurry amongst the prime players of the nation. Abner seems to be positioned as the one key player whose power and influence comes forth early, even more than David. He is never portrayed as a man of God that I am aware of, but, a force to be reckoned with to be sure. David must now become wise and politically shrewed.

kjv@2Samuel:3 > > RandyP :

And so the fate of a nation in civil war turns on one generals desire for a woman and one leaders refusal to grant her. Abner knew of David's anointing all along; he later recited it verbatim. So then what was this horrid era in Israel all about? His power? His influence? Or was it Israel's deeper desire to split from Judah? Both?

kjv@2Samuel:1-3 > > RandyP :

We need to see that we are at the end of one period of David from young shepherd boy to middle aged exile transitioning abruptly into the first of his king periods. Reflecting back on this period we see an odd collection of stories from which we form an initial opinion of David; not every thing is as we would expect from a man after God's own heart. Isn't that more because of our lofty expectations though? Really... what does a man after God's heart look like? I suggest that he looks a lot like David; for all of his faults, all of his meanderings, all of his awkward self imposed situations and reactions, he did realize his shortcomings and frailty and sins, confessed and repented and sought after the truest image of God.

kjv@Luke:18:17 > > RandyP :

In the past two readings we have found out that the Kingdom is not seen but within us and now that the Kingdom is entered in a fashion similar to a child. It can be there within us but still we have to enter it. How many is it within that don't enter it?

kjv@Luke:18:1-17 > > RandyP :

The judge avenges speedily but does he find faith? The Pharisee prayed considering himself righteous but is not justified and becomes abased. What is the context between the two parables? Faith. Not in who you are, but, in who Jesus is. He avenges many. He justifies only the faithful in Him. Add the third parable and we have like the faith of a child.

kjv@2Samuel:4 > > RandyP :

It is a frequent matter in the transitions of power that those falling from power are dealt with with death or exile or imprisonment so that they don't attempt to resume any form of power/division. It is just as frequent that ambitious loyalist take opportunity into their own hands as the two men today have. The new leader David had no such desire and saw through the career climbing initiative of the two plus he had an oath with his now deceased friend Jonathan to spare him and his family.

kjv@2Samuel:5:8 > > RandyP :

This is one of those curious passages that calls for further examination. We might be too quick to judge here without knowing the fuller context. Is it something about these particular lame and blind? Is it that the Jebusites were using them as a defensive shield? Was this sanctioned by God? We are not told of David loathing lame and blind anywhere else in fact we see David going beyond the call for Jonathan's lame son.

kjv@2Samuel:5:13-16 > > RandyP :

I do not believe these to be in any chronological order. We know that Solomon was born to wife Bathsheba who has not entered our storyline yet. They may have all been mentioned together just to have them all recited in one place.

kjv@2Samuel:5 > > RandyP :

David as king of united Israel is shown going to God for counsel on who and when to attack. That does not mean that this is all that he goes before the Lord for. No doubt he petitions God concerning a great many things of national and personal importance. No doubt God is answering him in a similar fashion but, we are not privy to these prayers.

kjv@2Samuel:6 > > RandyP :

Oh ya The Ark I almost forgot about it. David had it on the top of his list after securing Jerusalem. This was his first dealing with the ark and he wasn't quiet sure how and if to go about fetching it. During a mishap God communicated strongly the need for complete/unfailing reverence. Uzzahs reaction was natural, you see something tipping, you reach over to steady it. This is God's ark however and accidents don't happen, commands are not to be broken regardless, realization must be made that this object is supernatural and of the supreme sovereign God. The fact of Obededom house being blessed was a sign to David that he had over reacted to the occurrence of Uzzah, that it was now time to continue the retrieval.

kjv@2Samuel:6 > > RandyP :

Michal's reaction to David may reveal much about her. Understand that she is no longer David's only wife. This is her second time married to David, her third marriage total. She is likely unhappy about a great many things. Add to this that she sees David's keeping a dignified public image differently than he does. It may not be her image of what a king should be that hurts her as much as her image of herself in the kingdom as a whole and in their royal bedroom privately. David see his jubilant behavior as "dance"/"play" before the Lord.

kjv@2Samuel:4-6 > > RandyP :

Again it must be noted, the context of the Bible must be judged also in the context of the times. Modern readers judge David and Israel as being war hungry and blood thirsty. We have this notion that offensive military maneuvers are unjust. David praying to the Lord "shall we attack" and the Lord being for and ahead of that battle seems to us harsh and alien. The context of the time suggests rather that this offensive battle tactic was quiet common in the time, it can be described as attack or be attacked. Add to this that Israel is a land that has been taken from other peoples, people much greater in number than the Jews and that the Jews are riddled with divisions and idolatries, signs of weakness to any other aggressor. The question others might have is more on the lines of God has been with Israel undoubtedly but for how long? God is using this type of natural inquiry to test Israel's resolve and trust.

kjv@Luke:18:18-43 > > RandyP :

There is a point in each of us where what we think that we are able to do for the Lord is tested. Jesus knows this point well. For some it may be riches, for others it may be personally objectionable deeds like helping a stranded Samaritan, for others it is just letting go and trusting the Lord in the most desperate of situations. Much of the difficulty is in our conception of "doing for th Lord". What can we actually do that He has not done rather for us? We each have this point I believe; it is all in how we look at things, who is doing what for whom.

kjv@Luke:18:43 > > RandyP :

This healed man is allowed to follow Jesus further. Most others that I can recall were told to go present themselves according to the Law to the priests. They had also been advised not to tell anyone.

kjv@2Samuel:7 > > RandyP :

For thy word's sake, and according to thine own heart... Theology wrapped up in a nut shell. If we were to approach all things with this frame of mind we would be the better. This is the "why" in "why does He do this" or "why does He allow this" or "why has He been so good". Righteous and just, merciful and long suffering, His ways each and every one are perfect and unchanging. He knows the beginning, He knows our end. He makes His promises, He fulfills each and every one. He brings us through and sets us apart as His own. For thy word's sake, and according to thine own heart...

kjv@2Samuel:7:10 > > RandyP :

Before you feel bad for these enemies of Israel understand that there is something much bigger going on between them and God. These people have done or are doing something most likely in the religious/spiritual realm that God thoroughly rejects. Wickedness is not a term used lightly. We gather that from the time after the flood through the time of the wilderness God had been working to change the inhabitants ways to the point of the ground spewing them out. We know that Israel was commanded to put them completely down but had not. We know that God was displeased then with Israel and allowed these wicked peoples to remain in order to test Israel. Well the are certainly testing Israel now. What, we must ask, is this wickedness God is so against?

kjv@2Samuel:8 > > RandyP :

These days then begin the glory days of the Israel like no other. What we tend to miss is the seemingly impossible odds of this even happening. Israel in comparison is so small to nations God is making to bow before it. We know of no special battle tactic or battle technology that is allowing them to do this. It is by God's hand and is meant to shown exactly as such.

kjv@2Samuel:9 > > RandyP :

I am sure that the holdings David kept of Saul's properties were considerable. His giving was of great personal expense. His personal generosity to Jonathan's son heartfelt as well as if to Jonathan himself.

kjv@2Samuel:12:14 > > RandyP :

Enemies of the Lord use this occasion against us to this day. It is presented by them that Israel was apostate and rejected of God long before this event and that God's effort had long since been with them and their religion. This would mean too that the blood line to the Messiah was no longer through David which would eliminate the rightful claims of Christianity.

kjv@2Samuel:11-12 > > RandyP :

David's true remorse and repentance to God are evident. So is the fact that consequences were still to be had. Things were not going to be the same. We must consider our own lives in this manner as well. One does not simply get away with sin by confessing and repenting. Repentance/Confession could possibly even make matters on the ground worse on the outset. That is not why we do it though. We do it because we must and if we don't surely things will be much worse in the long run after our soul hardens. It is owed to God and to all those affected.

kjv@Luke:19:37-38 > > RandyP :

Makes you wonder what the multitude of disciples thought they were being part of. Surely many thought along the lines of an earthly ruler come to make His earthly kingdom. Few if any would have thought that in the next four days He would be dead.

kjv@Luke:19:39 > > RandyP :

Interesting that they would approach Him this way. It is almost like that thought that He would agree that the multitudes were going over the top with this.

kjv@Luke:19:48 > > RandyP :

The priests and scribes now have a big problem on their hands. Where to go from here? They have been called out, flushed out of their religious holes and now must commit themselves one way or another. Watch how quick once they do commit it takes to turn the crowd back on their side. The right pressure exerted in the right fashion, the right encitement and the mob's true nature will be flushed out as well.

kjv@2Samuel:17-18 > > RandyP :

Absalom may have sold himself successfully to the people as a much needed judge but, he proved to be to be a poor military leader pursuing into a unfamiliar thicket of oaks. He did not have the counsel of the Lord to rely upon and thus was left to the sorted advice of diverse causes and his own brash desires.

kjv@Luke:21:19 > > RandyP :

Great and terrible things shall come. He could have said be strong or be prayerful etc... but He says to be patient. It is not that these other things are not each important, it is that they all come as a result of patience. Therefore posses your soul in patients.

kjv@Luke:21:1-19 > > RandyP :

This prophecy was fulfilled near AD 70 at the destruction of the temple by the Romans. It is said by critics that Jesus cannot be classified as a prophet because none of His prophecies have come true. Well what is this prophecy, chopped liver?

kjv@2Samuel:19:41-42 > > RandyP :

It would again be right to mark this passage for future use regarding the coming division of Judah and Israel. When the time comes the thought should not have sneaked up on us. We are now seeing a steady rise in the animosity between the two.

kjv@2Samuel:19-20 > > RandyP :

An illustration of how easy it is to remove a leader on the one hand and how much house cleaning it takes to restore him back. Notice that we haven't heard the Lord's voice for some time now? There is a marked shift of storyline. David I believe is more and more a shell of his former self; probably since the time of the scandal Bathsheba. David is bringing much of this upon himself. He is like a wobbling top knocking into all the objects surrounding him. The same indecisiveness that plagued his patriarchy is affecting his monarchy.

kjv@Luke:21:20-28 > > RandyP :

Many believe that since the temple destruction AD70 and resultant worldwide dispersion of the Jews that we have now lived in an "time of the gentiles" era. With drawing of the Jews back to Jerusalem since 1948 we now see a signal of the closing of the age and the drawing near of our redemption; The Lord's second coming. There are others that say that this all happened AD70 and that the Lord has already returned. Some believe that none of this happens until the end of the world. I believe that kjv@Luke:21:24 is the key verse suggesting the dispersion/age interpretation, "be led away captive" I have yet to find evidence of in other end time prophecy.

kjv@Luke:21:32 > > RandyP :

Three ways I can think of for this to have been fulfilled even though we are now 1990+ years down the time line. 1. "Generation" can just as easily be translated "period" thus within this age/period of time this will be fulfilled. 2. The specific of the prophecy can be interrupted as having been fulfilled in AD70 and the actual Lord's latter return fulfillment of a greater prophecy in whole. 3. There are also the considerations of God's eternal perceptions of time (thousand years as a day) (time relativity) (the possibility that time is not sequentially serial but rather sequentially parallel). How deep do you want to go with it?

kjv@2Samuel:21 > > RandyP :

Even after all of this time we are still dealing with the fall out from Saul. Israel had made a covenant with the Gibeonites (ill advised as it was) that God expected Israel to keep. Saul did not. So He expects of us as well. Another thing to notice is that we are still dealing with giants or the son's of.

kjv@2Samuel:22 > > RandyP :

This passage is a psalm (a worship song) written by David. In it he attempts to reveal his deepest heart by declaring what he himself has seen God do, the character God reveals by performing these actions, the praise David offers to God for the real life/real situation/real people engagement God has had. David as king has been out on the very edge of the dangerous currents and momentums. He has observed many events with a military eye when situations were beyond his human control. We may not know this kind of danger nor this type of eye, but, God moves for us just as well. This psalm could have been written through a bakers eye and revealed just as much about God's mighty hand.

kjv@Luke:22:3 > > RandyP :

If Satan truly had free reign and will, he could have attempted this attack long ago, perhaps before the possibility of Jesus having world wide ministry and impact. We know that there have been other chances. We know that the religious have been planning as well. We also know that the prophecies and Jesus have spelled the coming events out well so that Satan would know how not to go about this. And yet he does. God plays him like a fiddle.

kjv@Luke:22:3 > > RandyP :

Isn't it funny that people from most every culture believe in satanic possession of some sort but not the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit?

kjv@Luke:22:5 > > RandyP :

Satan had entered, but, curiously Judas was still intact enough in the decision process to have negotiated certain agreeable terms and reward.

kjv@Luke:22:23-24 > > RandyP :

Not sure if this discourse amongst the Disciples is given full justice by the text. I imagine this to have occurred much more organically over the course of the evening than presented. If our own dinner conversations where condensed down to two sentences, we'd look pretty foolish as well. What we are told is simply what we most need to know. Surely there was much discussed that night, all with sincere and honest and devoted intentions; just as much as that not discussed and reserved in fear and uncertainty. In other words, they were being human. It must have been a painfully haunting and surreal meal for Judas.

kjv@Luke:22 > > RandyP :

If not for it's profound sense of personal moral conviction, this passage of scripture would be viewed universally with no doubt as the greatest written literary work of all time. I can think of no other author's development of story and character and description, no other pull on the heart strings of the observant audience greater than this. Even Shakespeare (who is said to have had a small hand in the early translation of the King James Version) would have been humbled by this master piece for the accomplishment of prose and stark contrasts of light and dark put forth here. To have this profound and rich of a thematic idea is a writers never fulfilled dream, to be able to fulfill it's potential with it's deserved lyrical craft a writer's eternal curse. And yet it is written so simply. If not for the set up of this particular passage, the following climatic passion and crucification have not the same effect. Why this passage is not intellectually considered as such (even if as merely fiction) speaks volumes of the truer heart of man.

kjv@2Samuel:23-24 > > RandyP :

There are certain things expected of a king kjv@2Samuel:23:3. We see the many valiant men of the king that would do anything for him even risk their own blood for a sip of water from an occupied well. The king therefore has such a greater responsibility and therefore has so much greater consequences. These things may seem strange to us for we are not kings. It may seem improbable to us for we are not of that age nor of that election. We tend to critic the oddity of the consequence rather than horridness of the sin was that God was addressing amongst the people. David's sin was ordering the census, the people's sin we must assume is idolatry.

kjv@Luke:22:31-32 > > RandyP :

Notice that Jesus did not pray that Peter be removed from the sifting or that Satan flee, but, that his faith not fail.

kjv@Luke:22:38 > > RandyP :

Could one of these be the sword that Peter used against the guard?

kjv@Luke:22:40 > > RandyP :

Some ask "why pray"? Here is as good a reason as any.

kjv@Luke:22:42 > > RandyP :

We find that Jesus prayed most all of the time. We are not privy to the contents of those prayers. Here we are privy and we must wonder both why and by whom? The disciples are in the distance sleeping. The Holy Spirit is telling us something very important here. This prayer is for our benefit as much as His. The cup cannot be taken away. This IS God's will.

kjv@Luke:22:44 > > RandyP :

Lest we think that this was such a simple thing for the Son of Man to do for us, try sweating blood.

kjv@Luke:22:45 > > RandyP :

"sleeping for sorrow". They knew something was about to happen. Mentally no doubt they had tried to work all the possibilities toward their favor. Jesus seemed to be taking this course regardless. This was there way of dealing with the sorrow and resultant mental fatigue.

kjv@Luke:22:53 > > RandyP :

These must be temple guards that have been sent to apprehend Him. There had been times when others had sought to lay hands against Him.

kjv@Luke:22:52 > > RandyP :

Perhaps a larger crowd than portrayed in the movies.

kjv@1Kings:1-2 > > RandyP :

So we see the type of behind the scene alliances and confederacies that go into the making of a king. Transitions of such power rarely are smooth. Not only is there old blood but new blood that must be settled. The juvenile Solomon must make some king like decisions from the start. Remember that it was the people who wanted a king over them in the first place. Here they have it.

kjv@1Kings:1-2 > > RandyP :

The life and reign of David now comes to an end. It is not all that we will learn about him however, David penned a great many of the Psalms and had an influence in Solomon's collection of Proverbs. There we will hear his inner thoughts from his perspective and find why he is called a man after God's heart. David had many great strengths and a few serious faults. He is portrayed in both as being human. Judging him is like judging ourselves in some respects but, we too easily forget that he also was under the pressures of being king. The history of Israel/Judah is overwhelmed with unrighteous kings. David like no other stands out as good.

kjv@Luke:22:57 > > RandyP :

I think that it is too easy for us here to judge Peter. He is not reborn yet. He is still trying to approach his relationship to the Savior Christ in intellectual rather than spiritual terms much like us. The fact is that none of us truly know how we would have reacted ourselves faced with this hostile and surreal situation. Rationally, if denial meant being able to continue observing the nights events without having been set out and/or beaten it may have been well worth it in a more practical way. None of the other twelve after all were risking the effort to witness the events unfolding; only the two Marys and doubting half brother James were also watching on.

kjv@Luke:22:63 > > RandyP :

The mob mentality begins. Perhaps you have witnessed or been part of this overwhelming dynamic yourselves. It is the most unexplainable force of humankind; what mobs of people will allow themselves to do when swept over by this force. Ration and reasoning, temperance and justice disappear. Captors assume license that in no other way would be granted. The strange, the ma-cab, the grotesque, the venomous comes out of men. The sin nature within us all becomes paramount like at no other time.

kjv@1Kings:3:9 > > RandyP :

Solomon is asking for a very specific form of wisdom; the understanding toward judgment and discernment. It is one thing to know everything that there is to know and another to know how to discern right from wrong, especially when you are king.

kjv@1Kings:3:27 > > RandyP :

This exhibits a situational or adaptive wisdom, it would not work in all situations, it sought a particular character flaw from one of the women. There is a good part of wisdom that changes to the situation as well as a part the does not. There is a discernment needed between the two.

kjv@1Kings:4:33 > > RandyP :

Knowledge of the natural sciences differs from the discerning wisdom that he had asked for. It may result as a offshoot or it may coexist along with. The two would have some use of each other.

kjv@1Kings:5:7 > > RandyP :

David's other sons as leaders would not have had such a discerning approach. Solomon has kept and honored the long time acquaintances and established networks of his father.

kjv@1Kings:5 > > RandyP :

On thing to consider is the depth and width of the peace that existed for Israel at this time to conduct the building of the temple in this way. To commit this many men and resources to this one project that otherwise would be fighting wars or protecting borders. Compare this effort to the second temple in Ezra and Nehemiah time.

kjv@Luke:23:2 > > RandyP :

This taxation accusation is completely false. Jesus taught to the contrary.

kjv@Luke:23:8 > > RandyP :

We know of an account that one of Herod's daughters had been a follower of Jesus.

kjv@Luke:23:12 > > RandyP :

Made friends by passing the riotous crowd back and forth and ducking judgment?

kjv@Luke:23:14 > > RandyP :

This is a civil court. What evidence could ever be presented in civil court that a perversion of Jewish tradition had been made? Why didn't the trial then end here?

kjv@Luke:23:15 > > RandyP :

By saying this, he incriminates himself by proceeding any further. Anything further than this is to placate the mob.

kjv@Luke:23:22 > > RandyP :

Chastise him for what? Why is he even pursuing this?

kjv@Luke:23:23 > > RandyP :

Crucified by a Roman civil court for the unsubstantiated claim of perverting the traditions of a religious court?

kjv@Luke:23:26 > > RandyP :

This story now is moving much quicker than told in the other three gospel. We've skipped the scourging and the guard's harassments.

kjv@1Kings:6:12 > > RandyP :

It is much easier to do what is right In a purely academic setting where nothing has to be acted on. Once put into motion however with every decision comes opportunity for right and wrong, obedience. Or disobedience.

kjv@Luke:23:35 > > RandyP :

Can't help but think of the parable Jesus gave on the distant vineyard owner that sent envoys to gather it's produce only to be rejected by the hired hands. Jesus hints that there were those who knew who the Son was and yet killed Him to steal away His inheritance kjv@Mark:12:1-12. Who in this crowd would He be talking about?

kjv@1Kings:6-7 > > RandyP :

The Temple is not just a symbol of the nation, not just the hopeful dwelling place of the presence of God, not just a place for worship and ritual and ceremony and sacrifice, it is also a target for the Lord's enemies. It is almost as an extra burden and responsibility for it's devout. If this place is going to be called by the name of God it's attendants better well represent the God for which it represents. The poor overall historical context of Israel's attempt to do this is a warning and ensample for us today with our "Temple of the Holy Spirit" kjv@1Corinthians:3:16-17.

kjv@1Kings:8:9 > > RandyP :

If memory serves me, at one time there were the rod of Moses and something else kept in the Ark also. I will have to go back and look. I wonder if this point here is being made because now these items are not there?

kjv@1Kings:8:46 > > RandyP :

The doctrine of the universal depravity of sin is by no means exclusive to the New Testament. Here we see Solomon declaring essentially what the Apostle Paul declared "that all have sinned and fall short of the glory...". It also states here that certain times all men are delivered into the hands of their enemies.

kjv@1Kings:8:58 > > RandyP :

We can easily get caught in the evangelical trap that our words must be convincing, our actions conveying. Don't get me wrong, these things do have an importance but, perhaps not in the ways we would think matter. The Lord will surely use our words and actions in conjunction with everything else He has implemented to incline hearts unto Himself. We are told in the NT "where He is lifted up, He will draw others unto Himself".

kjv@1Kings:8 > > RandyP :

The Temple cannot house God, that is not it's purpose, but, it can be a place for His name to reside and His glory to show forth. Prayers are made to it concerning the return of His people from their sins, the furtherance of justice and judgment, and it's testimony to the rest of the world and the to stranger from afar. God did use it on several occasions for these purposes. The Temple is a symbolic type, Jesus Christ is the true Temple being the person of it's fulfillment and not just the place.

kjv@1Kings:9:6 > > RandyP :

Notice that it is the serving of other gods that God is primarily concerned with. People often say "I haven't sinned". I'd ask what other gods have you served. The trick is not to "believe in a god" it is to "believe the God" and to serve Him alone.

kjv@Luke:23:43 > > RandyP :

Paradise could be what the Jews knew as Abrahams Bosom a holding place for the righteous dead prior to Jesus resurrection into the real Heaven.

kjv@Luke:23:49 > > RandyP :

I gather that these are not disciples. I know of no other testimony suggesting such.

kjv@Luke:23:46 > > RandyP :

Crucifixion deprives a man of his breath. The fact that jesus shouts in a loud voice testifies to a non-physical strength present even in His dying breath.

kjv@Luke:23:49 > > RandyP :

We should not jump to conclusions concerning the Disciples. The tendency might be to think that they were afraid or ashamed or confused in hiding. The fact that they were unanimously absent might suggest that they were told to or couched to stay away perhaps due to safety, perhaps due to the type of unbiased testimony the Spirit wanted to collect. We just can't be sure.

kjv@Luke:23:39-56 > > RandyP :

No one man surely could not have witnessed all of these details recorded throughout these key passages of the Passion and Crucifixion. What we are reading more likely is a collection of testimonies from several sources gathered together by Doctor Luke in this case. What the acquaintances and women saw from afar was from their lips, what the Centurion said most likely from his or someone close enough to him, what the thieves said from the same in close witness. The two Mary's and half brother James may have been close enough sources for most of this, but, not all of this. It would behoove Luke to utilize many sources. And there could have been many more than we are aware of.

kjv@Luke:24:1-35 > > RandyP :

Here we are not only hearing the direct testimony of the women and of Peter, we are hearing how 2nd level witnesses are recalling and interrupting the news that they are receiving; it's seems like the news is being transmitted faithfully. In the case of the two men walking, their 2nd level testimony then becomes a direct witness as Jesus reveals the scriptures and eats with them .

kjv@Luke:24:1-35 > > RandyP :

It is an interesting study laying the four gospels accounts of these events side by side and developing an actual time line. Often people will dismiss the gospels because the accounts are not word for word, story by story; they are attempting to read the gospels as a novel from one author. But when you do take the time as an investigating officer would to map these separate and individual testimonies out there is an undeniable consistency, each one adding to the next, that is nothing other than divinely gathered. One must look at these pieces as how they might truly represent the events and fit together first before looking at them as how they might not.

kjv@1Kings:10-11 > > RandyP :

Within two chapters we see both the wisdom God tangibly gave Solomon to rule Israel and the spiritual stupidity and disobedience Solomon used in his own life to apply it. The lesson is that wisdom does not always know enough to see through the deceptions of entanglements. Wisdom often out smarts it's own good.

kjv@1Kings:10-11 > > RandyP :

There are many today who believe that faith is blind and misleading, that intellect is the purer of the two human forms. If one could suppress the defilements of faith they say, the truer intellect would shine through. The lesson learned from Solomon is that while the two together are important, the truest wisdom is of not doing what you were directly told not to do; purer faith and intellect is to obey God in both. The proof is what then happened to the unified nation of Israel.

kjv@1Kings:11 > > RandyP :

It should be noted here before passing on the importance given to Solomon by the black arts and satanic cults. These gods and goddesses his wives were ensnaring him with were not just unknown idols of antiquity. Even Free Masonry holds Solomon and a "secret knowledge" supposedly found later in his Temple as central to their beliefs.

kjv@1Kings:12-13 > > RandyP :

Jeroboam didn't use cunning words to pursue his people, he used the familiar forms of a counterfeit religion. It seems to have been a fairly easy sell. Words and debate seem highly over rated. Revolution takes on massive currents of it's own. Pinning his cause to a familiar and disapproved symbol of the past worked brilliantly.

kjv@1Kings:12-13 > > RandyP :

No doubt that prophets are held to a higher standard for having been a representative of the name of God. This prophet did as he was told in the first instance but, was tricked into disobeying in the second. He could withstand the request of a king but not the request of another lying prophet. Familiarity and similarity can breed disobedience.

kjv@Luke:24:45-48 > > RandyP :

The Gospel of Jesus Christ in a nut shell. The simplicity of our calling.

kjv@1Kings:14:17 > > RandyP :

I think that I would have taken the long way home if I was her!

kjv@1Kings:15:5 > > RandyP :

Let's not let this testimony for David go unnoticed. This is perhaps the best explanation of what it means to be a man after God's heart; especially for a ruler.

kjv@1Kings:15:11 > > RandyP :

Mark one up for Judah. The first since David to do right.

kjv@1Kings:14-15 > > RandyP :

The first point to be made here is that this is all happening so soon after the building of the Temple. You would think that for some time at least that Israel (now Israel and Judah) would be committed to and blessed by the presence of the Temple. It is like the Temple wasn't even there. Suddenly a rush of groves and high places and alters and golden cows pop up; and the Temple has already been raided by Egypt. I had mentioned previously that the Temple would be a target? Now we are seeing whom would be targeting the Temple.

kjv@John:1:1-28 > > RandyP :

Each of the authors of the four Gospels presents the material needed to be covered in such delightfully different individualized ways. Here one of the original disciples John delivers the same story of John the Baptist in a way that will pierce the ear drums of a mostly Jewish first century audience. The notion that one God could be of three united wholes, that the one particular entity through and for whom all things were created would humble Himself to become flesh would be a radical departure from the interpretations that they had until now given the scriptures. John presents this in such a open and descriptive way.

kjv@1Kings:16-18 > > RandyP :

Made Israel to sin? With all sin that is going on amongst the people now it seems odd that one leader could make the nation to sin all the more, but, that is the importance of a leader. We tend to think of sin in individualistic terms based largely on whether it hurts anybody else. We also tend to think of religion as something personal and private (what harm is to anybody if I sacrifice in the evening to Baal rather than Jehovah?). Sin should be thought of as a fluid pool all around us, the water you swim in is the water I swim in. That the nation can sin, that the leaders of a nation can make us to sin more, these are the things of sin that should be considered fully.

kjv@1Kings:16-18 > > RandyP :

One hundred prophets hidden for protection strategically in two groups of fifty; do we grasp how hostile and desperate this situation is? So there are good and godly people remaining, even prophets. Many are on the run, many are silent, some stand up, a few of the most effective and public are pursued and therefore exiled to shelter. The stage is set for one major prophet Elijah. I guess living the godly life isn't always as easy going and peaceful as we'd like to think it.

kjv@John:1:29-51 > > RandyP :

In whom there was no guile (trickery/craft)? Could this character trait of our savior be observed in a brief initial glimpse? Had Nathaniel acquainted himself with Jesus from afar in a different way? Was this more like a polite greeting?

kjv@1Kings:16-18 > > RandyP :

What about a leader enables us the people to make more sin? Is it the brute strength of his sinful conviction? Is it the deeds his tight-fisted rulings and decisions impose upon us? Is it that we are suddenly subject to his over powering will? Rarely! Often it is his own ineffectiveness in dealing with the forces at work around him. It is the momentums that grow quiet organically against him that he does not stand to oppose. The factions that press against him that he seeks to appease and quiet, the idolatrous wives that force their own agendas, the decisions not made, the ideals compromised, the groundwork never laid or surrendered, the stabbing of the backs of his close allies for the sake of calming his distant enemies. Sin is not always caused by his strength or conceit but, more often by his weakness. Political strength is often determined by the perceived weaknesses in leadership that other factions intend to exploit. His sin enables a great many more to sin as well.

kjv@John:3:20 > > RandyP :

Why wouldn't a man come to the light? Because his deeds would be reproved. Why would his deeds be reproved? Because his deeds are evil. Evil in comparison to what? The Spirit. People often compare their sins to each others and thereby determine that their sins are no worse that any others. It is a trick of false logic, it is like rotten apples comparing themselves to rotten apples that will never make the cut. Who then will make the cut? Only those that are born of Spirit.

kjv@John:3:21 > > RandyP :

To do truth is first and foremost to come to Jesus willing to have your deeds exposed. Most would falsely approach this as coming to Jesus to prove to him of your good deeds. The message here is that there are no good deeds to prove. All have fallen short. Our righteousness is but filthy rags. Good as they might be, our deeds have been devised and implemented by the flesh and not the Spirit remaining truthfully unborn from our souls. The flesh is either unaware of things of the Spirit or at completely at odds with the things that it is aware of.

kjv@John:3:17-18 > > RandyP :

There is a vast difference between believing "in" God and believing "God". They are two different objects. The devils believe "in" God. The hard part is to actually believe that God said this thing or did this act or commanded that we obey that; that this is His certain Will regarding salvation. It is the difference between believing in a quaint notion and believing what proceeds forth and is emanated from the real person. Here we are told that God intends for the name of His Son to be the dividing line between the saved and the unsaved, that He has set His entire course of motion from eternity past to establish just that. He doesn't have to condemn be cause the soul remaining unborn to the Spirit chooses not to be born again thus condemning itself.

kjv@2Kings:3 > > RandyP :

What is God showing to these two other kings by giving them the battle over Moab? These two have little or no business going to a prophet of God and the prophet as much as says so. You have probably known people who have had little business going to God who would just as soon turn from God after receiving His blessing. God blesses them just the same. The fact that that the one king from Judah had the foresight courage to seek God may have been reason enough for God to bless the three; perhaps. No matter, it must be said that doing so for them served God's manifold and mysterious purpose.

kjv@John:3:22 > > RandyP :

Please note that Jesus was baptized and did himself baptize others. This verse often gets skipped over in the debates regarding the importance of baptism in this era.

kjv@John:3:22-36 > > RandyP :

John the Baptist paints a very illustrative picture of Jesus here. Jesus is described as being from above, He is God sent, speaking that which is from above, what He has seen above He testifies, He speaks the words of God, the Spirit is not limited in measure or proportion unto Him. He that believes exactly on this description of Jesus has eternal life.

kjv@John:3:22-36 > > RandyP :

Those who believe that Jesus was just a man like us who may have received a spiritual enlightenment full or partial, that He was the first of many, or that we can receive a similar enlightenment, have much to un-explain and dilute about this clear passage from John the Baptist. Jesus being the groom, being sent, testifying what He had seen long before incarnation, having unmeasured Spirit and the seal of testimony, all suggest that there is none other like unto Jesus and that He is not the first Christ of many nor partial.

kjv@2Kings:4 > > RandyP :

Here we see some of the miraculous spiritual powers of this prophet Elisha. The power to multiply and supply. The power to bless conception. The power to resurrect. The power to divine answers. The power to feed. Previously we saw Elijah call fire down from the sky.

kjv@2Kings:5 > > RandyP :

Two men, both trusted servants to different masters. One asks to be healed and is angered at the means of the prescribed cure. The other seeks to extract payment for his masters miraculous healing deed even though his master had refused it, and then has the gall to lie about what he had just extracted. One man was caught prescribing the terms of his own cure but, was reasoned by better counsel. The other man was caught prescribing his masters form of reimbursement for services rendered and then trying to hide it. We see the two common tricks of the human mind. We should be aware and advised.

kjv@John:4:24 > > RandyP :

Just one chapter previous Jesus had told Nicodemus that one must be born again of Spirit. Now we are told that only those of this Spirit worship the Father in truth.

kjv@John:4:29 > > RandyP :

Two possible explanations to her statement. One, there was more to their conversation than the author recorded here, personal information we don't need to know. Two the revelation of her five husbands overwhelmed her and felt as if it was everything she had ever done. Either way she was convinced beyond conviction.

kjv@John:4:20-26 > > RandyP :

Jesus provides us with a discourse on the meaning of true worship. For those that believe that all paths lead to God any form of worship is suitable. Jesus says that one must worship the Father in Spirit and truth. What is true about worship if is not done in the Spirit (note: not in a spirit)? To be of the Spirit one must be born again. To be born again one must believe that Jesus is Son of God, the Christ. The Spirit cannot be forged or approximated or imagined any other way. It is the difference between believing in a god and believing God, that what He says and what He is and what He seeks for us to be is all we need consider. Some would say that that is simply too narrow; open minded is easy only for those who wish to remain uncommitted!

kjv@2Kings:6-8 > > RandyP :

I am thinking today of how the nations surrounding Israel/Judah must see this God Jehovah. He is well known to them by now. Israel/Judah has won wars against them that they have no earthly business winning. Legends and accounts of His doing have to have been circulating for centuries now. Many would be familiar because of the ancestor Esau. They would have to of seen Israel/Judah's failings as well and known that God punishes this nation like no other for sin and idolatry. God said that He had chosen Israel to make His name known throughout the world. And yet these nations are emboldened against the chosen nation Jehovah. Is it their national pride or is it the windows of opportunity the chosen continuously project? Is it God emboldening them further to mold and shape Israel?

kjv@John:4:31-54 > > RandyP :

Jesus speaks of many laborers, men reaping harvest from what others had sown. The word is being sown in many fashions, the testimony of the Samaritan woman at the well, the gossip in Galilee where Jesus had earlier turned water to wine, Jesus' own testimony, the public acknowledgements of John the Baptist and his disciples. The sowers go back even further to the efforts of the prophets and of old. When God is truly behind something important to Himself as this, the means and methods of planting and harvesting cannot be limited to human terms. Neither should we limit God in our minds in our day in what He is doing all around us in the harvest fields.

kjv@2Kings:9-10 > > RandyP :

Jehu thus removed the false god Baal from Israel but not the contorted worship of Jehovah by means of the two golden calves. The calves stood as a direct compromise of the Law of Moses and Levitical Law prescribing an alternate method and means of service and worship devised by independent Israels first king Jeroboam. Many kings of Israel continued this tradition perhaps as support/method for continued division from Judah.

kjv@2Kings:11 > > RandyP :

Hopefully, we are beginning to see why God was not too much for the establishment of the monarchy early on. He had Samuel warn the unified kingdom in very personal and family level terms that any commoner would understand and fear. There is just so much political distraction and bloodshed resulting. This is what those of influence wanted however. This is what they got.

kjv@John:5:1-24 > > RandyP :

There is the teaching of Jesus' words, the teaching of His actions, the teachings of how people are responding around Him. Much can be learned by the way Jesus reacts to their responses. He responds to them once and they persecute Him and seek to kill Him all the more. He responds to that and delivers to us a most interesting revelation of how things work between He and the Father.

kjv@2Kings:12:2 > > RandyP :

It occurs to me that throughout the kings the high priests are pretty much silent. We see an occasional prophet, but, what about the general day to day counsel and influence of the church. This is not to say that they weren't there, it is to say that there is little mention of their role and position in these national matters.

kjv@2Kings:14:3 > > RandyP :

David for all of his faults still remains the mark of a king.

kjv@2Kings:14:4 > > RandyP :

Not sure if this is just being mentioned or if the king is being held accountable for this for not having removed the high places.

kjv@2Kings:14:7 > > RandyP :

It doesn't say why he invaded Edom. Edom is kin is it not?

kjv@2Kings:14:27 > > RandyP :

He did evil it is earlier said and yet the LORD was able to use him for the purpose of a restorative mercy toward Israels perpetuation.

kjv@John:5:31 > > RandyP :

In the four gospels we have four different men baring witness to teachings and events surrounding Jesus. One is a direct personal testimony, three are collections of accounts gathered from many other wittinesses no doubt such as the women who followed and the greater assembly of disciples and converted who wanted their testimony to be heard. We have therefore the enumerable witnesses of people directly affected by Jesus who saw the reactions within the crowds, who knew of the political undertones, who followed up on the various souls that had received healings etc... Thus we see the much greater impact of Jesus than just His own words could have described. Anyone can write a bible about themselves, few perhaps one could have this many write about Him.

kjv@2Kings:15:1-7 > > RandyP :

We have here a king that did right and yet the Lord smote him with leprosy. That the Lord is said to have done it may show a purpose or intent but, the verse does not state shat that might be. We can guess perhaps that not all the high places were removed and yet other kings had done the same. We could guess that maybe it was for the purpose of someone(s) other than the king. Or it may have been no purpose at all other than to develop him in a way different than other kings. The Lord's judgment is perfect and true whether we know why or not.

kjv@2Kings:15:12 > > RandyP :

Jehu was the king that slayed Jezebel and destroyed the idol temples in Israel.

kjv@2Kings:15:25 > > RandyP :

It must be said that these assassinations are becoming much to commonplace in Israel. It is evident that none are seeking the Lord and that the stability and psyche of Israel are effected.

kjv@2Kings:16:3 > > RandyP :

I thought that the ways of Jeroboam were in eliminating the use of the Temple in Jerusalem with the two golden calves, it was a falsified form of Judaism. Here I am seeing sacrifice and high place worship which suggest Baal. Have the two religions merged or morphed?

kjv@2Kings:16:17 > > RandyP :

This is a very sharp serious turn toward idolatry when items of worship from Jehovah's Temple are being used.

kjv@2Kings:17:33 > > RandyP :

So I am taking it that while they feared the Lord for what He had done to Israel, they kept to their gods just the same.

kjv@2Kings:17 > > RandyP :

This is one of the key chapters in the entire Bible. We see the final fall of Israel in all of it's horror. God's protection is completely lifted and only Judah remains. Key is the complete discription of what God had expected, how they had completely failed, and how the invading and occupying forces felt (fearing the Lord but, planting there own regional gods just the same). Considering the hope and the warning declared by the elderly Moses, this is a sad sad end.

kjv@John:6:16-21 > > RandyP :

Two miracles here. One commonly known. The other hidden. The disciples throughout the evening for all of their effort against the wind only traveled thirty furlongs at most from shore. Once Jesus got on board they were instantaneously were transported to their destination.

kjv@John:6:15 > > RandyP :

He perceived that they wanted to make Him king. He did not intend to be a king in they way and for the reason that they intended. Some today would think you'd take what you could get and work your way up from there; at least it is a start. He departed.

kjv@John:6:6 > > RandyP :

We must be prepared for proving moments like this ourselves. Don't expect to always get the task right either, these are teachable moments for those who remain teachable.

kjv@2Kings:18:4 > > RandyP :

Even the holy objects of old have now become idolatrous objects. Braking the object helps us to see that it wasn't the object itself that performed the previous miracles but what the object symbolized.

kjv@2Kings:18-19 > > RandyP :

What would Judah had done had it not been for the strength and conviction of Hezekiah? We tend to think that when a man is strong desperate sittuations never come against him, somehow he just handles things before they get out of hand. For some this is true. For others however they are strong before and they are all the more stronger for the desperate experience. Leaders are tested. The stronger they are the stronger they are tested. Weak leaders are rarely tested because they fail at every turn and compromise to every situation.

kjv@2Kings:18-19 > > RandyP :

What a terrible moment tiny Judah faces here. A true test of their conviction to Jehovah. There is no way for them to stand by their own resource or aliances. The Assyrian envoy calls his shot, puts the situation in brutally clear terms, compares Jehovah to all the other gods that have been defeated, bribes the citizens support against king Hezekiah. Jehovah preforms His work in a way that one could make no mistake that it was only by His own hand.

kjv@2Kings:18-19 > > RandyP :

Note how the Assyrians are fully aware of what Hezekiah has been doing against the local idol worship.

kjv@John:6:31 > > RandyP :

An amazing statement being that they had followed after Him from the other side because He had miraculously feed them bread and fish. Proper reasoning and rationale have little to do of why man does and says the things that he does.

kjv@John:6:39 > > RandyP :

Did you ever want to know what the will of God was? Read here!

kjv@John:6:44 > > RandyP :

So much for resourceful deduction and observation alone!

kjv@John:6:44 > > RandyP :

How does God draw him? By lifting the Son up!

kjv@2Kings:21:1 > > RandyP :

By extending Hezekiah's life fifteen years Manasseh's existence and influence was formed and allowed with devastating effect.

kjv@2Kings:21:9 > > RandyP :

kjv@Isaiah:40:2 ? Israel's was handed a double judgment on top of this.

kjv@2Kings:21:21 > > RandyP :

Why is it so easy for the son to follow the evil of a father and so hard to follow his good? Perhaps in part, it could be said that to do good takes a personal decision and the personal conviction to stand against and see it through, evil only takes continuation and cowardice.

kjv@2Kings:22:12-13 > > RandyP :

Repairs to the temple and .... oh ya .... we found this book. Seems things had been so far off in Jerusalem for so long that not even the priests there knew of the existence and where abouts of this book. No wonder God was raging mad at Judah...His house and no one knows where His book is kept. By the way, do you know where His book has been kept in your house?

kjv@John:6:45 > > RandyP :

The opportunity must be taken to confront the modern notion it is only by the interpretation and teaching of man that the bible continues to this day. Corrupt man, corrupt teaching. "To the defiled in heart nothing is pure". The equation changes dramatically if one considers God to have a hand in the teaching however. But, then it is countered that God only teaches certain purified men, the rest of us must depend on them. "To the defiled in heart nothing is pure". Even that would change if one considered that every man who hears the Father learns. But, yet then it is said no man really hears God. "To the defiled in heart nothing is pure". Well maybe it's them then, these critics that reside behind the constant shield of no no no, they are the ones to whom nothing is pure. The claim that they seem to be making is that God is not pure enough to make us pure. Perhaps they should listen to God once.

kjv@John:6:66 > > RandyP :

When Jesus gets to the real "meat" of His message it is a hard saying, many will walk with Him no more. This teaching truly gets to the heart of the matter, the dividing assunder of soul and spirit. Is it Jesus, who He is is, why He came, what He has to do for us or is it the Jesus we want Him to be, by our intellect and resource. Many walked with Him excited for who they might make Him to become, their own personal meal ticket. Little were they expecting Him in a large spiritual sense to become their meal.

kjv@2Samuel:12 > > RandyP :

kjv@Psalms:32? or kjv@Psalms:33?

kjv@2Kings:23:17 > > RandyP :

kjv@1Kings:13

kjv@2Kings:23:24 > > RandyP :

The book is presumed to be the original Pentateuch manuscript of Moses.

kjv@2Kings:23-24 > > RandyP :

Not even the finding of the book and the resulting clearing out of Judah of the idols, high places, ashes of the bones of those burnt at these heathen alters were enough to calm the anger of the Lord. The Lord knew that it wouldn't be long till it all came back. Besides, there was the blood of His own people previous that He would not pardon.

kjv@2Kings:23-24 > > RandyP :

It is interesting to consider what it might take politically within a nation to go about a cleansing such as this. No doubt the book that was found carried a whole lot of impact which leads us to assume that this is "the" book copy penned by Moses. There also the will and resolve of the king. But, to actually carry this off to the extent that they did undoubtedly took tremendous persuasion and momentum.

kjv@2Kings:25 > > RandyP :

The teaching perhaps to take out of this is that this could have happened to Judah so many times so many years ago but it didn't for the power of God. The odds of Israel's existence from the beginning were miraculous and providential. Israel and then Israel/Judah neglected this providence considerably. Babylon for all of it's power was not stronger than the Lord. Judah did come back to God this last time, but, by then it wasn't enough to sway the Lord's anger. His promise and namesake remains, as we will see in the near future.

kjv@John:7:28 > > RandyP :

This is the impossibility of Jesus' situation. He says "had they known the One who sent Him", well obviously no one there does know, neither can they know until they believe on Him. Many will remember these words when they later do finally come to know and believe on.

kjv@John:7:26 > > RandyP :

If they don't say something they are perceived as co-conspirators. If they do say something they are revealed to be fools and hypocrites. What is left to them? Funny how the mob's reasoning and rationale puts the primary parties into impossible roles and positions. Thus is the heart of man.

kjv@John:7 > > RandyP :

Some say He's crazy "who is trying to kill you?". Others say "isn't this whom they are trying to kill?". We are beginning to see the mechanics of a mob mentality: diverse insanity. Shortly they will praise Him "Hosanna" and then will call for His crucifixion. Granted these are not all the same individuals, but, it is the bipolar extremes of momentum in the mob surrounding Him.

kjv@John:7:31 > > RandyP :

More...more...more. As if raising Himself from the dead won't be enough!

kjv@1Chronicles:1:8 > > RandyP :

This is the Canaan that the Canaanites are named. They are Phoenician.

kjv@1Chronicles:1-2 > > RandyP :

Here we have not only the lineage of Israel but, also the brief description of the lineages of several of the tribes and nations that began to spread across the continents into Asia, India, Europe, Siberia. Some of these would become frequent foes to Israel. Some like Edom were of the similiar sematic descent.

kjv@John:7:32-53 > > RandyP :

The officers of the Temple guard have their uneasy suspicions. It is easy when giving orders out to not question oneself, but much more difficult when it is by your physical hand that the order will come about. There are varied and numerous sub-currents of reasoning and rationale here that in combination are synthesizing a much more dangerous atmosphere.

kjv@1Chronicles:3-4 > > RandyP :

It is interesting the peculiar things that are included about just a few of these names. Why these things were recorded, a man that prayed for peace along his coastline, a woman that bore her child in much sorrow, and not others. Every name has a story to tell and while there is not enough room to record each of these stories the stories told provide a context of humanness and God's grace.

kjv@John:8:1-20 > > RandyP :

It would be one thing to have just been swept up by the moment and be drawn in by the crowd. It would be quite another to have been one of the primaries that concocted this trap, to think enough of the plan to carry it out thinking that this will catch Jesus, but to have it slammed back into your face. Guilt wont stop them from trying again however.

kjv@John:8:21-36 > > RandyP :

The Gospel of Jesus Christ in a few short verses. He said we will know when we lift Him. We have been told so in other places. Like building a building root fisrt, we approach faith in reverse order thinking that if all the other numerous pieces add up then we will believe. The building is never built because it never squares up. Here, if the chief corner stone is laid first, the other pieces will square up and fit.

kjv@1Chronicles:6-7 > > RandyP :

I was wondering with this great list of men, if we were all gathered for a conference or retreat which ones would I like, which ones would I get along with? With so many names there is certainly a diversity of personalities. The other question is how many of these men will we see in Heaven. One would think that if they were listed in the Bible that they would surely be there, right? If at this retreat we were to witness Jesus to these men, which of them would believe? How many levitical priests for instance? What would we have to know in order to witness to them?

kjv@1Chronicles:10 > > RandyP :

What about Saul's head? It says that they brought back his body, but that his head was in the temple. Did they go into the temple of the dragon?

kjv@John:8:39 > > RandyP :

The works of Abraham. The writer Hebrews lists Abraham in the Hall of Faith; he counted it not beyond God to do that which had been promised. He was willing to offer his son but, was confident that the Lord would provide. We also recall that Abraham supped with the Lord and two angels as they were trekking toward Sodom.

kjv@John:8:51 > > RandyP :

It is appointed for all men to die once. There is a second death however at the time after judgement which is the final and complete separation. Those that believe in Jesus will never see this death.

kjv@John:8:58 > > RandyP :

For those that insist that Jesus never claimed to be God, that He never suggested a Triune godhead, that He had not existed before His human birth, or that He had become enlightened by some secret knowledge or presence, this verse requires a whole lot of re-explaining. For those of us who accept Him at His word it just flows as written.

kjv@John:8:37-59 > > RandyP :

It is amazing at how far distant these two extremes are; the ones who claim to know God by being the seed of Abraham, and the one who claims to be Abraham's "I Am". If they the chosen are this far off, imagine how far we gentiles are. Previously, we were told of being servants of sin, now we are told of being children of sin. The two are important to understand. Though sin did not create us we are born under sin, we naturally become it's property, there is no free will left to us in this initial transaction. What remains is a limited free will in how that we will serve sin, there is no escape from serving however, there is a bit more leeway as to the means. For one to say that they have never served nor are serving now are truly deceived for it is not within us to serve any other unless serving the Lord in full.

kjv@John:8:37-59 > > RandyP :

A famous song "Hydee Ho" (Blood Sweat + Tears) played on the radio last night depicting a very popular belief - not being any ones servant/tricking the devil out of the contract owed for ones indulgences but, not serving the Lord either. The belief that one can serve ones self and not have to serve either of the other two is prevalent in modern culture. The imagination that one can trick either entity out of the pleasures and comforts derived is nothing but vain. Often, in times of need we in fact attempt to extort comfort from the Lord without signing. From the Devil's standpoint all he really cares is that you not sign the Lord's contract. Whether you think you've tricked him or that you haven't in turn signed his contract is of little concern to him, even amusing knowing that you are then his.

kjv@John:8:37-59 > > RandyP :

The crucial mistake of the Reprobate Mind is to reduce sin down to mere actions and to compare actions with other more active sinners. Sin becomes relative rather than legitimate. Sin becomes something one step beyond that the conscience could do but hasn't done yet, thus it can applaud itself for having not done that (even though it has done all of this other). It is justified itself no matter what it has done or hasn't done in beneficial terms.

kjv@1Chronicles:11-12 > > RandyP :

This innuageration must have been quiet the event. Not only by the numbers but, by the commitment and determination. We are reading the same stories as in Kings but with additional details to most.

kjv@1Chronicles:11-12 > > RandyP :

It is interesting to see the types of people surrounding the leadership David. Men of valor, loyal, honorable, single hearted, knowing the times and what needed to be done, skilled with both hands, lion faced, some setting 100's to run. David's success can be attributed to God first and David's heart towards God second but, there should be no doubt that God had supplied and was using the men surrounding David to get the job done. Few of these men could be termed saintly by our standards but, much needed none the less.

kjv@1Chronicles:13:7 > > RandyP :

The Levitical Law was very specific as to how the priests were carry the Ark on their shoulders. The cart was a violation. The same mistake that the Philistines had made.

kjv@1Chronicles:13:13 > > RandyP :

The Gittite tells us that they hadn't even made it back into Israel when this happened.

kjv@John:9:7 > > RandyP :

The man must have been assisted by others down to the well. This healing shows the diverse ways the Lord uses to perform the miracle that He sees from God.

kjv@John:9:1-23 > > RandyP :

The extra details exhibited in this passage away from Jesus makes me think that there are multiple testimonies recorded here. Either by some disciples stepping aside from the Jesus crowd and following up on this healing, or by people that had occasion later to follow up with the disciples that had witnessed, or by the man returning to the disciples himself, or by all of the above. It is obvious that these are details collected from others as is much of the Gospels, one writer collecting and organizing many peoples testimonies. All the more reason to believe the Gospels.

kjv@1Chronicles:11-12 > > RandyP :

My first reading through Kings left me with the impression that David and Samuel could have done better; that much of what David had gone through prior to this, namely his exile, could have been stirred away from either by David manning up or Samuel taking on some role of mentorship. In this second account I see the numbers and types of men that came into rank behind David and wonder if God had not been working all of the preliminaries to orchestrate this present innaugeration and the momentum generated from it.

kjv@1Chronicles:11-12 > > RandyP :

Remember now that by God's doing all these men come together, but, later by David's sinful doing many of these same men will conspire against him in favor of his son Absolam.

kjv@John:9:34 > > RandyP :

They were of the belief that his blindness was caused by sin. Jesus had explained that this blindness was not because of sin but for the glory of God. They had no rational rebuttal against the man's argument, so they resorted to their fall back position - if all else falls blame it on someone else's sin. This locks them into an indefensible position that only brute force can resolve. We should be cautious of this line of argument as well.

kjv@1Chronicles:17:13 > > RandyP :

Solomon's reign could well have ended earlier than it did considering his idolatry if it weren't for this particular promise of God.

kjv@1Chronicles:17 > > RandyP :

David was given this promise by Nathan and would have been aware of it throughout his decisions to follow. Remember that this child has yet to be born. What effect did this knowledge have during his exile from Absalom? Why did he wait to his senility to proclaim Solomon king? Did it embolden him in his dealings with Uziah and Bathsheba?

kjv@Genesis:49:10 > > RandyP :

Jewish people today should know that the sceptre and lawgiver literally did depart Judah historically right at the time of Jesus. They have not had this self determining power since throughout the dispersion. Further proof that Jesus is the Shiloh.

kjv@John:10:16 > > RandyP :

The other fold is not another religion or other religions. This is a Hebrew crowd He is speaking to. It is the gentile believers in Christ

kjv@John:10:1-21 > > RandyP :

So much for the all paths lead to God argument. Intellectually "all paths" is sold as open minded as opposed to theologically narrow minded. This form of argument is held by the uncommitted. It strips the rights of ownership from the creator and exalts idolatry over monogamy. Jesus counters that it is thievery... and the thief comes to steal kill and destroy. Most open mindedness is closed mindedness to Jesus.

kjv@1Chronicles:21:1 > > RandyP :

kjv@2Samuel:24:2-4 Suggests that David's men attempted to talk David out of this.

kjv@1Chronicles:21:5 > > RandyP :

What later will be two separate nations is already being counted separately.

kjv@1Chronicles:21:6 > > RandyP :

Joab never seemed all that spiritual to me, but, even he knew what David was doing was wrong.

kjv@1Chronicles:21:9 > > RandyP :

David is speaking to the Lord. The Lord now however is speaking through Gad.

kjv@1Chronicles:21:12 > > RandyP :

God wants Gad to return David's answer, not David.

kjv@1Chronicles:21 > > RandyP :

Few of us ever become kings and are under this kind of responsibility, but, there are times when our actions unfairly effect many of those around us. Close confidants may try to talk us out of proceeding, even those not particularly spiritual seem to have better sense; we advance forward into it anyway. Times like these God may choose to speak through another; we may be too hardened or too ashamed to hear Him direct. Actions have their unavoidable consequences however, for some greater consequences then others. David knows not only that he must fall upon the mercies of God, but, in this case is shown that he'll have to make sacrificial atonement. Nowadays, we'd have to rely upon the Lord's sacrifice at the cross. Much of the consequence unfortunately still takes place.

kjv@1Chronicles:21:1 > > RandyP :

The word for Satan here can also be translated adversary. It is hard to imagine what type of human or political adversary would have pricked or enticed David enough to make him do this, especially knowing such a census was forbidden. Given the way God responded and the measure to which God responded, it is my belief that the KJV translation Satan is highly possible.

kjv@1Chronicles:22 > > RandyP :

By David's delay this transition to the throne of Solomon nearly did not happen.

kjv@John:10:22-42 > > RandyP :

It is obvious that the Jews understood this passage as Jesus declaring Himself to be one and one God. Why modern critics think that Jesus was saying something other completely ignores the Jews immediate response. They knew what He was saying and so should we.

kjv@1Chronicles:25 > > RandyP :

The musicians were to be Levites, to prophecy and to be cunning. Twenty four lots, just as the attending priests. They weren't just anybody.

kjv@John:11:1-17 > > RandyP :

I am not sure that this could be read that we all sleep when we die just as not all sickness is for the glory of God. In this particular case it is certain. Sickness unto death is most often because it is appointed for all men to die the first death. Once dead it is most likely that that very day we see Him in His kingdom.

kjv@John:11:9 > > RandyP :

Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, that was His light. Light is also described as knowledge in the glory of God, and the love for brethren. While the disciple's concern for their Lord's safety is sincere and honest, it is not of this light. We too must properly weigh this into our considerations as well, not allowing fear to swallow up light.

kjv@1Chronicles:26-27 > > RandyP :

This looks like a very well distributed system of governance. There were princes and positions over most everything, even rotating monthly assignments for some.

kjv@John:11:18 > > RandyP :

By today's measure one U.S furlong is 220 yards (15=3300 yards) (not quiet 2 miles).

kjv@John:11:21 > > RandyP :

Martha may not have been aware of the danger Jesus was under by coming there at this time.

kjv@John:11:25-26 > > RandyP :

Resurrection is by no means just a New Testament concept. Even one of the oldest verses in the OT kjv@Job:19:25-27 insists on it.

kjv@John:11:32 > > RandyP :

How often do we say something similar? Had He been here, had He done this, if only He had not delayed, had He made His will known sooner this would not have happened. All that we truly understand is our own pain and or predicament without giving consideration to His omnipresence and sovereignty and glory. Difficult but proper to consider.

kjv@John:11:35 > > RandyP :

Knowing cause and reason and outcome does not eliminate emotion. No doubt moved by His own personal love for this friend, moved by those weeping all around, touched by the sorrow of all mankind, even the universal ageless sense of human dimension, this the shortest verse in the Bible is soaked through with Divine love and devotion.

kjv@John:11:37 > > RandyP :

This seems to be the sense amongst the crowd that something could have been done. Some in a accusing sense, some in a disappointed sense. The focus is on what could have been done and not on what will be done. Imagine what the 12 must have been observing knowing what Jesus had days earlier predicted would happen next.

kjv@John:11:41-42 > > RandyP :

Is the sense gathered from this that Jesus petitioned the Father for this instead of having seen the Father doing this and following like so often?

kjv@1Chronicles:28:5 > > RandyP :

It should be evident to everyone involved the Solomon was chosen. For those who joined in Adonajah's take over it must of been known that it was pure rebellion.

kjv@1Chronicles:28-29 > > RandyP :

Seems the times Israel is shown in the best light are at times when they have been given a project, taking over the land, building the temple, rebuilding the temple. It should be observed that not long into these projects there are challenges and not long after dissension/distraction/rebellion. It just seems to be the way of the world.

kjv@1Chronicles:28-29 > > RandyP :

For all of his power and riches, the king dies just like all of the rest naked and possession less. This king however is remembered for many a great things and a couple less than great things. Through it all he was able to keep his connection with God. David's life and character are still today studied and examined and emulated. His Psalms are amongst the peoples favorite.

kjv@2Chronicles:3 > > RandyP :

How does one build a temple to the Lord? Seems that the moment that the design is put to paper the design becomes more and more human. So to, the actual implementation and labor, here foreign residents appear to have been conscribed and the plunder of wars smelted. It just seems the more real it becomes the less real it is.

kjv@John:12:8 > > RandyP :

Jesus did not directly confront Judas here, but, kind of played along with him. Jesus could have just as easily said 'thieves like you will we always have' or 'if these friends here tonight only knew the heart from which you speak' or any other thing. Instead, Jesus focuses on the offering of the woman not allowing her moment to be spoiled by another's.

kjv@2Chronicles:4-5 > > RandyP :

It seems to me that given the ornamental details of the Temple it would be easy to be overwhelmed with craftsmanship over the truer meaning and worship. How close are idol golden calves from proper? Even in a Temple inspired by the spirit, even with all the deeper symbolizes and cultural significances, can't these things be misunderstood and interrupted or worse corrupted? I guess that there is always that danger given the heart of man.

kjv@2Chronicles:6 > > RandyP :

Popular thought has it that if one is religious/prayerful all should go well and these problems be avoided. This is not what is prayed here; it is prayed that when these things happen here is what to do. Surely, there are evils that can be prevented, the individual has a much greater hope of benefiting from this lifestyle, but, some things cannot be avoided especially when looked at as a group/nation.

kjv@2Chronicles:4-5 > > RandyP :

Nearly everything in the Old Testament is said to be a symbolic shadow/type of the real object in the New. What then would be the fulfillment of the Temple? Is it Christ? Is it the Church body? Is it the church building? Is it the Kingdom? Is it the heart of the born again believer? Is it the physical body of the believer? All of these things might well be considered, many have been identified as such in the texts. Could it be all the above? The Life and the Worship in and towards? The communion with God? The abode? God dwelling with man?

kjv@John:12:26 > > RandyP :

Where will Christ be moving in your life today? To where will you follow?

kjv@John:12:26 > > RandyP :

Make sure to see the tsk@John:12:26 links today!

kjv@John:12:44-50 > > RandyP :

This passage is central to the gospel.

kjv@2Chronicles:7:14 > > RandyP :

Notice the order: if,humble themselves, pray, seek my face, turn from ways, then.

kjv@2Chronicles:7:20-21 > > RandyP :

It would be wise to consider today what has befallen Israel and the Temple these many years. After reading accounts like these of the fire from the sky moments to the accounts of the Temple/Israel scattered in heaps burnt to the ground; What has happened? What is God telling us? What is it about us the merely writes these things off as oddities? How is this not relevant?

kjv@2Chronicles:7:12-22 > > RandyP :

The point should be made that the future ahead was conditional; if they did this. God knows the outcome but, yet the choice is given. There is not a person at the beginning of a choice that doesn't feel confident, inspired, capable; the choice seems obvious. As the consequences and requirements of choice develop human will follows the path of least resistance, the path of least effort. It is not that the human will does not want to do good, that it does not choose to do good, it is that it does not know how to sustain good, to expend the resource and effort to remain good. Most importantly it is the reprobate distaste of having to surrender itself to the highest good by obedience to the will of God.

kjv@2Chronicles:9 > > RandyP :

This may be the height of Israel's prosperous influence over the middle east and beyond. Rarely do we look at successes like this as the beginning of the end, however most times they are. Certain tendencies develop within a nation, attitudes and expectations without and within that irreversibly turn the course of a nation. We'd expect to see jealousies and envies and covetousness increase. Pride and fatness and laziness erupt. Corruption and bribery and extortion. Things that those living through these fat times just come to except.

kjv@John:13:3-5 > > RandyP :

Don't loose sight of this: Knowing this (all things given into His hands) Jesus did that (washed disciples feet).

kjv@John:13:17 > > RandyP :

The teaching of the chapter is so profound that often we neglect it's obvious conclusion: doing. Knowing and doing go hand in hand. So why don't we always do this? What we are called to do is not just washing each others feet, that would almost be acceptable. What we are called to do goes way beyond that to the point of lowering ourselves beyond our respectability in the service of people we'd really rather not lower ourselves to. I think of all the stay at home Christians that have been hurt by other Christians. Whose feet are they washing there at home? Who are they lowering themselves for? How is our Lord's example being lived in their lives? Jesus said "each other's feet". Who are we to pick and choose whose other feet we'd be willing to clean?

kjv@2Chronicles:10-11 > > RandyP :

It is important to realize what is happening here because what has been set forth now will play out the remainder of Israel/Judah's days. Because of the harsh rule of Judah over the 10 tribes there is a succession led by the exile Jeroboam. A sin is begun that will continued down through every Israel king, a nationalized form of false worship. The Levitical priests are banished and the former Levite cities abandoned. This split was predicted by the prophet Ahijah and confirmed here by God.

kjv@2Chronicles:10-11 > > RandyP :

While Jeroboam was well aware of why God was choosing to divide the nation because of a particular false worship by Solomon kjv@1Kings:11:31-39, it is of interest that he used the occasion to set up a false worship of his own.

kjv@2Chronicles:12:1 > > RandyP :

Much like Judah, when God is providing and blessing and is non-judgmental, people are more then willing to allow some resemblance of God into their lives. But, when the tables turn and God stands off in displeasure and reproof the same nominal people shut down and disallow any resemblance. The void is quickly muddied by every other notion and imagination. It is essentially the same god served in both cases, the god of whatever serves me best.

kjv@2Chronicles:12:9 > > RandyP :

How embarrassing. Even if not religious, citizens had to feel the shame of their national treasure being plundered.

kjv@2Chronicles:12:13 > > RandyP :

Solomon's sin now haunts him. This king is the son of one of his forbidden wives, the daughter of the king of Ammon (Jordan)

kjv@2Chronicles:12:14 > > RandyP :

He was willing to consult old and young counselors, even for a moment humbled himself in the temple, but, this know it all never is recorded to have prepared his heart to seek the Lord.

kjv@John:13:34 > > RandyP :

It may be too easy to separate this commandment out from the context from which it was delivered. We might think of love as warm fuzzy "good Sunday morning" fellowship doing charitable things for our hard pressed. The context is the giving of one's life. Peter understood this in the verses to follow but was unsure of the immediate implementation in regards to what he should be giving toward Jesus in His sacrifice.

kjv@John:13:38 > > RandyP :

We return to the theme of being willing to do good, having good intents, but lacking the resolve and resource to sustain such. It is only by the empowering of the Holy Spirit that such sacrifice and goodness can be made.

kjv@2Chronicles:16:9 > > RandyP :

The perfect heart spoken of here seems to boil down to the heart that seeks the Lord in all things, that clears away the idols and false notions, that relies on His strength even in desperate times, that avoids pacts with questionable outsiders, that allows God to be God.

kjv@John:14:23 > > RandyP :

An important aspect of faith is being taught here. It is one thing to believe "in" a Jesus that has your ticket to heaven. It is another to believe to the point of His Lordship in your daily life; to believe to the point of knowing and obedience. It is the test of true love.

kjv@John:14:26-27 > > RandyP :

This is a partial list of the Comforter's responsibilities. These abilities had until now only been shadowed in OT prophets. The Holy Ghost is crucial to the believer in order to know and conduct daily relations, therefore obedience to our Lord.

kjv@John:14:13 > > RandyP :

Anything we ask? Or anything that will glorify the Father in the Son? Surely, if the Lord commanded that we did one thing and we lacked the resource He would honor our obedience, but, what about in our disobedience?

kjv@John:14 > > RandyP :

It is a deliberate attempt on the part of the critic to eliminate the presence and duties of the Holy Ghost. Arguments can be made and well supported that left to man's interpretation and translation and tendency to bend truth around one's own will, more persuasively by displacing the function of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, God did not merely leave it in our own incapable hands, God did not make it all dependent upon our powers of deduction, God did not leave it up to our own personal and corporate misunderstandings. Their argument ends at the ability of the Comforter sent in Jesus' name to teach and put us in remembrance of (amongst other things). Coincidentally, it is the blasphemy against this triune entity that is the "unpardonable sin".

kjv@John:15:2 > > RandyP :

The believer must know that the Christian walk is not a finalized product it is a developing process, it is a process of pruning and purging toward the goal of increasing the quantity and quality of spiritual fruit.

kjv@John:15:9-10 > > RandyP :

Jesus obeyed the Father's commandments and therefore abides in His love. Like wise, if we are to abide in His love we must obey His commandments. His command is that we love one another, not as the world would love one of it's own, but, as Jesus loved us even to the giving of His own life. How is it that we can give our lives to one another? Sacrificing, investing our time/energies/resources, surrendering our personal interest/advancement, etc...

kjv@John:15:14 > > RandyP :

Friend. Much more than a simple belief in a someday "get into heaven" insurance card.

kjv@John:15:16 > > RandyP :

The reality of our situation is this: We have been chosen, we have been ordained, we have been empowered, for the purpose of bearing fruit, if we continue to abide. Abiding has everything to do with obeying, obeying everything to do with giving ourselves in love to one another. How quickly this all can get mis-construed if we fail to keep these facts in focus. Christianity then is not a play along at home board game. It is not a play along with only those few other Christians that you personally like and get along with. It is a fruit producing "doing all things for the Lord as He loved us" obedience.

kjv@2Chronicles:20:33 > > RandyP :

Perhaps this goes to show the deep roots of our sins. Even though we see the great fast and prayer, even though we see God speak through a Levite to the king, even though we see a tremendous victory at God's hand, our heart is still not yet prepared, there are still high places of idolatrous worship.

kjv@2Chronicles:21:6 > > RandyP :

A king of Judah with an Israeli princes wife.

kjv@2Chronicles:21:7 > > RandyP :

Remember that he had killed his other siblings, so it wasn't as easy as God replacing him with another brother in order to sustain the promise to David.

kjv@2Chronicles:21:18 > > RandyP :

This is not to say that incurable disease is caused in this manner or reason in all cases. It was true in this particular case because we are told that it was so. How often this happens we do not know, we are not told. This is a very important time in Judah given what he had done to the remaining descendants of David, what he had encouraged Judah to sin in, and by his own idolatrous practices and alliances.

kjv@2Chronicles:22:4 > > RandyP :

As we see so often, the wickedness of a king is not necessarily in his strength and resolve, but, in his weakness from keeping others of wicked counsel out of his circle of influence.

kjv@2Chronicles:22 > > RandyP :

Do you remember back in the days of Samuel that God had warned united Israel what it would be like for them under the monarchy that they were desiring to switch to? But, they wanted to be like all the other nations? Well here you go. Sounds like a bad nightmare by now doesn't it? Two generations from a good king in Judah and a victorious moment of remembrance of Solomon's temple dedication promise and they are right back into the deep darkness.

kjv@John:16:1-15 > > RandyP :

We have seen a flurry of descriptions now in these chapters regarding the Holy Spirit perhaps like in no other gospel. And yet for us the Spirit largely remains a mystery. Careful study of these verses should be done by each and everyone of us to reveal the importance of the Spirit's doings in our walks of faith.

kjv@2Chronicles:23-24 > > RandyP :

This is one of the few times we see the strong influence of a high priest on the king and the nation. So often we are left asking where are the Levites? Where are the priests? Well, here one is in Jehoiada. Remember that this is Judah. Israel has for long expelled the Levites and the influences of the mosaic covenant priests.

kjv@2Chronicles:25:15 > > RandyP :

Idolatry seems rather foolish when it is put this way. Perhaps the decision isn't so much what the new god represents to them but, what the old God has become to them in their rebellion, a constant reproof.

kjv@2Chronicles:25 > > RandyP :

It is easy for us to see by this narrative how the mind of a not so good king digs a destructive whole deeper and deeper for itself. It is not so easy to see this tendency play out in our own lives. We are not under the same pressures and responsibilities that drive such stark consequences, but, we do do these things none the less. We see these forces working in other people's lives and when it is fully explained to us as God sees it, but, not readily by our own introspection.

kjv@John:16:24 > > RandyP :

Kept in context, this promise is given to those filled with the joy of the Son's triumphant return to the Father, who fully understand who the Son is, why He came and left, what it means that He is on the throne and will be seen by them again. It is not made for just anybody who wants to reserve their belief until something substantial is received from God as proof thus seeking be bribed into believing by riches and wealth.

kjv@John:16:27 > > RandyP :

A completely unconditional love is hard to expect when God has invested so much into the redemption of the souls that He seeks to restore into His love. To have that expense/investment disregarded and shunned is utter insult, utter sin.

kjv@2Chronicles:26:5 > > RandyP :

As we saw just recently a priest influencing a king for good, now we see a prophet. The text does not say how they may have meet or what if any relationship they might have had, but the two are noted mutually here.

kjv@2Chronicles:26:16 > > RandyP :

I find it interesting that in all the things he could have lifted his heart to do that he lifted his heart to do that which only the high priest could do, enter the holiest to burn incense. He was seeking to worship, I suppose, in a way that he was not permitted, assuming a role that was not his. We do not know other than his pride what prompted him to do this nor for whom he was doing this for.

kjv@2Chronicles:27:2 > > RandyP :

Apparently for fear of what had happened to his father being stricken for a high heart. Notice as well that there is something similar with other people, perhaps entering the temple in ways not permitted. Are the two related?

kjv@2Chronicles:27:5 > > RandyP :

One generation previous the Ammonites seemed to be on good terms having given a considerable gift kjv@2Chronicles:26:8 . Now they are fighting.

kjv@2Chronicles:26-27 > > RandyP :

We are seeing a descent run of good kings in Judah for now. You will notice that even though they are good, doing right in the eye of the Lord, they are also exposed as having peculiar defects. It is noted that they are being influenced by either a good priest or a good prophet which say much about their leadership style (the strength of keeping poor influence out and good influence in). The text also hints to the weakness of either lift their own heart too high in their public worship or else avoiding public worship altogether without standing against the corruption of others in the temple. Both are weakness of high order for a king even if they are otherwise doing right.

kjv@2Chronicles:28:5 > > RandyP :

It is interesting here that especially with Israel that God would be using the self same source of Judah's sin (Israel's false religion) as the subjecting hammer over Judah. It should be clear to Judah how God feels about their idolatry.

kjv@2Chronicles:28 > > RandyP :

The tables turn quickly under a wicked king. Judah gets spanked hard. You'll notice though how quickly the tables turned, how rapidly that that high places and idols almost seemed to be in place, how eager others were to follow along. It seems so much harder and politically time consuming to establish good than it does evil.

kjv@John:17:17 > > RandyP :

It is often asked "why the Bible", "what good is it", "how is it relevant"? It should be clear here in Jesus' own words that the Bible is the means provided for sanctification. God has gone to great expense and effort up to Jesus to separate His word from all others. Now that Jesus is here and we see nearly every major and minor prophet's detail and every Old Testament law and shadow and type realized, it should become even clearer that this Bible is the process. Beyond that, to read the words of this prayer, seeing the plan and intentions of Father and Son without veil or hidden parable, it should be determined that the Bible is even more God's single method; more than capable of reaching through the many generations, the many cultures, the many attempts to squelch it. The process of sanctification is the process of setting apart, and that the Bible has miraculously done for all these many years.

kjv@John:17:8 > > RandyP :

The Apostles were not originally chosen based upon their intelligence or piety or political influence nor even stellar personal character, they were chosen on the bases of their ability to receive and retain (keep) the words and teachings delivered to them to the greater audience beyond in complete pure and accurate form. They learned first hand, not from books but from being there and experiencing the Master up close. They were chosen to be a time vessel, a container of testimony, receivers and transmitters across the spectrum of human time.

kjv@John:17 > > RandyP :

Mark this chapter down as 'the' chapter. Nothing hidden, Nothing remaining to be explained, nothing depending on further explanation. Jesus speaking to the Father as only the Father's Son could speak.

kjv@John:17 > > RandyP :

The Bible is the word of God because it testifies as to the "Word" of God, the physical embodiment of God's complete creative/redemptive/authoritative plan in the person of Jesus Christ. Unlike any other religion or science that stresses human method and means, the Bible stresses the person of Christ. It is the person the "Word" who effects us from the inside out, not our deeds that effect us from the outside in. It is not the ladder we climb up on His behalf, it is the ladder He descended on our's. It is not for our deceitful hearts to collect the data determining God's word, the data is already collected in one person. The word the scripture is to testify of whom this tremendous person the "Word" is. Reject the person and you've rejected the word. It is really all that pure and simple.

kjv@2Chronicles:29:12 > > RandyP :

How cool would it be to be like a great grand child two or three generations from this and see that the men of your family are actually mentioned in the Book of Chronicles as actually doing something marvelous for the Lord. There for you and everyone else to read about. Problem is that two generations or so seems to be the length of most of these revivals, those generations may not even be aware that there is such a book.

kjv@2Chronicles:29:16 > > RandyP :

The thing about having an actual physical temple is that it often stands as a barometer of the people of the nation spiritually. The condition of the temple reflects the condition of men's hearts. Figuratively, it takes one drunken night to tear it apart and defile it, yet it takes eight intense days and the political will several years later just to bring it back to where it was.

kjv@2Chronicles:29:24 > > RandyP :

In the OT atonement was not only made for the individual but for the nation. Now that the body of Christ has outgrown the nation we must consider that His atonement is not only for the individual, not just the nation of Israel, but the entire body of Christ as one. This is how we later will see a bride of Christ dressed white as snow. The critics of the bride and the stay at home believers should be made aware of this fact.

kjv@2Chronicles:29:27 > > RandyP :

King David to this day not only has political and judicial effect on men, but, perhaps more importantly has spiritual effect influencing even the forms and means of corporate worship. That friend is lasting and powerful!

kjv@2Chronicles:30:14 > > RandyP :

Alters and relics of the false gods that still remained in Jerusalem were removed and thrown into the brook Kidron. The disgusting action of having to do this made the priests and levites feel filthy and ashamed. They must have been filthy and disgusting idols.

kjv@2Chronicles:30:18-20 > > RandyP :

The spirit of the law had precedence. The spirit is that we come prepared spiritually to seek the Lord not necessarily how we come to the event ritualistically. The ritual then becomes important only when the spiritual requirement is met, other wise pardon would not have to asked for or granted

kjv@2Chronicles:30:26 > > RandyP :

The days of joy celebration song and feasting of the passover are now replaced by the joy and celebration and song and feasting we have every day in our Lord' passover presence. It is what we should feel each and every time we prepare our hearts to seek the Lord in fellowship together. It is a solemn experience only as we approach His alter with our sins. It is a long long joyous feast thereafter having been given His pardon. Some congregations have got this backwards.

kjv@2Chronicles:31 > > RandyP :

It is amazing how much work went into restoring Judah back into being right with God; they had slipped that far. Hard as this was, the scary thing is that it will take at least as much work for them to sustain it. The problem we see play out time and time again is not starting, not reviving, but sustaining for any length of time. People are much more willing, there is much more momentum at the onset. They succeed, God blesses, they become comfortable, other notions intermingle, new momentum's sway entirely different directions, the established good is torn down in short order replaced by the unproven notions and imagination perceived benefit and entitlement. It is no different today. The heart of man is never satisfied. The will of man never sustains.

kjv@John:18:1-2 > > RandyP :

The Lord enjoys and is refreshed by the tranquility and majesty of His creation just as much as we do.

kjv@John:18:10 > > RandyP :

If you had lived in the time John had reported this, you could have asked Malchus or his decendents "did this happen?" and they would have told you. His name was given (as were many others) by John so that you could have checked. Chances are that Malchus could have been found in a local congregation for John speaks as if any one reading this would have known who Malchus was.

kjv@John:18:15 > > RandyP :

John has a literary habit of speaking of himself in the third person. For instance he calls himself "the one whom Jesus loved". "Another disciple" could be John, it could be James as well. John is no doubt calling attention to Peter purposely by this literary technique however.

kjv@John:18:16 > > RandyP :

On second reading, could this unidentified disciple be Judas?

kjv@John:18:19 > > RandyP :

Is the priest inquiring as to the names and whereabouts of these other perpetrators for further intent? Is this why Jesus is slapped by the guard for His vague and secretive answer?

kjv@2Chronicles:32:15 > > RandyP :

Words similar to the Assyrian King's echo brashly still today. I guess when you've been fighting against paper tigers all this time you'd just expect every other god to fall in the same manner. Many people today feel that this is what all gods are. Our God uses these people at times to test and foster the faithfulness of His beloved. What do these puppets get out of the deal? A moment of feeling brash and superior.

kjv@2Chronicles:32 > > RandyP :

We've seen a spiritual process as developed in King Hezekiah that we should consider ourselves. He was a very good man to begin with and became a vessel of God's to begin and complete a tremendous restoration/revival in Judah. God certainly blessed his faith and actions as we would expect. Because of this success others sought to put him down, put him back in mere human terms. The Lord stands up for him as he responds to this desperation humbly with prayer. God blesses again as expected. Then with all this success he gets a bit too puffed up, but even that gets worked out. The king is doing admirably right? You would think that this would be the end of the story, but, for everything considerable that Hezekiah has been able to depend on, obey and do, his inner heart has yet to be fully revealed to him. There are the ways of God that you and I would expect and there are the much deeper ways of God that must need to be done; revealing the full heart of man. This God does for our own sakes.

kjv@2Chronicles:33:2 > > RandyP :

This flip flop father to son/good to evil has occurred far too many times now for us not to make a point out of. Judah has had a better history than Israel in lessening this historical tendency, but, it still has happened far too frequently. Is it leadership weakness keeping others out? Trying to be all things to all people? Is just the anti-establishment nature within us? Is it parenting? The vigor of marking ones turf with one's own scent? Yes we all have freewill, each child must make his/her own decisions. How much of this is decision though and not nature or environment or conspiracy? We are told of our warfare against spiritual powers and principalities. Is it really all of our own choosing?

kjv@2Chronicles:33:3 > > RandyP :

Where are the people in all of this? Where are the priests and the Levites? Is the position of king all that matters in these perversions? Is there no resistance? Is the resistance that easily overcome? Does the perversion go on that un-noticed? We can only guess from our own experience. What would you say?

kjv@2Chronicles:33:9 > > RandyP :

Manasseh with his abominable religion was able to do what the king of Assyria previously was unable to do by military force; make Judah captive.

kjv@2Chronicles:33:12 > > RandyP :

I'm thinking "no God.. no no... don't do this.. he's trying to fool you" but....

kjv@2Chronicles:33:17 > > RandyP :

The damage is done anyway. His previous influence remains even though he himself has changed. We see this in our own lives as well, friends that we've gone back to now that we've been reborn in Christ who see us as former shells of ourselves, turn coats to the truer rebellious faith, enemies to be reconverted or abandoned.

kjv@John:18:27 > > RandyP :

Don't casually dismiss the extreme fear that Peter was under. We would like to put ourselves above Peter and say that we would never have done this, but, remember Peter had thought the same. Chances are that we wouldn't have even been brave enough nor in the position to have even left all behind to follow Jesus day one in the first place.

kjv@John:18:28 > > RandyP :

Yes, who wants to be defiled in the passover while you are in the process sentencing the Messiah to death.

kjv@John:18:31 > > RandyP :

Not lawful??? Especially when He is innocent!

kjv@John:18:34 > > RandyP :

It is always amazing to me to see the mastery Jesus had in each and every situation that He was ever confronted with. In the midst of all of this going on all around Him, He still asks perhaps the most profound and penetrating question recorded in human literature. How do any of us reply to such a question? It is the very heart of all matters. Wow!

kjv@John:18:38 > > RandyP :

This relative truth is all that anyone is left to if the truth of Jesus Christ is not to be considered.

kjv@2Chronicles:34:3 > > RandyP :

When you think of all the influences in a child king's court this is a fairly remarkable feat, to have a firm belief by sixteen and to have begun a zealous purging by twenty.

kjv@2Chronicles:34:4 > > RandyP :

Like weeds with roots deep down into the ground, one cuts the visible tops and they just keep growing right back. This is just as true today.

kjv@2Chronicles:34-35 > > RandyP :

There has been for a long time debate about "solo scriptura" the doctrine of only by written scripture. The counter argument is of the oral teachings and oral traditions. This passage in particular seem ample proof that the oral argument falls flat. When the written scriptures reappear, there is a vast discrepancy between the way things were then with Moses and the way they became minus the writings centuries later. It seems incredulous that for all this time the written scripture was not even consulted and hidden away in the treasury. Maybe God was pointing to the obvious symbolism and critic.

kjv@2Chronicles:36 > > RandyP :

Even in the midst of all this trouble with Egypt, the people of Judah were hardened and brazen enough not to see what was happening. They had the arogance to dismiss and utterly mistreat God's prophets and the gall to not observe the Mosaic seventh year agricultural Sabbaths. This is a full spiritual revolt.

kjv@John:19:14 > > RandyP :

Is Pilate now inciting the crowd to riot to regain his advantage? Why would he say this? Is he preparing a cover for his own escape when he must account of this to his superiors?

kjv@John:19:19 > > RandyP :

Pilate goes beyond vindictive here. Is this vindictive toward Jesus or toward the Jews or both?

kjv@2Chronicles:34:5-6 > > RandyP :

Do you find it interesting that special mention is made of the treatment of the Baalim priests burnt to ashes upon their alters? The back and forth between evil and good is drastically heating up. Fast forward to chapter 36 and the final straw where God pulls the plug on Judah, the horrors placed upon His prophets. I know we'd like to think of these grotesque items on our limited individual terms of free will and human over-reactions. There is something much more spiritual going on here though that can't be sugar coated. A war between spiritual powers and principalities in high places is what is being described here; something of a scope so very few of us can imagine. All along we have been asking why? Why the back and forth? Why doesn't Judah see? Why don't they listen? Why is it so difficult to sustain any thing good? Why this god and that? Why is God so upset? What is God wanting us to see in all of this gory repetition? Well this explanation makes better sense than most? The spirits are at war over Jerusalem and the seed of David.

kjv@Ezra:1-2 > > RandyP :

It is amazing that the God of much despised Judah Yahweh is recognized and honored by a foreign king like this at this time. The accounts of the prophet Daniel would have transpired by now.God has been working behind the scenes to make this happen. It is by God's promise, His mercy, His longsuffering, and for the sake of His name that we see this activity.

kjv@John:19:35 > > RandyP :

John was the only gospel writer who actually witnessed Christ's passion first hand. Matthew Luke and Mark each wrote organized collections of other people's direct testimonies.

kjv@John:19:26-27 > > RandyP :

Mary had other sons and daughters that could have taken care of their mom. Jesus is saying that it would be better for her to be with John than with them. We do not know how much longer she lived nor for how long this arrangement lasted.

kjv@Ezra:3-4 > > RandyP :

In the back of our minds, we want to think that is God is behind something we will know by how easy it goes. We stay in a job for instance because it is the path of least resistance. We ask for direction in prayer and then look for all the open doors and if there is no open door we assume that it is because God doesn't want us there. In this passage there was an open door, but don't expect that there will be no resistance; there will be much more resistance. What is being done is being done for God. He will make a way and He will make sure to teach us trust and obedience in the process.

kjv@John:21:6 > > RandyP :

Jesus had told these men that they would be fishers of men. The symbolism here might be that by their own power despite their longtime skill they would catch nothing on their own, but, by the Lord's direction they would have more then the nets could hold. How do we today fish? Is it by following His direction?

kjv@Acts:1 > > RandyP :

There is much debate as to what is happening here with the choosing of an replacement disciple and why it didn't stick. Perhaps they are ahead of the Spirit here. They were to wait for the receiving of the Holy Spirit, yet, they were already attempting to make decisions. Looks like they had thought this through, made it to appear to themselves that they were being spiritual, narrow God down to two choices, and use a spiritual method - casting lots to win God's final answer. God had other plans. No doubt the two were excellent men and well qualified but, that was not the issue. We can easily fool ourselves into this situation as well. Is it by our means or by His?

kjv@Nehemiah:2:7 > > RandyP :

Understand that this is no small thing in the eyes of those who have been causing the oppression and reproach against the remnant. He will need the protection of the king and more.

kjv@Nehemiah:1-2 > > RandyP :

Nehemiah began with repentant prayer and soon the hand of God was upon him. It is much easier to see the effects of own's own sin and the sin of one's fathers when everything held holy lays in waste and it's defensive walls are burnt to the ground; easier when one is serving his captor hand to mouth. Too bad that it often has to come to this before we see our sin and it's consequence. The pattern of revival is always shown to begin with repentance, receiving the hand of God, and then the valor to stand against everything that opposes.

kjv@Nehemiah:3 > > RandyP :

This appears appears to be the wall mainly being restored by these men and it's many featured accessories. It is wonderful how God has put all these men to work by raising one repentant/spirit-filled leader who had won the trust of the king. None of this probably would have happened otherwise.

kjv@Acts:2:13 > > RandyP :

Yes, new wine often produces men and women that suddenly speak in multiple foreign dialects proficiently. How else could it be explained? (sarcasm). Had I only known that when I was trying to teach myself Spanish last time.

kjv@Acts:2:1 > > RandyP :

Pentecost - Feast of the Harvest, Feast of First Fruits.

kjv@Acts:2:4 > > RandyP :

The importance of the "Spirit giving utterance" is paramount. There are many religions even today that profess to speaking in tongues. They are initially uttered as a steady flow of babel/gibberish and eventually become a secretive spiritual language between you and the Spirit. This however is another's ethnically/nationally derived language being used by the Spirit to communicate to that other person in their native tongue through an untaught medium. Much different - impossible if not by the Spirit. The text here is clear.

kjv@Nehemiah:1-2 > > RandyP :

There is a good amount of information that we are left to assume about Nehemiah. That fact that a Hebrew, any Hebrew, would be trusted as a personal cup bearer in any foreign king's court says a wealth about Nehemiah's character and integrity. The fact that the king would grant such a request to a Hebrew at this particular time says much to the strength of their friendship. The fact that the king would trust Nehemiah's abilities as a leader of this project say's much about his apparent leadership abilities despite him being utilized up to this time as a cup bearer (and to provide him much of the resource?). Add to this the fact that several of the tribal leaders of Judah had enough confidence in Nehemiah to commit themselves and their own limited personal resources to this extremely dangerous and volatile objective, simply put Nehemiah must have been very well known and very well respected even before the hand of God came upon him in this bigger way. The remnant risked being outed in a irreversable way.

kjv@Nehemiah:4:20 > > RandyP :

There is a notion amongst us that if God wants something done He will do it all for us. Imagine if these people just left all the building or all the protection to God and sat by to watch. The argument could be made that if these people really believed that God wanted this done that it would be against their belief in God's providence to take up arms to protect themselves or to slow the work down by working one handed or to try to build this back up themselves. God often puts us right in the middle of a project, has us do the work, has us face the fears and desperate odds, and by our faithful hands and hearts leads us to His accomplishment.

kjv@Nehemiah:5:10 > > RandyP :

Not only are they facing an enemy without, they face an enemy within. Jewish lenders are charging contributors an interest rate and having them mortgage there physical holdings against the loan which is a violation of the Mosaic law. To take financial advantage and profit from those attending to God's purpose is an even more debase practice, just as likely to occur today.

kjv@Nehemiah:5:13 > > RandyP :

We see here that it is proper to pray (even publicly) for the harm of those within that seek to gain personally from those contributing to the causes of God (even by financial usury).

kjv@Nehemiah:6:13 > > RandyP :

This is an interesting perspective of sin that we often would not otherwise consider. We would think of sin as being angry, or cussing at these enemies, seeking to have them killed. Here Nehemiah considers it sin to follow the counsel of a deceitful confidant; to move towards ones own protection at the expense of those who have courageously stood and sacrificed for the cause under your leadership.

kjv@Nehemiah:6:18 > > RandyP :

More enemies within: several Hebrew leaders and rulers. The odds were certainly stacked against Nehemiah from all directions. Remember back when the king initially granted him this request? Did the king know what Nehemiah was getting into? Most likely. Yet he granted it to him on the basis of some quality that he saw in his cup bearer.

kjv@Acts:2:14-47 > > RandyP :

There seems to be an observable transformation in Peter having the Spirit now. We have not heard Him quote and reason Old Testament scripture before let alone so boldly with such confidence. Just days ago he was part of a group that was over extending itself beyond the direction of the Spirit, but now he seems fully in step and infused by It. The Spirit is bringing Jesus' words and teachings to effect and Peter and the group are an observable example.

kjv@Acts:2:14-47 > > RandyP :

The spectacle of the manifestation of the Spirit is providing the opportunity, the revelations (past/present/future) by the Spirit is providing the conviction, the unity in the Spirit is providing the furtherance and continuance. The very presence of the Spirit in this manner is the absolute proof.

kjv@Nehemiah:8:8 > > RandyP :

Every preacher/teacher of the Gospel should strive to the same. This verse should be engraved atop every pulpit.

kjv@Acts:3 > > RandyP :

The Spirit moves again. Same pattern. The oppurtunity, revelation, conviction, unity. The spectacle of a miracle surrounding the Apostles opening up the opportunity to evangelize to a larger group, the stirring and conviction of the crowd etc... We wonder what made John and Peter ready to do this? Was it faith in something previously said/promised, was it something from previous experience that was prepared for with fasting and prayer, or was it an immediate urging/a voice behind them? The answer is probably yes yes and yes. Are we prepared should the Spirit move yet again?

kjv@Nehemiah:9-10 > > RandyP :

We have privatized our religion a great deal. The sins detailed here are considered the sins of the fathers, a frequency of falling short on a national scale. Today our confessions are strictly personal if any. Sin is reduced down to things we do that harm others and if we don't harm it isn't a sin. We leave ourselves to judge whether our deeds hurt someone and even then it is only relative to the hurt that they have caused us. Not only were these stated sins national, so too were God's mercies.

kjv@Acts:4:1-22 > > RandyP :

Being filled with the Holy Ghost did not change other's perceptions of Peter's education, it gave him the boldness to say what needed to be said, comforted them in his incarceration, and perhaps divided the resolve of the leaders to pin something on them. Notice Peter is doing most all of the speaking and receiving most of the direction, John is providing the support and unity.

kjv@Nehemiah:12-13 > > RandyP :

Two immediate problems resurfaced in Nehemiah's temporary absence, the defilement of the Sabbath by merchants and the marriages to foreign wives.

kjv@Nehemiah:9-10 > > RandyP :

What are the sins of our fathers now days? No doubt they are very much the same and just as prevalent. They effect us as a nation in ways God cannot overlook. Much like Judah, there are certainly those that do right, a remnant at all times, but they are vastly out numbered and the coarse of the nation is stripped from their hands. We would do well to consider each of their sins.

kjv@Acts:4:29-30 > > RandyP :

Notice here that their prayer wasn't for the tribulation to go away, it was for the word of God to be declared all the more effectively with the conformation of healings and wonders.

kjv@Acts:4:33 > > RandyP :

Two ways of interrupting this: The apostles were focused on solely giving testimony of the resurrection. The combination of what they were saying about the resurrection and what the Spirit was doing was powerful. Or, what the Spirit was doing testified/confirmed/was a seal of the resurrection. Apostles were being used by the Spirit powerfully to confirm that the resurrection indeed had transpired and that the new covenant was now under way. The two understandings would not have to be exclusive.

kjv@Acts:4:33 > > RandyP :

Great grace was very much upon them. That itself is a powerful testimony when it is allowed to be evident.

kjv@Acts:4:34-37 > > RandyP :

For all the problems and difficulties we have with this communal lifestyle, it is a curious and proactive means of testifying of "grace upon us", a built in testimony to the outside world. We today must be careful of what that testimony would be should we consider going back to this. Would it be of "grace upon us" or "hey man... far out, lookin' groovy" or "ten months later they all disbanded disillusioned and broke". It may well have been perfect for that time, but even then it was vulnerable to considerable direct attack; from without and within. One must ask as well - is our form of "grace upon us" testimony living non communally any better?

kjv@Esther:2:17 > > RandyP :

In the midst of such other foreign and exotic beauty it is hard to find one that unanimously stands apart. There must have been something more than beauty that set Esther so far apart so as to obtain such grace and favor. Thinking ahead through what will soon transpire I would say that it was a work of God.

kjv@Esther:2:18 > > RandyP :

The story that she had lost her mother and father must have continued or else the king would have inquired from her parents. Her cover remains intact.

kjv@Esther:3 > > RandyP :

I wonder if we don't follow this storyline as if it is mere coincidence that this enemy of the Jews is brought into this position of power and influence. Is it just this man's hatred or is his hatred being used by the principalities far above him. If we agree that Esther is being used of God to save her people shouldn't we then also conclude that Haman is being used by Satan to destroy God's people? Is this story an insight into spiritual battle fronts.

kjv@Acts:5:1-11 > > RandyP :

The question then becomes, if they believed on the name of Jesus enough to even consider selling all that they had to give it, were they saved by their belief in their lying end? I would think it quiet possible, even though they were made an example of to the others in one regard to have been saved in the most important regard. If however, this lie is tantamount to the unpardonable sin - blasphemy against the Holy Spirit we are all in trouble. What have you held back or lied about to the brethren?

kjv@Job:4-5 > > RandyP :

Normally, this would sound like proper counsel, much of the counsel we give today sounds the same. In this book though we see that Job is caught directly in the middle of something between Satan and God. This does not mean that this is always the case, we don't know if this has happened more than just this once. We only know that this type of occurrence is possible and that one may be tested similarly as a result.

kjv@Job:6 > > RandyP :

Job responds with real and honest feelings even in questioning his friends intents. His thoughts and sensitivities lay barren, desperate, and oddly profound. He suffers from tremendous depression however. Those of us sent to comfort or counsel a friend should be well aware of our intents and devices before proceeding. As good as our advice sounds to us it may be ill-timed, insensitive, or else irrelevant to the actual situation as it is in this case.

kjv@Job:4-5 > > RandyP :

The obvious question for me is that if this is the consequence of a unrepentant/sinful Job, why then aren't we all treated by God the same way. No doubt, after ten kids being taken away, this would be equivalent to ten souls paying the cost of one man's sin/unrepentance with their own lives (not to mention all the servants). To add to this removing all of his possessions and boils over his entire body; what are we really accusing God of? Extreme excess? This particular case should be understood as a revelation of the intents and mindset of Satan as much as the testing of an upright man. If there is any sin (which there always is) we should all be fearful and repent, we should be cautious not to respond with greater sin, be mindful of who is accusing who of what, allow for the possibilities spiritually far beyond our limited understanding.

kjv@Acts:7:20-43 > > RandyP :

The Old Testament makes the most convincing defense for the New Testament to those familiar with it.

kjv@Job:7 > > RandyP :

Really, what can you say to a person going through this deep of a depression? He is being real although one sided in his assessment. Often when we listen, we busy ourselves searching for answers and miss the mark of just being there to listen. It may be best to prayerfully just let this pour itself out of the soul till it runs dry. What answers are there in these times?

kjv@Job:8:20 > > RandyP :

What perfect man is there? Job was certainly a good man. God himself had said that there was none as upright. Upright because his repentance and prayers for his family. Because of this, he got caught in the middle of a spiritual battle. He has not been cast away. God is not asleep. His friend is considering only Job's immediate physical appearances.

kjv@Job:9:17 > > RandyP :

It is not true that this circumstance multiplies without cause, it is that Job and his friends do not yet know the cause. Even if they knew the cause, like us reading this, they may not understand the cause still. The cause is for God to know and for us to trust His judgement.

kjv@Job:9:22 > > RandyP :

What does Job mean by destroy? He has not been destroyed. If it has been appointed for all men to die, if naked we come into and leave this life, if the possessions of this world only rust and rot away, what has been destroyed but our false notions and expectations? Being temporarily emptied is not the same as being destroyed. God has spared Job's life and has His purposes for such. Why isn't that the focus?

kjv@Job:9 > > RandyP :

Deep depression brings a sense of profound thought that may not actually be there. The patient's mind is busily thinking even as others are answering him, consuming itself in what it thinks is profound. He thinks that he is on the brink of something big if he can just follow it through. It is not that he doesn't appreciate the counsel of others, he just can't silence his thoughts enough to listen because of the intrigue of this sudden perceived depth of thought. The perception is addictive. Rarely is the pursuit he makes anything more than the depression tangling and coiling itself further.

kjv@Acts:7:52 > > RandyP :

This is not the first time we have seen the early church use this tact against the Jewish crowds.

kjv@Acts:7:55 > > RandyP :

In the midst of the reality going on all around him, Stephen is shown the reality of what is truly going on above. He will not suffer what is to come alone.

kjv@Job:10-11 > > RandyP :

In many passages such as this we see the infallibility of the Bible in an interesting scope. Here there is an obvious contradiction of thought presented in debate form; both sides cannot be true, perhaps neither, perhaps parts of both. The Bible is accurate in its record of what was said. The synthesis of the debated points in the context of the remainder of scripture is the truth. The writers attempt is to challenge and stretch our understanding which when properly done leads to growth. We see also the difficulty of cherry picking single verses for our personal use without understanding the verse's immediate and general context.

kjv@Job:12 > > RandyP :

Great and awesome and feared is our God; his way's and thoughts beyond knowing, and yet at times like this knowing what cannot be understood is precisely what we attempt to do. Each of these men can be correct in their diverse points and still not know the half of it. What they do know without knowing the rest can easily be misapplied to Job's situation and the relief that he seeks. Can this be the infallible truth that the Bible is presenting?

kjv@Acts:8:13 > > RandyP :

I find it interesting that someone accustomed to forging miracles would be impressed enough with the miracles following Phillip to believe. It is the type of miracles here that cannot be forged. A man either has palsy or he doesn't and the people around that man know it.

kjv@Acts:8:16 > > RandyP :

They believed, but had not received the Spirit. Is this because they were Samaritan? Was the emphasis of this odd delay so that the Church could officially acknowledge and take note of the Spirit's cross over to the gentiles? If not, we can pursue several slippery slope theory's of the operation of the Spirit and when and how and by whom it can be received.

kjv@Acts:8:23 > > RandyP :

Root cause diagnosis: "gall (poison) of bitterness". Was that the cause of his initial interest in sorcery as well? The need to exalt oneself by extraordinary measures, extract fear and reverence, mystify and amaze, to dominate, to influence and control others' wills? I wonder.

kjv@Job:15 > > RandyP :

As long ago as these conversations occurred, it remains very interesting that all of these things discussed we still ponder over today. It is amazing how deep and concerned they were about these central issues so long ago. When we think how far back and how different culturally these men were from us, our similarities are striking.

kjv@Acts:8:39 > > RandyP :

The eunuch had all that he needed for a good start in the Lord. He had already gone to worship, he had been reading and seeking. By the preaching of Philip he received then an understanding into what he was reading, the understanding revealed the Lord's suffering, he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and was baptized. If there were more than this that he needed to get started I am sure that the Spirit would have allowed Philip to stay.

kjv@Acts:8:26-40 > > RandyP :

How true: How shall they believe unless they hear, and how shall they hear unless the Word is preached? The harvest is at hand but, few are the laborers.

kjv@Job:16:4-5 > > RandyP :

As we are often counselors to others in their times of need, we should heed Job's advice. We intend to do well by our counsel but how well if we are merely heaping up words against a person. The object of this type of counsel should be to strengthen and to comfort grief. Sometimes only people who have been through similar are able to fully understand this.

kjv@Job:16-17 > > RandyP :

Sometimes it feels not only that we are suffering for God but, also being piled upon by our friends and neighbors. Feelings of punishment can come from those who otherwise seek to help us. Grief over lost loved ones is not meant as a time of punishment but a time of cleansing and healing. There is nothing wrong in telling your friends so when such is the case or even separating yourself from them for a short time.

kjv@Job:18 > > RandyP :

Well that's comforting to know Mr. Bildad. He apparently didn't listen to what Job had just said. Perhaps he was too busy thinking of what he would say next to hear straight. Profound as it is it is not beneficial. We too should be advised.

kjv@Job:18 > > RandyP :

It might be better at this point for Job's friends to stop talking. How about taking a wet wash cloth and damping his wounds? How about walking him down to the stream and reminiscing? How about a campfire under the stars? How about reading from the Word and worshiping/praising/singing? How about anything other than the line of conversation these men insist on continuing?

kjv@Acts:9:1 > > RandyP :

Remember this description of Saul later when most of the church will be suspicious of Saul/Paul and will have nothing to do with him. Remember this when you see what a wonderful conversion God has in store for him.

kjv@Acts:9:6 > > RandyP :

We want to know the whole plan start to finish often before we will invest ourselves into it. Many times the Lord only reveals only the one small step that comes up next. Daily bread so to speak. Trust and acknowledge...He will direct!

kjv@Acts:9:1-22 > > RandyP :

There are times that the Lord speaks His will to us directly. There are times He speaks directly to another and has them to speak to us. Are we prepared for the later? If someone else were to speak God's will to you would you be willing to accept it as such? Even a total stranger? If not we may be cutting out the majority of His conversation to us.

kjv@Job:19:25-27 > > RandyP :

This is a prophecy. It is also his salvation. Just as we look back to the cross for our salvation, the saints of that day were judged by their belief forward to the cross. It is also a detailed description of a physical resurrection of our flesh. Not sure how the Sadducee explained this one away.

kjv@Job:19-20 > > RandyP :

Job insists that God looks upon him as an enemy which is not true. Job's friends see God as extracting a restitution for some hidden unconfessed sin which isn't true either. Job's one saving belief is the belief that he will one day see his redeemer on earth.

kjv@Acts:9:23-43 > > RandyP :

Miracles were extremely important to the tremendous growth of the early church. Here again it is Peter identified as performing them. Were the other Apostles doing these as well?

kjv@Job:21-22 > > RandyP :

One argument insists that God only rewards those that do good and seek His way. They can ask what ever they want and God will be glad to do it for them. Most of what they would ask for is material things. Job's present argument is that the wicked do just fine on their own if riches and rich lives are the mark. God seems often to leave them alone till their final demise. It is the upright that seem to draw his correction. Today, where does the evidence tend to rest?

kjv@Acts:10:1-23 > > RandyP :

Cornelius and then Peter are now redirected by God. One by a voice the other by a vision, the vision being confirmed later by the voice. Notice that the meaning of the vision is still unknown to Peter and Cornelius certainly doesn't even know about it either. God produced a desire to pursue an eventual answer, created a means outside of Peters own construction to deliver it, and is insisting first and foremost on the trust and obedience of both men to reach the further knowledge.

kjv@Job:23:10 > > RandyP :

It may not be comforting for the present time but, is certainly a shinning hope and the truest thing said so far. We shall come forth as gold.

kjv@Job:23-24 > > RandyP :

From what I have seen the evidence of this process seems clear. Whom God loves he corrects and this reproof is a way of life. It is an investment in who we will one day be. The wicked however, there is no reason to invest, correction only makes them more intent on their wicked ways. They may appear to be left to their own but, God has their end prepared. He also has us standing in the gap for those helpless victims; it is part of our test.

kjv@Acts:10:24-48 > > RandyP :

By my count this is the second cross over to the gentiles. The first to the Samaritans that had believed but had not yet received the Spirit. This time the non-Hebrew gentiles in Caesarean were moved to inquire, Peter came and testified, they believed, the Spirit immediately fell upon them, later they were baptized.

kjv@Job:28:28 > > RandyP :

Who can know his ways or cleans his own self? If the fear lacks (and it most certainly does) how can man know that he lives and breaths evil enough to depart it. The falseness of moral relativism is that evil is determined and judged without regarding any fear of the Lord therefore is there little regard for any evil other than that hurt which is brought against oneself by others.

kjv@Acts:11:2 > > RandyP :

It is clear that when God reveals such a massive addition to the faith HE does not put every apostle immediately into the loop; the matter was not conferred upon then implemented. It was implemented because of the way God brought it forth outside of the constructs of either man. Then it was conferred upon by the greater whole.

kjv@Acts:11:29 > > RandyP :

It appears that the Spirit did not directly have to tell them to send relief, they were able to determine that themselves. Perhaps He had impressed upon them, perhaps He had developed the desire in their hearts, but, the decision to do it was theirs.

kjv@Acts:11:27-28 > > RandyP :

This may be the first example of the gift of prophecy in the 2nd covenant dispensation by non-apostles. It has to do with a unusually terrible famine ahead. dict:torrey prophecy

kjv@Job:29 > > RandyP :

The tendency when reading this book is to put ourselves in the role of Job. Clearly from this passage very few of us have half the previous track record of righteousness and longevity as Job did. This is what makes the story so much more than what we make it: there was in fact none more righteous than Job and yet this happened. We would like to think that it is Satan attacking us similarly to Job; is it because we are more righteous than Job? What makes us think that Satan has the slightest interest in making another ultimate challenge with God regarding our faith when he pretty much has our faith locked up anyway? Odds are better that we are playing the role of one of Job's friends trying to talk him out of his righteousness. That is the story.

kjv@Job:29-30 > > RandyP :

The righteousness of Job had flushed out a great many pretenders, a number who were unworthy/untrusted even to be dogs in his flock (and that is not to knock the dogs). Now that God's hand was removed these enemies and low lifes saw opportunity to pound the image and reputation of Job into the dust. Apparently the many poor and needy that Job had helped were unable or unwilling to stand up for Job; as is often the case. It is almost like watching a plane crash; everyone just watches in awe.

kjv@Acts:12 > > RandyP :

Did God then in effect kill the prison keepers by freeing Peter? No Herod did. God killed Herod.

kjv@Job:31 > > RandyP :

The difficult part of this is that it all sounds so true. I would wonder though theses things being the case, how many of us ever would attain these high marks. The men declaring these things, had they? Job in all of his righteousness, had he? Do we? If not then surely we all should be judged in the same fashion as Job. Problem with the line of thought is that Job isn't being judged, he is being tested. Yes and no we really do these thing and we really don't; we all fall short. The sum of each of our righteousness is but filthy rags. For me to say that you are being tested and that I am not shows that I am more righteous than you is a complete falsehood.

kjv@Job:32:1 > > RandyP :

A good start is made by the youngest man. He has respectfully kept his silence, he has attempted to keep matters of personality and titles out of the way, he heard all of the matter until the others had said all that they could think of to be said, seeing no resolution he begins to confess his objective thoughts. Though it was described as coming out of his wrath, it seems quiet calmly presented. It will be interesting to see if he is wise enough as a youth to keep these issues separated out.

kjv@Acts:13:2 > > RandyP :

Gathering together, fasting and prayer; from this stance the Holy Spirit was able to move them in the directions He saw fit. He could have told Saul and Barnabas individually "go" to the same effect. He is dealing with the Church as a body however, beginning to promote it's many gifts and unity. The work and testimony of the Church is much like the work and testimony of OT Israel, they stand together and they fall together. He is thinking in terms of Kingdom and not rugged pioneering individuals. We often fail to listen to the Spirit because we are expecting Him to move us outside/independently of the body. Not many of us would be willing to listen to Him if he decided to speak through another so called prophet or a conference of prophets.

kjv@Acts:13:9-11 > > RandyP :

This was the work of the Spirit not Paul. Not simply because of being called, not simply because of having hands laid upon by the elders, but by being filled with the Holly Spirit. The Spirit is not at our beck and call, we are at His. Being filled is being surrendered to, hungering/thirsting/being meek/being poor in spirit/presenting ourselves a living sacrifice/being faithful in the little things so that larger things can be done. In other words submitting to Christ's present tense Lordship.

kjv@Job:33:13 > > RandyP :

As compassionate and polite as the young mans plea to Job seems to be, it seems to be built of a similar argument; that Job has something major to repent of and that he is adding to it by not repenting, God doesn't just do this without reason, without one deserving it so the theory goes. There is also the notion that by contending with the counselors that haven't this problem that Job is somehow contending with God. We start to see how many forms the same argument can take on.

kjv@Job:33-34 > > RandyP :

I still wonder why the men are talking. They seem to be intent on answering an unanswerable question intellectually/satisfactorily. Why are they not praying? Why are they not reciting scripture? Why are they not singing? Why are they not seeking God's answer? Why are they not dressing wounds or seeking ointments or comfort or relief?

kjv@Acts:13:48 > > RandyP :

Are all people ordained to eternal life? We tend to think that we come to believe on our own and that this belief ordains us to eternal life. This verse and others seem suggest that because we are first ordained we believe. Is this to say that others are not ordained and therefore do not believe? Does this mean that one could be ordained but still not believe? We need to read much further before jumping to conclusions.

kjv@Job:36:11 > > RandyP :

Perhaps one should not fixate merely on the prosperity. There is prosperity in other ways. Jesus said to sell it all and follow Him, to worry not about the morrow. Paul said that he learned to live prosperous in his poverty and lean in his times of prosperity. There is wealth in so much more such as in the relationships made just in doing God's word, there is a joy in His path, and fulfillment in His peace. And if bountiful material possession then more material possession to share. Prosperity is a state of being not a tally of possessions.

kjv@Job:35-36 > > RandyP :

What do we think God receives from our hand? What doesn't He already have? What do we have that He has not given us? If we sin, what have we taken away from Him? If we do good, what benefit does HE receive? We sin, we hurt ourselves and others. We do good, we benefit ourselves and others. To do good is by Him. To do wrong is to not do the good by Him. When people think that they have done good works, what is it that they've actually done that is deserving of eternal reward?

kjv@Job:37 > > RandyP :

Finally. Someone is speaking some sense not trying to find blame or find cause but, tries to find God. This could be worship, this could be song, this could be comfort and uplifting. Often, we get stuck in the narrow little chapters of our lives even as counselors focused on what we've done or what we need to be doing and neglect to see the enormously wide bigger picture. We see even in David's Psalms a frequent pity party (heart felt certainly but one sided no doubt) erupt in a liberating fountain of realizations of greater divine spiritual things.

kjv@Acts:14:9 > > RandyP :

I am not sure that we've seen healing framed this way since the healings done by Jesus; on the perception of ones faith. Seems Peter was walking by, or that others brought the sick out into the street. I better go back and look.

kjv@Acts:14:20 > > RandyP :

Paul received a miraculous healing after this stoning to leave the next day. The disciples here are the vehicle for the healing. Apostolic healing has made a way for the church to proclaim the gospel. Disciple healing is maintaining the body of believers. There is a well quoted healing that Paul doesn't receive latter.

kjv@Job:38-39 > > RandyP :

The Lord is using the natural sciences as His textbook in this monologue underlining the depth of order and command He has set over nature. He asks the questions over and over "where were you when.." and "are you the one who has set this/that in order..". Until now this band of men have focused narrowly misery and sorrow, on wickedness and righteousness and judgement and how God might reward/punish either. It seems clear that the Lord is immediately establishing a dividing line between who man is and who God is. Beyond the theory and mental exercise, God is much wider and much deeper and much more in control than we will ever understand; nature itself being ample proof.

kjv@Acts:15:1-21 > > RandyP :

Paul identifies three "pillars" of the early church James (Jesus' brother), John, Peter kjv@Galatians:2:9. Modern Catholics identify only one: Peter. It is James here that delivers the group's verdict. John is either silent or absent. Paul is portrayed once again as serving the church under their authority (even when he has disagreement). I have no doubt that the Spirit was sought for this momentous decision but is not quoted. There is plenty of OT text regarding the inclusion of gentiles, but not mandatory circumcision of them. The decision is based then upon the consistency of the doctrine of saving grace.

kjv@kjv@Job:38-39 > > RandyP :

I make mention that Satan has been out of the storyline now since the second chapter. Everything from there has been four men trying to explain by their own understandings what had happened and why. Job was victorious initially by holding firm to the faith but with this victory is now left with the depression of the fallout. Now the Lord has His word.

kjv@Job:40:8 > > RandyP :

This is essentially the nature of sin in a nut shell, raising ourselves up by lowering God down to anything less than what He is. To the defiled nothing is pure, especially their image of God. It can take on many different forms including relativism, idolatry, agnosticism, lawlessness, murder, anger, lust, deceit, etc..

kjv@Job:42:1-6 > > RandyP :

That God can do everything and no thought can be hidden from Him is truly transformative. We have gone this long journey with Job to find that God is much to be feared, there is so much that we just don't understand. The image we have of Him is an image built to our own advantage. The pedestal we put our intellect and self image on needs to be abhorred and repented of. Before, Job had only heard of these things, now, he has seen. Everything that he has been through has led him to this.

kjv@Job:42 > > RandyP :

The ending isn't always the same. Some never allow themselves to receive the knowledge of the Lord in this one on one fashion. Some counselors disregard the outcomes. Some extended families never return, and never surrender blame. When they do there is much to be thankful for. Some patients come to this realization not to be rewarded on this earth but, just in time to be brought into the next life. God's ways to us are just as mysterious and just as right.

kjv@Acts:15:39 > > RandyP :

Mark's gifts were in other places, he ended up collecting testimony and writing the Gospel of Mark (see: home:BookOfMark ). Paul may have done him and us all a favor.

kjv@Psalms:1 > > RandyP :

The righteous is defined as much by what he does as by what he doesn't do. His fruit comes in it's own season and is a natural outcome of who he is and where he is planted. The NT defines this fruitful process as abiding in Christ Jesus.

kjv@Psalms:2:6-9 > > RandyP :

This appears to be the Messianic King repeating what the Father God has declared unto Him.

kjv@Psalms:2:11-12 > > RandyP :

The Lord Jehovah and the Son are are in unity as one.

kjv@Psalms:3 > > RandyP :

Before we get too comfortable putting ourselves in this man's shoes we should realize that this man is not being persecuted because he is a common run of the mill believer, he is an uncommon public promoter of the faith effectively making a difference for the Lord helping to establish a righteous nation in the midst of great opposition. Most likely this is King David, a man perhaps like no other. From that standpoint should the similarities to our situations be considered.

kjv@Acts:16:2 > > RandyP :

The report of trusted others is extremely important. How is such a report made of us if we are not connected. The Lone Ranger approach to ministry is not the approach Timothy pursued. The same could be said of Paul. In his position he had to develop and sustain relationships of confidence with many people enough to trust their recommendations.

kjv@Acts:16:1-15 > > RandyP :

The book of Acts is really about the acts of the Holy Spirit as much as the acts of the Apostles. Here we see the Spirit closing one door and opening another; men doing as they were led. The organization by the Spirit has given them decrees to declare, the men by the Spirit are being directed where to declare. There is both order and authority.

kjv@Psalms:4:2 > > RandyP :

Reprobate Mind - This sums up what our mind is attempting to do. It brings the glory of God down to improve it's outlook upon itself. It seeks to deceive its own self. Peter put it as "the corruption that is in the world through lust kjv@2Peter:1:4".

kjv@Psalms:5 > > RandyP :

David mentions again a King and a God separately. Could this have been something the Son King could have prayed as well. His enemies are are now ours. We enter His house because of the mercy the Father showed upon Him toward us.

kjv@Psalms:6 > > RandyP :

Our Lord Jesus did receive the chastisement that was due us. He did become weak and vexed and consumed with grief. His soul was delivered for mercy's sake. There is a thankful remembrance of His Father and yes suddenly His enemies should be ashamed. Sounds like this was fulfilled.

kjv@Acts:16:16-40 > > RandyP :

One spiritual event causes a series of other events. Paul and Silas remained focused on the Spirit through it all and the Spirit moved greatly through them.

kjv@Psalms:9:16 > > RandyP :

The Lord is known by the judgment He executes. Does that mean that if He is not known it is because we are sugar coating what needs to be said?

kjv@Acts:17:1-15 > > RandyP :

I have heard it said amongst our opposition "never defend; attack". We have seen throughout the scriptures the strategy of stirring up the citizens and authorities against us. Not arguing the facts on their merit, not reasoning alternate interpretation, but inciting crowds into frenzies. Now days we are labeled bigots, the Bible hate speech, our political rights to be separated and restrained. You do see the heart of the enemies of the Lord, do you not?

kjv@Psalms:10:13 > > RandyP :

If the Reprobate Mind can reduce God down to nothing then there is no requirement made of him from God, he can do as he pleases. Nothing can be in the form of atheism or agnosticism or this unconditional love fluff.

kjv@Psalms:10 > > RandyP :

This is a composite outline of a wicked man, what the is thinking, what he does. You'll notice his preoccupation with the poor. The poor are easy for him to take advantage of. It does not mean necessarily that he is trying to physically kill them, it could be swaying them to his political advantage, swaying them against better judgement and against the godly, trapping them in their own desires and hungers, charging tremendous usury that they will never get out from under, feeding off the charity resources that were meant for the truly needy, etc.

kjv@Psalms:11 > > RandyP :

We saw in kjv@Psalms:10 a preoccupation of the wicked with the poor. Here we see the object of this preoccupation: warring against the righteous. The question applies to the foundations of our society. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? The righteous have been told that their faith is personal, to be separated from government, but it is government where the foundations are laid. David asks "How can you say to my soul flee as a bird...?"

kjv@Psalms:12 > > RandyP :

David being a king (or a soon to be king) would have been in a position to see the inner workings of the wicked. At times it must have felt that he was all alone and that his numbers were fading. It is an elites notion "who will lord over us" as if they will lord over us. Flattering lips and double heart, their ends justify their means. When the power base is in their hands the vilest men are exalted. It is a system, a network, a power, a principality that the psalmists struggles against even within chosen Israel.

kjv@Acts:17:16-34 > > RandyP :

This excellent opportunity to preach came about in a time when most of us would have been content just to wait. But Paul was stirred by the city's idolatry and he went into the synagog and from there was invited to Mars Hill before the philosophers. His argument essentially was why worship in ignorance when you can worship in the knowledge and truth?

kjv@Psalms:13 > > RandyP :

The Lord's enemies our enemies. How can we say that we don't have enemies? Do we not serve this righteous Lord? If we are unaware who His enemies are then perhaps we should find out. We should find how to respond from a base of abhorring sin but loving souls just as He does.

kjv@Psalms:14 > > RandyP :

We have all acted as if there was no God in some fashion. Even as believers we can act is if God is less than He really is. We see again the poor being identified as a key. The battle line between righteousness and iniquity, the proving point, is at the doorstep of the poor, at least in part. It is a battle that is never really resolved until His second coming.

kjv@Psalms:15 > > RandyP :

The Son is seen in each of these psalms as the epitome of these godly traits. He is the one who will dwell in "thy holy hill". We are to allow Him to live this out further in us as we surrender our lives to Him daily.

kjv@Psalms:16 > > RandyP :

Jesus would have read this as a youth. He would have seen it as instruction for Himself. The lines did fall to Him in pleasant places. He was of and was to receive a godly heritage. He acted only upon the Father's counsel and His reigns instructed Him in the night. The Father was always set before Him and the Father was at His right hand never to be moved. His soul was not left in hell and He did not suffer corruption. Imagine reading this early on, living it out to the fullest, and the joy and gladness He must feel, even today. Now it is our turn by His example.

kjv@Acts:18 > > RandyP :

The acts of the Holy Spirit continue. Guiding the messengers, convicting/thwarting the opposition, gathering like minded in fellowship and ministry, expounding more fully, protecting the message bearers even in the hostile dispersions.

kjv@Psalms:17 > > RandyP :

There is the proving and the testing to keep us committed and honest, to never rest upon our past results. We are in His hands. There are those that trust Him and those that rise against them. Even they are in God's hands. The difference is that they have received all that they are going to receive and in their ened they wont be taking any of it with them. This will be as they wanted, but not an eternity as they had envisioned. An eternity without God is an eternity without the hid treasures they had failed to condiser; like sanity.

kjv@Psalms:18 > > RandyP :

The descriptions of what God did seem to go beyond anything accounted in the other books as far as David's struggles go. If this deliverance and mercy was shewn to David and his seed and if his seed is singular it may refer to what God had done for the seed Christ. What David saw in part Jesus saw in full.

kjv@Acts:19:1-7 > > RandyP :

Belief in Jesus always comes and is confessed before any baptism. Many scholars feel that the Spirit comes to all believers upon belief and that this hands on account of transference refers to the particular spiritual gifting of tongues and prophecy specific to these twelve Ephesians. Others are convinced that this can be understood as first a general receiving of the Holy Spirit we've all received upon belief and then an addition baptism of the Holy Spirit that is received by the laying on of hands. The question then becomes what would happen to a secluded community of new believers that have not oppurtunity to receive hands from one that has.

kjv@Acts:19:1-20 > > RandyP :

The Acts of the Spirit continue. Leading certain people together. Bringing tongues and prophecy. Enabling individuals to dispute and persuade. Special uncommon gifts are providing widespread results in Asia. We also see other competing interests trying to emulate these gifts or perform them in the old covenant way and how ineffective they are in the face of the demonic. The Word is spread all the more. We read of what Paul is doing during this time but, surely there is much going on around him emanating from the community of spirit-filled believers surrounding him.

kjv@Psalms:19 > > RandyP :

There is general revelation kjv@Psalms:19:1-6 available to all and special revelation kjv@Psalms:19:7-11 that comes from His Spirit through His word/law; together they bring understanding to the spiritually inclined. The first understanding is that one cannot fully understand his ways nor cleanse himself from the many faults he has little/no comprehension of; the existence of presumptuous/proud sins that have dominion over us that His Spirit must keep back.

kjv@Psalms:20 > > RandyP :

Instead of offerings and burnt offerings now days we look to the final and complete sacrifice of Jesus Christ of whom the former sacrifices foretold. We are covered by Him. He is risen therefore we stand upright.

kjv@Psalms:21 > > RandyP :

A sure depiction of a literal hell for those who intended evil against God. One could say "wait, I didn't intend evil against God". That is for Him to judge, not us. What about a mischievous device unable to be performed?

kjv@Acts:19:21-41 > > RandyP :

As is so often seen public uprisings break past the containment of civic law and common sense. It is a sight into the heart of evil itself to see the dynamics of the stirred/inflamed mass. The flame may start with one man but, that one man seeks others and then many others get swept along. Paul is wisely kept away from the scene.

kjv@Psalms:22 > > RandyP :

This chapter has to be a Messianic prophecy, not David nor any other psalmist ever experienced these graphic details. The gospel accounts express more of details looking from the outside in. This expresses the same details but from the Messiah's view outward.

kjv@Psalms:23 > > RandyP :

This is perhaps the most popular passage in the Bible. It simple and flowing and picturesque. It is comforting to the weary soul. How much more does it mean when we consider it along with the previous chapter about what the Shepherd had to go through to bring us to this place of calm peace; the cost to Him personally.

kjv@Psalms:24 > > RandyP :

In three chapters Messiah has gone from Sacrifice to Shepherd to King of Glory. No one else could have ascended and entered into this, no one else has the clean hands and pure heart. He has received the blessing from the God of His salvation. Who is this Sacrifice/Shepherd/King? None other than the Lord of Hosts; not just any man or historic figure. This generation shall seek Him, seek His face.

kjv@Acts:20:1-16 > > RandyP :

Many of these names and places now seem to go by in a whirlwind. Don't let the pace of the text fool you, plenty is happening. We take a short pause to see the brethren gathering to break bread, which should be our custom as well. Too often we propose this project or that lecture or this meeting when most often the important thing is to share this moment in fellowship, in love and appreciation for the brethren. And if an Apostle like Paul happens to be in town and drop by, so much the better (just keep the windows shut).

kjv@Psalms:25 > > RandyP :

We see that so much of what the psalmist beseeches from us has to do with seeking the person of God, being in relationship to Him and from that a framework of religion/walk develops. He is shewing. He is leading. He is turning. He is looking and considering, keeping, redeeming. We are fearing Him, ever looking to Him, repenting, following, proven and developed under and in Him. It would be good for us to pray our way through this psalm.

kjv@Psalms:26 > > RandyP :

Who of us now is ready to be judged in this light and be so confident in the outcome? The Messiah could say it and mean it. It is because of who He is that we even have hope, because of the righteousness and sanctification He imparts, by His obedience. We should re-read this in this light to see if we are prepared for our examination.

kjv@Psalms:27 > > RandyP :

Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Thy face will I seek. One thing... to behold the beauty of the Lord. You see that this is not mere religion, this is much more personal and tangible.

kjv@Acts:20:17-38 > > RandyP :

An interesting contrast between Psalms and Acts here. The psalmists keep speaking of an enemy that we are not quiet sure of and uncomfortable hearing prayed so strongly against. Here we know the enemy all to well. Because of our close attachment to Paul we feel all the more compelled to pray against his enemies for we sense that they are ours as well.

kjv@Psalms:28 > > RandyP :

Without God's voice we are no different than those going to the pit. We can rationalize and intellectualize all that we want, but, it is His revelation and answers that separate us. That is not only true if He is silent but, if we are distracted or spiritually deaf. He shall (future tense) destroy them nor build them up. We often see that they do well for themselves on the backs of others; only for this time, they are not built up into the spiritual being that they will need to be in the next life. Where the Lord is everything to His people, He is nothing to them for now.

kjv@Psalms:29 > > RandyP :

We forget the grandeur and awesome scope of our Lord; just how much He is involved in. He is so much more than we can grasp, so much more at every moment around us and within us. Microscopic and macroscopic everywhere and in everything. Strength enough? Are you kidding?

kjv@Psalms:30 > > RandyP :

Question. Are you girded with gladness today? Cant find the gladness? Realize that everything works to the end that our glory may sing praise to Him... that joy comes in the morning.

kjv@Acts:21:1-14 > > RandyP :

The acts of the Spirit are now giving indications to many regarding Paul but not necessarily revelations of the exact divine will; or at least they are not accepting it as such. They give their counsel based on their response to the indications not to the will. Of course they are thinking as friends in Paul's best interest and safety; the two things are different. Paul must be prepared not only for what he will soon face but for what they are now facing in this turn of events.

kjv@Psalms:31 > > RandyP :

Like with so many of these psalms, with some careful interpretation as to the haste mentioned here and the removal of kjv@Psalms:31:10 these could almost be our Lord's words. Jesus did quote "Into Thine hands...". That David could perceive in his own experiences much of what his Seed would in His is astounding. It would be interesting to know what particular experience of his David is speaking of. Sometimes it feels as if we share this experience in our lives as well.

kjv@Psalms:32 > > RandyP :

The writer seems to have changed from narrative voice to the Lord's v8 to the end. Confession is key to this chapter.

kjv@Psalms:33 > > RandyP :

Rejoicing here is connected directly to praise. Rejoicing makes for praise and praise makes for rejoicing. Praise comes with knowledge of who God is and what He does. Praise comes with deepening reverence for the size and scope and breadth; it is from the lips. Rejoicing comes with hope; it comes from the heart.

kjv@Acts:21:15-40 > > RandyP :

The muddy situation surrounding Paul's arrival to Jerusalem is perfectly clear; there is nothing that Paul will be able to say or do or concede that is going to appease the zealous masses gathering against him. It will be factions of his very own faith that will do him in. We can see that not even the counsel of other Apostles is going to be able to steer him right and may in fact steer him wrong. What is going to happen is going to happen for God has much greater purposes.

kjv@Psalms:34 > > RandyP :

As I read it, it is not that the righteous don't have troubles and afflictions, it is that the Lord delivers us out of them. Trust, fear, turning from evil and keeping our tongue/lips, seeking peace and His face, tasting, praising and joining together in praise; these are the things that we should be doing through it all.

kjv@Psalms:35 > > RandyP :

The picture here is of someone coming to the cause of the poor and needy, the quiet ones of the land, ones under the heavy hand of these evil enemies. This someone stands in the way of the enemy and is thus treated falsely being accused of things that he knew not. Snares are laid in his path. When the enemy is sick, he prays for them as he would a friend. When they are strong he prays for the Lord to arise to confound and scatter their purposes for righteousness sake. We would be well advised to be this type of person being assured that our God is all of this and more.

kjv@Acts:22:9 > > RandyP :

Another of the mysterious ways of God. That He could speak to one man in the group and not the others, that this would be His will as if challenging the one man to prove it to the rest/himself. This is not always the case but, seems to happen more times than not. Notice that He doesn't even tell that one man what all he must do, instead stringing together a sequence of other single men and revelations again as if challenging them/him. These wonders are often tests of faith/obedience rather than rewards of such.

kjv@Acts:22:15 > > RandyP :

Paul's ordained mission was quiet simple as is ours: to witness all that we have seen and heard. Not to be great thinkers or tremendous leaders. Not to attend and have considerable impact in the weekly planning committee meetings. Perhaps these things come as a result. However, no matter what our position or prowess or gifting the mission/intent is exactly the same.

kjv@Acts:22 > > RandyP :

Paul again was simply testifying of the things that happened and were revealed to Him just as he had been asked/commanded. Plain, simple, honest, accurate, uninterpreted objective testimony. This is how the court of opinion reacts to objective evidence that differs from it's predetermined un-objective accessments.

kjv@Psalms:36 > > RandyP :

Compare and contrast. If the author were to tell us all the good things of God no doubt that would be interesting but, not as informative and ground breaking as the same thing contrasted light to dark. We witness more about Him and more about the wicked. It is like a painting verses a charcoal sketch.

kjv@Psalms:36 > > RandyP :

The case against atheism can be made that without a reverent image of God that those individuals with wicked tendencies are emboldened to commit much more serious forms wickedness. I write this three days after a mass murder was committed by a lone gunman at our local movie theater. The fear of God would have major benefit even in a secular society.

kjv@Psalms:37 > > :

Trust, Delight, Commit, Trust, Rest, Cease from anger, Shew mercy, Giveth, Speak Wisdom, Talk Judgement, as opposed to Plot, Gnash, Draw bow, Cast down poor/needy, Slay upright, Borrow and not pay back, Watch with intent of slaying righteous. Contrasts create a fairly vivid picture.

kjv@Acts:23:1-11 > > RandyP :

The Lord appeared and stood by Paul. This is the second time, once as a light on the road to Damascus, now bedside in Jerusalem. Note that Jesus did not appear to everyone there at the time of the testimony and riot in Paul's defense, Paul was there to appear in Jesus' defense and after word Jesus appeared in His own time to comfort Paul. This is an important distinction to grasp. Why Jesus does what He does and doesn't do what He doesn't is His masterful judgment to make and as His servants ours' to live within.

kjv@Psalms:38 > > RandyP :

We see that is is totally possible to be two things at once; to be perceived and pursued as following the "thing that is good" and to be deeply disquieted by ones own sin. The weight of such is a heavier burden on the soul than the consciousness of God's reproof might otherwise be. And yet we see that there still is hope, petition can be prayed, the required repentance still can be made for those honest enough and willing.

kjv@Psalms:39 > > RandyP :

I have felt at times that it was best to keep my silence/bridle my tongue before the enemies of God that I not myself display to them a more sinful side of myself that might spill out unintended. By this I intend good but may well carry it too far as if I to be outright deaf and mute to the calling of God. The psalmist here in similar ill is prescribed a dosage of knowing his end, his frailty and the measurement of his days.

kjv@Psalms:40 > > RandyP :

These words just as easily could be our Messiah's. I know of no other whom has a volume of God's book written of him, a new song written on his mouth that many shall see and fear and trust.

kjv@Acts:23:12-35 > > RandyP :

How Paul's nephew found out about the Jewish assignation plot we are not told. Being at the right place at the right time I suppose. It could be that someone from within the Jew's confidence sought him out as well; which makes the account all the more interesting.

kjv@Psalms:41-42 > > RandyP :

Why art thou cast down, o my soul? Enemies, whisperers, even a friend are conspiring against David because of His insistence/devotion on God. He has his sin, he has his turmoil but, he has his hope and he has his prayer. He has seen God's hand before and he waits for it again. He hungers and thirsts in a truly spiritual way, a deliverance that only his God can perform.

kjv@Psalms:43 > > RandyP :

The opposition David is facing is something we might not ever understand nor have to share. We have our moments with others, our uncomfortableness, our feelings of displacement because of our faith. Sometimes they oppose us. Sometimes they oppress us or more. David, in his position as king of Israel however, is in the center of a frantic spiritual battle that will determine the prophetic fulfillment of God's messianic promise.

kjv@Acts:24:5 > > RandyP :

Paul is seen as the ringleader of the sect. His influence seen throughout the world. They think that they have their man. This legal petition was important enough for them to hire a prominent orator.

kjv@Acts:24:7 > > RandyP :

A bold move to implicate the chief officer of this court with indiscretion. What about the forty that were sworn to kill Paul before the chief officer could properly process him as a roman citizen?

kjv@Acts:24 > > RandyP :

Felix trembled at Paul's gospel treatise just long enough to sneak in a bribe. I wonder how much these Jews paid him over the course of two years.

kjv@Psalms:44 > > RandyP :

This chapter is a hard read. It is like two extremes: praise and near accusation. Given the history of Israel it is hard to see a time when they stood blameless in the Lord, but, it may well be at this time they did stand perfect and still God had sore broken them. I am sure that God would have His just reasons. Perhaps it's something He was doing towards Israel's enemies or something wrong they had done recently but not currently (but I think that He would tell them so). It would be difficult however in most situations to be so bold as to say that anybody or any nation at any time ever had a time when they were without fault.

kjv@Psalms:45 > > RandyP :

This would be the Messianic King spoken of here. You will notice the division that He is God and has a God kjv@Psalms:45:7. How good would it be for us to consider the living details of His kingdom.

kjv@Psalms:46 > > RandyP :

Just as in 45 we are seeing prophetically into the coming Kingdom, a river with it tributaries lined with tabernacles of God, a world cleansed of wars and heathen nations, desolations of the past observable as reminders.

kjv@Acts:25:11-12 > > RandyP :

The appeal to Caesar should be felt as a slap in the face of Festus. It is saying that there is no legal grounds for him to have made the judgment that he made, his motives are obvious and exposed, and that as a Roman citizen I have the right to appeal to a greater/wiser authority than you Festus. Thanks for wasting all this innocent citizen's precious time (my words not his).

kjv@Acts:25:20 > > RandyP :

Isn't he playing the situation down for the King? Sending him to Jerusalem would be determining a death sentence to Paul. The reason Paul is even in Felix's keep is because of a plot of forty men to ambush the city guard in order to kill Paul.

kjv@Acts:25 > > RandyP :

Pomp is right, first Festus and now Agripa. Neither man is willing to let the man off from these false acquisitions that the state has no business even hearing. Instead they are going to make a show of how just and fair and concerned about getting to the heart of the matter they are. The heart of the matter is them, the duplicity, the political cowardliness, the bribery and corruption surrounding their court.

kjv@Psalms:49 > > RandyP :

Can you redeem your brother? The question is important. You might think that you can save yourself by your own good works. That may be all that you wish to think about. Well what about that brother? What about that man on the street? What about that sister that has made a series of bad choices? Are your good works going to save them? Redeem them from the grave? Or is your religion just about you?

kjv@Acts:26 > > RandyP :

It is important to remember as you consider your salvation and the salvation of others that God isn't just turning you/them from their own personal sins, He is turning you/them from the power of Satan. It does little good to deal within the micro and to still leave you within the cords of deceit and destruction in the macro.

kjv@Acts:26 > > RandyP :

Liberty? Paul would not have appealed to Caesar if Festus had not insisted on sending him back to Jerusalem where he would have been either ambushed or sentenced to death. How duplicitous can Festus be?

kjv@Psalms:50 > > RandyP :

It is truly inspiring to hear the psalmist describe our God, to consider His ways even for as little as we can comprehend. It is addictive! There is literally nothing that is not His making nor possession. Along with the excitement and trust there is also a fear and a urgency for us to pay our vows.

kjv@Psalms:51 > > RandyP :

This is clearly one of the most substantial passages of the Bible. If we only understood it to it's deepest and truest meaning. Behold thous desirest truth in my inward parts; create in me a clean heart; restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; then will I teach transgressors thy ways.... We better memorize this one!

kjv@Psalms:52 > > RandyP :

I will wait on Thy name (see: strkjv@Psalms:123:2)

kjv@Acts:27:1-25 > > RandyP :

I can't help but think of the secretary of Paul here alongside recording these events. Paul is is certainly convinced "that it shall be even as it was told" him, but, what about this man? How would you like to sit down with this man at the table and see/hear/experience him recount this story? And the many other unwritten stories he could tell?

kjv@Psalms:53 > > RandyP :

If a person who says that there is no God can not do good, is corrupt and works iniquity, can't the same be said of a system or form of government which is the same only bigger?

kjv@Psalms:54 > > RandyP :

Mentioned here are "those that uphold" David's soul in the same sentence as God being David's helper. Shall we assume that amongst other things God is using certain people in David's life to comfort and sustain David's will and judgment? As we are often prone to gathering the wrong people around us, it would be wise to not only pray for the right people to enter and surround us, but to seek out and nurture these necessary relationships well ahead of our time of need, and for His hands to guide them in these times of our crises?

kjv@Psalms:55 > > RandyP :

In this case, David's enemy was a one time confidant, someone his equal that he had trusted in the affairs of the kingdom. This may not be the same type of enemy that we would have, does not have the same political effect, but, we feel the similarity just the same. The context must remain the extreme positions that these two men held and the severity of one man turning to injure the reputation of the other, the king. By the time David prays for a destruction, he is speaking in the plural.

kjv@Acts:27:26-44 > > RandyP :

Through a series of successful prophecies Paul has earned the trust of these foreign men. A counter intuitive decision is made as to the course because of this that saves the entire crew and passenger hold. We must note by it's absence that Paul did not pray to God that the ship would be saved or that shipwreck would be averted as many would, he was open to and receiving divine directions which he passed on to those in charge. Maybe that should be our prayer.

kjv@Psalms:56 > > RandyP :

As much as we want our troubles and prayers to sound like David's, very few if any of us have lived the life and done the things towards justice that he speaks of hear. There is a reason he is pursued by his enemies daily and heavily. He can say that his cause is just and that theirs is unjust, that they are wicked or filled with iniquity because they are. Though we picture ourselves in the David role with our own circumstances, chances are more mathematically probable that we are in the enemies role; if not by direct pursuit then by tolerance and detachment.

kjv@Psalms:57 > > RandyP :

David is willing to arise early in the morning, with psaltry and harp sing God's prasies publicly amongst the nations. What are we willing to do to express our praise?

kjv@Psalms:58 > > RandyP :

This psalm is probably not sung all that much in today's congregation because we have little understanding of who the wicked are and just what a burden they are placing upon the poor and needy and the upright defending them. No we are much more tolerant these days seeking for everybody just to get along. A psalm like this leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of many a congregation because it is too judgmental. THe righteous however will rejoice when they see that God indeed judges the earth righteously.

kjv@Acts:28:1-15 > > RandyP :

Paul took courage. Even for a man of such deep faith and conviction the process is long and tiring. The sign of other brethren and time spent with them no matter how little has to be a strong encouragement. Not everyone sees fellowship in the same light as Paul. It is a wearing experience all it's own. It is easier fellowshiping with sports fans or business associates even strangers. Perhaps the expectations and roles we assume are too much different. Perhaps we should re-learn what it is to be in Christian fellowship.

kjv@Psalms:59 > > RandyP :

David is surely praying these things for himself about his enemies, but, no doubt that the audience in Jerusalem that would be singing these would identify with similar outside pressures as well. The heathen are identified here in the role of the dog. The danger would be identifying the dog without identifying with the essential limitations and desperation of the upright and the defence and strength of God and His mercy. Otherwise it is just bigotry hatred and prejudice.

kjv@Psalms:60 > > RandyP :

The tone has now changed from "I" to "us". God's displeasure, is contrasted with His holiness. The petition is for His help for the help of man is vain.

kjv@Psalms:61 > > RandyP :

One can sense that there is part of David that is the king spoken of in the second person. Then there is that part of David that is the broken and contrite petitioning child of God. For the king God will do this and that. The other part, the child will praise and perform his vows to God.

kjv@Acts:28:16-31 > > RandyP :

Paul must of had some respect from these Roman Jews to have gathered such a meeting at his invite. What began as an opportunity to clear the air concerning what they may or may not have heard about him became a opportunity to evangelize. Th meeting lasted several hours.

kjv@Acts:28:27 > > RandyP :

...and should be converted... converted to what? The complaint is that Christianity is something new, that Judaism is being added to, the Law is being removed/diminished. The Law is not diminished it is being fulfilled in one person. It is not being added to, it is being completed in the manner it itself has long prescribed. It is not something new if it's leader is someone anticipated ever since kjv@Genesis:3:15.

kjv@Psalms:62 > > RandyP :

Salvation is not only a word for the future day of judgement, it is a word for the day here and now. Too much surrounds us in a day not to be aware of and in need of His salvation. He is strength. He is refuge. Mischief, inward cursing, oppression, lies, vanity, robbery are but a few of the things that either do or could affect us each and every hour. He is our defense, salvation, and our rock. We shall not be moved.

kjv@Psalms:63 > > RandyP :

David thirsts and longs to see God's power and glory. So what does he do? He praises with reason, he blesses and raises his hands. He is satisfied and joyful. He remembers and meditates, rejoices, follows hard.

kjv@Psalms:64 > > RandyP :

These enemies plagued David. The battle field was political but, the warfare was spiritual. We may see them merely as personal conflicts but,Satan knew the prophecies and importance God was placing on lineage. He had plenty a willing minions to combat what God was doing. We could also see Jesus surveying His situation similarly in a much larger battle. We would see such if we were engaged in this fight as well.

kjv@Romans:1 > > RandyP :

This passage is often used in the debate over homosexuality and gay marriage. You'll notice though that that the list of reprobate tendencies is longer than just that. Though sexual preference is mentioned prominently, it is mentioned in the context of why God gave them over to this along with the list of things equally abhorrent. To continue in any of these behaviors, to attempt to reason that any are anything less than what they are, to seek out those that are similarly minded, is to continue in the defiant and reprobate nature Paul calls to attention. To judge one ill behavior while performing another is out right hypocrisy. We must all beware.

kjv@Romans:1:5 > > RandyP :

Why have we received grace? For obedience. Why have we received apostleship? For obedience. Obedience to what? The faith! Many would associate "the faith" with whatever they are willing to believe. Paul gives the impression that "the faith" is fixed and set by Jesus for us all to obey. Where do we obey? Among all nations. Why do we obey? For His name!

kjv@Malachi:1:11 > > RandyP :

The Lord's name is currently great amongst the Gentiles and growing. For the Jewish friends that don't believe in Christ Jesus, how else did you suppose God was going to do this?

kjv@Psalms:65 > > RandyP :

God has a general grace given to all, even His enemies, that can be explained as simply as the sun and rain that falls upon all of us. In so many ways he moves over and upon each of our lives providing and blessing in ways we barely realize. We have a more specific grace as well in which He has chosen and caused many to approach. The psalmists speaks in natural terms that we all can picture and understand but he is speaking in spiritual terms as well.

kjv@Psalms:66 > > RandyP :

Affliction serves the purpose of purging and cleansing in the life of believers. It is not a bad thing other wise we'd likely go back to the way we were before. This way we've not only learned to depend solely on God, been removed from our selfish and ill advised motives, seen the hand and operation of God, but, also have some investment into the process. The praise and prayer offered becomes real and sincere, organic and experiential instead of merely academic.

kjv@Romans:2 > > RandyP :

No one is above judgement. Our only salvation in judgment is in Jesus Christ. In the previous chapter we've read of the ways of the reprobate. It would be natural for us to be judgmental of others given this impressive list. The problem with that is in the many things for which we ourselves will be judged, things perhaps more hidden than for example overt homosexuality. Persons on both sides of the line draw their own conclusions and judgements. A wall builds up between us with sinners on both sides. God's long suffering and forbearance has been shown to us all. It is time for us on both sides to think in terms of the spirit verses the letter of the law. Let us set aside any sin that would so easily beset us.

kjv@Psalms:68:29 > > RandyP :

The temple has not been built yet at the time David is seeing this happen.

kjv@Psalms:68:31 > > RandyP :

Ethiopia after the time of Christ does become a stronghold of Christianity perhaps like no other including Rome. The Eastern Orthodox church has been of prime importance and at times has extended itself into even India and China.

kjv@Psalms:68 > > RandyP :

David now speaks of God's enemies. The righteous have much to be glad for. When we look beyond our own fox holes to see the progress He has made toward the final objective; When we look as David does here into the future of the nations and peoples that will be on board along with us by the end; even the tribes of Israel; it all is too wonderful not to be extremely encouraged and filled with praise. All of this out of the fountain of Israel.

kjv@Psalms:69 > > RandyP :

This passage has a very important description of David made by himself. One being that he is a sinner like all the rest; he knows, God knows; he asks God to hear his repentance. Many use his honest and contrite observance in ashes and sackcloth as opportunity to defame him even in bar room song. He is being reproached by the enemy because of his stance for God, he is misunderstood and deserted by his friends and family as well. He sees the poor and widowed in a sense as being inflicted by God and his God given duty to stand in the gap against those who seek to devour the poor and widowed for their own gain. Though it all could be overwhelming he knows that His strength and refuge is and will always remain in God.

kjv@Psalms:70 > > RandyP :

The king for all his glory considers himself to be poor and needy. He recognizes that there others as well that truly seek God going through similar tribulation and advises them to rejoice and magnify God.

kjv@Romans:3 > > RandyP :

There is the Law given by Moses, the full purpose of which is to expose all men as sinners. All have sinned, not one is righteous. That is the best that the Law can do for no man is justified by the Law. The Law is not done a way with now days, it fully fulfills it's purpose of convicting souls. Then there is the Law of Faith, this is where salvation out of the judgement is found. Only by faith in the sacrifice, resurrection and Lordship of Jesus Christ, the God/Man person and completed work of Jesus do we escape the judgement of the Law. The two Laws work together, one against the non-believer, the other for the believer in Christ Jew or Gentile alike. Once on board in the faith the two laws cannot be commingled without bringing back the judgement present in the Mosaic Law. The Law of Faith is perhaps better described as Grace.

kjv@Psalms:71 > > RandyP :

We are reading this as it appears in the order of the book of Psalms and not in the chronological order of his Davids life. It will be interesting in the next devotion to see where David is at in his life when he pens this. We know by I reading thus far of Samuel Kings and Chronicles that there was a good part of his life in exile being hunted by Saul or later his son. These may be some of the enemies which he writes of so frequently of. It can be the spiritual enemies while he is on the throne as well.

kjv@Psalms:72 > > RandyP :

This obviously is a messianic psalm speaking of the Messiah's earthly reign from sea to sea for as long as the sun and moon endure and beyond. No other king could fill these shoes. This will be fufilled after His second coming and great judgment. There will be a millenial reign and then the reign of His new heaven and new earth according to other prophetic texts.

kjv@Romans:4 > > RandyP :

This law of faith not only separates us from our Jewish brothers but also our Muslim; it is our dividing point in many respects. Their reward is essentially boiled down to "God owes them" because of their obedient works. They do what He commands them and He is obliged/indebted to pay them back. God is committed thus only to their blood seed or proselytized seed. It is our belief that God owes no man no thing, that what He does give us is freely given of His own supreme grace through and for the establishment of His own son Jesus Christ's reign and lordship. We have the entirety of the Bible including the accounts of Abraham and David to confirm this Law of Faith. It's reward is available to all peoples who like Abraham hope beyond hope in imputation and God's providential grace. The story of Abraham thus becomes a prophecy of God sacrificing His son in substitution for reasons of His own love and grace and not because of indebtedness to some percieved goodness we may or may not of performed. The difference is huge!

kjv@Psalms:73 > > RandyP :

It was not until he went into the temple that he realized their end. On the surface it often looks like the advantages of disobedience far out weigh the advantages of godliness. For how long though. In the temple like moments each of us should realize God is God, that God indeed has his judgment and that their day will come, that God will punish wickedness and reward godliness, that things stand as they do now to serve His overall purpose. There is none to desire here on heaven/earth beside thee!

kjv@Psalms:74 > > RandyP :

Asaph writes about the enemy burning and destroying in the various local sanctuaries most likely in the times before the building of the temple. He was a contemporary of David's from my understanding. Though I don't know which specific time he is witnessing, there certainly were times when Israel had fallen back into its malaise and God allowed desecrations like these to re-awaken congregations. Where might we see this in our faith and church histories today?

kjv@Romans:5 > > RandyP :

Remember where to find this chapter. Memorize it and it's key versus or at the very least understand it fully. This is one of the gems of all human literature; one of several found in Romans.

kjv@Romans:5:13-14 > > RandyP :

The Law spoken of here is clearly the Mosaic Law. Without/before the Law sin was not imputed and yet all people died showing proof of a Adamic curse. One does not have to sin in the same form as Adam (freely choosing to eat from the tree of knowledge of good/evil) because his descendants are cut off from the tree of life. This condition causes all the descendants to unavoidably sin, the option of choice in this instance is totally removed. Our options now are in how we will sin. Now that the Law is imputed we fully know that our condition is one of sin as well as our available options. Though we seek to do godly right we can not do so knowing only what is right in our own eyes. In this sense Jesus has become the light in our darkness.

kjv@Psalms:75 > > RandyP :

When it is all said and done we will look back, notice the old things dissolved, the many horns silenced but one. We will know then what a grand work the Lord has done. We can sense that even today if open to it and know that we are going through a separation process where the dregs are settling to the bottom and the good wine poured off into its vessels of honor. There is plenty to praise Him for already!

kjv@Psalms:76 > > RandyP :

In Judah God is known for the miraculous protection provided. Many a enemy has risen against her and against most incredible odds Judah has seen the Lord deliver. There is no tactical reason or military advantage they possessed for them to be victorious; other than God's hand. God's judgment is for the meek. There is then a sense of reverence and obligation to the Lord that must be paid. That He has done this for Judah is equally important for modern Christians as well as we have been grafted into this heritage too.

kjv@Psalms:77 > > RandyP :

To realize what our spiritual infirmity is and what effect it has upon us is crucial. It makes us to doubt. It makes us to invent attributes to God that are clearly not in His nature. These attributes are concocted to place Him off into the distance. Somehow I fear as well for the doubters that are just as likely to look for God only in the earth shaking bolts from the sky. The more we know of His true attributes the more likely we are to see Him in each and everything in this life with manifold ways. Look for these ways today!

kjv@Romans:6 > > RandyP :

Baptized into His death. How many of us realize that? That we may be free of sin... Let not sin therefore reign. There was a time when we had no choice, we were servants of the flesh. Being crucified with Christ now there is a second choice; and it does not appear that it is automatic that we will make the right choice in this new freedom. There are only two choices presented however. The other choice is to be servants of righteousness. We may think that that there is a third choice to do whatever we determine ourselves but that is the same as serving the flesh. This is the test of our faith, whether is strong enough to serve righteousness single mindedly and whether it is real enough to know that it is not automatic.

kjv@Luke:17:11 > > RandyP :

This was a dangerous border between the two countries with bad attitudes toward each other. People would go the long way around. ..James MacDonald..

kjv@Romans:1:21 > > RandyP :

Glory and thanks not just belief in God's existence. Two tests of the ReprobateMind.

kjv@Psalms:107 > > RandyP :

Oh that men would give thanks/praise mentioned 5 times. Must be important hey!

kjv@Psalms:78 > > RandyP :

By Asaph. The condition of man's heart, even the heart of God's chosen/faithful, is reviewed. Rebellious, if by them than how much more are we? After all that God had done, after all that God had made them into, after all that God had done both peaceably and violently to correct them, they sinned still and did not believe Him for His wondrous works. They forgot, refused, tempted and provoked, believed not nor trusted, lusted, kept not His commandment/testimony, were not steadfast in His covenant. By denying Christ Jesus to this day, what would make us to think that this is any different today, that somehow now they've got it right, have evolved to a higher more trustworthy plain? Gentiles are just the same though they haven't been exposed to this measure. We know from scripture however that they will one day come to the fullness of their covenant with God in the Lord Jesus.

kjv@Romans:7 > > RandyP :

In Christ our previous husband (the Law) is dead; we've seen our inescapable sin nature, we know the will to do right is there but not how to perform it, we sense the war raging against the law of our minds. Now we are married to a new husband, a husband that has raised from the death dictated by the Law and brought us into a completely new and living hope.

kjv@Psalms:79 > > RandyP :

It is one thing for Judah to be corrected by the Lord and for Him to use neighboring nations as His instruments. It is quiet another for those nations to puff up, to think that it was by their hand, that the God of Jacob is silent, that they are somehow better. Their ill intentions may have been used by God but, that does mean that they are excused for intending and coming against His anointed. We know that as the hearts of Judah is turned back to God and their prayers are cried out that God will once again move in their favor for His covenant and His own name sake.

kjv@Psalms:80 > > RandyP :

Just as the shepherd's flock in the previous chapter, the picture of the vine has been used in many places in the Bible, used by our savior in fact, and is a good way of describing what has happened and what will happen to Israel. This account suggests that it was brought out of Egypt, land cleared aside and planted. The vine elsewhere is also pruned and trimmed by a husbandman to produce it's greatest fruit and gentile believers are being grafted into it. It may feel to them like they are being ransacked but, in the bigger picture they are being seasoned and groomed into something grand.

kjv@Psalms:81 > > RandyP :

Other gods, the plague of Israel. Why was it so easy for them to slip back into this? After all the reproofs, the bondage and countless turning back. It would be wise for us to consider this answer. It may not be as simple as finding the right god and sticking to it. It could be that we use gods to serve us which the false gods are very willing to do. It could be that we feel better being fulfilled and exalted than being brought low and humbled. It could be that we believe the here and now and not the future, that our hearts are never satisfied, that we are driven by lust and fear. There are processes and separations being used by the Lord to make us what we will one day be. It is easier though for us to think that we are now what we will be. Such are our presumptuous sins. Such is the shame of what this life should have been.

kjv@Romans:8:1-18 > > RandyP :

The importance of separating flesh from spirit cannot be stressed enough. It is just as separating death from life. We have grown comfortable in our flesh; it is all that we have ever known. We may have had a particular problem so we think with a part of the flesh such as addiction or anger, so we look to religion to rectify that one fleshly weakness. The problem is that all the flesh is corrupt and in no way can please God. Good Intentions? Certainly. Good deeds? In part. Atonement with God? Only by crucifying the flesh, being quickened in our mortal flesh, walking in the spirit. Without strict abiding in Jesus Christ none of this is remotely possible by our own hand.

kjv@Psalms:82 > > RandyP :

The poor and the needy are a constant theme in our reading. There are a great many reasons one might be poor and needy or fatherless and afflicted. I have known people that I have tried to help that even with my extra resources that just don't know any other way. In some respects it seems as if this exhortation is more about working to keep the wicked off their backs. By accepting the persons of the wicked, by not realizing who they are and what they are doing and calling them out we are dealing unjustly with poor and needy. An entire and large sub economy is built around serving the poor either as false recipients or providers that have little to do with actually helping the poor. The system grows exponentially but the truly needy are ill served. Our good intentions are used by the wicked to serve their darker purposes.

kjv@Psalms:83 > > RandyP :

Even in that day there was a substantial and unified conspiracy against the presence of Israel. On one level it appears to be political but, from this author's vantage point it appears to be a spiritual warfare. Given that the promised Messiah was to come from Judah, given that all nations would one day worship in a New Jerusalem, given that God's name would dwell in Zion, given that all nations would blessed that bless Israel, the Devil I am sure makes it his object to tear at Israel. After nearly two thousand years of dispersed absence we are back to the same thing. It takes on political consequence but, have no doubt that it is spiritual in nature.

kjv@Psalms:84 > > RandyP :

It is often calculated that a compassionate God is not a God of judgement. Here we see a soul longing/fainting for the courts of the Lord. What is it that makes His courts desirable? Judgement is what is most needed in order for true compassion to stand out and take hold. It is because judgement is missing that our position is as it is. We have delegated judgment to ourselves but fail to pursue it. We do what is right in our own eyes and the world becomes a hateful desperate place because of it. Better is a day in His courts than a thousand with the wicked indeed!

kjv@Romans:8:19-39 > > RandyP :

This chapter being one of the most quoted in the Bible is often being picked apart into bite size pieces instead of being taken in as a whole. In bites we can make it say all sorts of nice comfy things. As a whole we should see it as an intense spiritual battle over the souls of men. Being saved by hope, helped even still in our infirmities, being drafted into the allied ranks, being counted as sheep for the slaughter, Paul is persuaded that nothing can separate believers from the love of God, that all these trench level struggles and persecutions work for together for the good. No matter what this war can throw against us our Supreme Commander is there.

kjv@Psalms:84 > > RandyP :

Judgment/Compassion. Have you ever worked for a company that was failing miserably? The employees/customers were pulling it apart at the seems? When a new manager comes in the first thing for him/her to do is to right the ship, and to do this he/she must pronounce judgment. The judgment is even handed; "it is my way or the highway". As hard as these transformations are, I cannot tell you the relief these judgments have especially to the loyal and invested and badly abused workers. To see a company go from a delinquent detention center to a fully functioning productive enterprise is perhaps the best compassion available. This is more like God's judgments; they are only harsh to those who deserve them.

kjv@Psalms:85 > > RandyP :

I wonder how much of the anger of God read about here is His anger and how much is either our sense of shame or rebelliousness. We often transfer the blame or misinterpret the real situation; which may make Him all the more angry. We have to be careful not to present ourselves as being ready for being turned if only God were not still so mad. If God is angry there will be good cause. If He is still distant then perhaps we are not fully ready to be turned and revived. With God, mercy and truth are always met together, it is never a point that we wish He would return to.

kjv@Psalms:86 > > RandyP :

An interesting thought here that the heart would be in need of being united as if scattered or dispersed. It is fairly evident in the case of a corporate body like a congregation that the collective hearts are prone to this. It very well could be the case in the individual as well. To be united to fear His name might imply that the opposite of this fear may be caused by the scattered heart. God is highly praised in this in that He works towards the obedient man and against the those violent who have not set "Thee" before them.

kjv@Romans:9 > > RandyP :

It is difficult for us to perceive that God will do whatever He will and that we are subject to that. Even when we rebel against the notion He is the only sovereign one. He has done no wrong for there is no wrong for Him to do. We are His vessels, some to honor others to dishonor.

kjv@Psalms:100 > > RandyP :

TSK has some good notes on what we should know tsk@Psalms:100:3

kjv@Psalms:101 > > RandyP :

David was a king and a politician. Can you imagine a king or politician now days saying something like this? or publishing it in a song book? In the kings house especially there is such an importance to setting the mood and timber of those serving and surrounding the throne. Not every ruler is strong enough to to do this as it creates many enemies but, it certainly has great advantage.

kjv@Psalms:102 > > RandyP :

David frequently considers not only his own mortality but God's eternity. Here he includes our universe as well. The earth and heavens were made to perish and be replaced. The children of His servants shall continue and their seed be established. By sequence, it tells me that our final dwelling is somewhere beyond this present universe.

kjv@Romans:12 > > RandyP :

There is a sure transformation that follows when a soul has becomes a living sacrifice unto the Lord. It gives the capability of the fruitful produce of ones gifts, the striving for the unity of fellowship, the nurturing of others gifts. More and more it becomes a cooperative strength, cooperative love and cooperative outreach to the world within and beyond.

kjv@Romans:13 > > RandyP :

kjv@Romans:12-13 pair up nicely as a practical explanation of the daily Christian walk. These things take place because of our daily sacrifice and presentation to the Lord. They are a result of faith living forth and not being forced by mere religion.

kjv@Psalms:103 > > RandyP :

This is my favorite psalm, the first that I attempted to memorize as a young Christian. It explains the Lord's doings in a way that I can understand and is compact/concise. It is perfect for meditation as well.

kjv@Psalms:104 > > RandyP :

An illustrative way to to look at the creation all around us to find God behind and within it all. Interesting that such a lengthy section dwells on water often used to poetically to symbolize judgement. That the earth would be refreshed by it, that the birds and fouls and beasts would gather round it's springs, that the raging floods of it would be later rebuked and contained, that it would nourish and grow the grasses and trees essential to all all life.

kjv@Romans:14 > > RandyP :

Notice how this theme of the brethren and striving for the unity of the spirit ties in with what we just read in kjv@Romans:12. This teaching is a very practical way of considering the more general commands of 12.

kjv@Romans:14:23 > > RandyP :

What is not of faith is sin. Almost too bad this major universal truth is tagged on to a line considering the observance of foods and days; it gets over looked. Too many people consider sin the breaking of the one of the ten commandments. The reprobate mind reduces and compartmentalizes down to the un-approachable minimum. The scale of sin is much broader than we observe bringing every living breath and action into doubt. To know this scale of sin and it's human inescapably is to know why Jesus had to die one for all to it.

kjv@Psalms:105 > > RandyP :

All this He did for the purpose that they might observe His statutes and keep His law. We might say well they didn't really do that, at least not for long. Is that to say that God was wrong or had failed? That God could have found a better way? Or is that to say that it was and is the right way? That by us failing to do this by our own means serves to draw us toward His son the true fulfillment of statute and law? Surely God's doings each and every one are perfect and without failing.

kjv@Psalms:106 > > RandyP :

They sacrificed sons and daughters to devils. If the notion is true that all paths lead to God, we would have to say no they sacrificed unto other forms of the same God. Then why would God be so angry and show His displeasure in so many ways? One must ask where do other forms of gods come from? How do they develop the forms of influence that they do and sway so many well intended people? Would they of sacrificed if they had known that behind these gods were literal devils? How is it that despite all these God given miracles and large wondrous mercies that they would still sacrifice to devils and learn of others idolatrous works?

kjv@Romans:15:1-20 > > RandyP :

"And not to please ourselves". It is so easy even in the course of ministry to do the things we do for the sake of the ministry and not so much for the sake of the person whose infirmities we intend to bear. The person becomes another notch in our belt, a mark to our tally. Perhaps one of the greatest successes of Paul's ministry, his outreach to the Gentiles, was due to his attention to the individual person. This is why we hear of so many people coming to his aid and joining beside his ministry later. Paul encourages us that we are more than capable of doing the same.

kjv@Psalms:107 > > RandyP :

Then they cried unto the Lord. Over and over we see men working themselves into desperate situations. Most of their own making, some as a consequence of the stormy waters where they conduct their business. God brings them low, they cry out, God does merciful acts to deliver them. To observe this is to understand the lovingkindness of the LORD. Where then do we stand today? What can we do? Well just as frequent is the refrain "Oh that men would praise the LORD...."

kjv@Psalms:108 > > RandyP :

Vain is the help of man. It is said "I get by with a little help from my friends". There is certainly a time and place for this type of help. There is a time and place for a much greater help though as well. I can not think of what I would do facing those times had I not had my faith and God going forth in front of me. Friends can surely be comforting as well as discomforting. They can think that they are saying the right things and they can speak before thinking too. We take that for what it is. But there are times when sheer valor is required, we need our foundation set upon the Rock; that would be most all the time now it seems.

kjv@Romans:15:21-33 > > RandyP :

Finally Paul will make a visit to Rome on a trip that will eventually take him into Spain. His work never ends. He mentions that the saints in Jerusalem have provided spiritual blessing to the Gentiles in Macedonia and Achaia and in response these Gentiles are contributing to the saints physical needs in Jerusalem which at this time were dire. By going into Judea to perform this gift Paul is placing himself in great danger in several ways. In that day before money wires and bank transfers I imagine a great deal of care and secrecy/diversion was required to safely do transfers like this. Having a well known and greatly despised envoy do this was even more risky.

kjv@Psalms:109 > > RandyP :

This world is filled with the truly poor and needy. There are countries we can think of that are in a constant oppressive state, countries where it's own refugees are congregated in camps just across it's borders, some for years and decades. We pray for them of course but, what to pray? There are people in the name of the Lord that are standing up for these people but they are lied against, falsely detained, immobilized. We pray for them but, what? There are those that are at the root of this. What shall we pray for them? David must have been square in the middle of some of these skirmishes. Is it wrong for him to pray this? Wrong to sing about this in the congregation? Will the wicked man ever change his ways once he has tasted blood in the waters?

kjv@Psalms:110 > > RandyP :

David has a Lord. David's Lord has a Lord. How can the Jew explain this? This intermediary Lord is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He is waiting at His Lord's side until that Lord puts their enemies under this Lord's foot stool, Surely this Lord is not a human lord or king yet to be born for He sits there now and has sat there at least from the time of David. Compare this with kjv@Psalms:2

kjv@Psalms:111 > > RandyP :

The works of the Lord are sought out by them that have pleasure therein. Have you sought these works out today? Where would we look for them? In the testimonies of those in your congregation? On the edges of those areas where the congregation is reaching out, pushing forward into the darkness? On the streets where the battle lines have been drawn? Not just good works but God's works. Are we seeing this in our own daily walks? If not perhaps we should be purposely looking Better yet... asking!

kjv@Romans:16 > > RandyP :

A long but partial list no doubt of the people Paul has marked out as being good brethren, people he would encourage us to hang out with and emulate. A leader would be wise to make public mention of these role models frequently. There are people to mark out to avoid as well, people that appear to be goodly but serve their own belly. Maybe it is not as important to us individually to mark them out, but, as leaders of a ministry or congregation it certainly is. Be sure to address this fault with them first personally as is proper but, if nothing yet changes avoid them. In any event they must be cut off from their position in the services of the church. A leader would be wise like Paul to search this list out system wide especially in the areas where food or money or barter-able services might be changing hands.

kjv@Psalms:112 > > RandyP :

God can use one upright man can effect an entire generation of upright people. He frequently does. What makes this upright man? He greatly delights in the commandments. What kind of things does he do? We have glimpses here but, it is more to do with how he goes about the things that he does. This description is very similar to the description of Job's uprightness, as in distributing to the poor. It doesn't say that evil tidings will not come, it says the he will not be afraid of them, his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord.

kjv@Psalms:113 > > RandyP :

The Lord God's Son not only was high above doing these great and countless things, He humbled Himself to become part of these experiences as well, to the effect that now He is by no means a stranger to the human feelings and human nuances and human temptations that we experience within these great foundations and frameworks. He has been both here and there. Having returned back to His position alongside the Father, having completed the necessities for our redemption, He waits at the right hand as the Father puts His enemies beneath His footstool so that He the Son can return in His much deserved glory. Who is like unto our Lord God?

kjv@Psalms:114 > > RandyP :

The sea parted for Israel. The Jordan river became dry land for them to cross. As a foreign nation watching on from a distance, one would have to ask why such a mighty god would do these things for Israel and not us? Later, after our foreign nation had infiltrated and commingled our gods and idols into Israel, one would have to ask why is this god Jehovah so jealous over Israelite people and not us? What are these many legends being retold about their time in the desert? Surely, Israel is being used as an injection point for His inoculation needle. The surrounding area festers, it fevers, it changes, the remainder of the body takes sudden and frequent notice. The body collectively resists, the body swells against, it is whipped into a frenzy, but, in the process of fighting against the injection the body takes on and spreads the antibody unknowingly, receiving and carrying about that which the Doctor behind the needle had fully intended from the start. 'Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob'.

kjv@Psalms:115 > > RandyP :

They that make these idols are like unto them and so are those that would trust in them. So what idols have we made today? What idols have we trusted in today? What preconceptions? What false notions? What religious forms and identities have we taken on that are similarly vacant? Where have we imagined a vain thing? Where have we placed anything other above our God? The people of Israel had done it; even after their tremendous experiences with God. Time and time again it was their down fall. What is it that makes us think that today this is no longer a factor in our lives? That we've gotten it all figured out? That we are somehow different from them? Perhaps this false illusion is one of our many idols.

kjv@1Corinthians:1 > > RandyP :

Notice here that Paul has not yet concluded his discussion of the Church's division. This is not him getting side tracked. He is using the explanation of worldly knowledge verses spiritual knowledge as part of a larger address of what ails the church.

kjv@Psalms:116 > > RandyP :

Amongst the vows to pay: will walk before the Lord in the land of the living; will take cup of salvation and call upon Lord; offer sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon name of Lord; will pay vows unto in presence of all His people, in courts of Lord house, in midst of Jerusalem. The what where and when are given for a good starting point to a strong relationship and walk with the Lord.

kjv@Psalms:117 > > RandyP :

It is highly unlikely that the nations of this age would gather to do such a simple and straightforward thing; even in an ecumenical/universal God sense. It should be a sign of the times and our hearts that we can't even gather to do that.

kjv@Psalms:118 > > RandyP :

It is common to think of righteousness as something personal that you build up with good works. Here we find righteousness as a entry way that has been opened which one person, the subject of this psalm walks into. Who is this person that does not die but declares the works of His Lord? If we think of Jesus as the one the nations and wicked have come against like bees, if we think of Him as the head cornerstone they've refused, Him that will execute the judgement against these haters, the sacrifice bound to the alter, then we see how that entry way has been made. Now then by this gate the righteous plural can enter in as well. His mercy does endure for ever!

kjv@1Corinthians:2 > > RandyP :

The spirit of a man alone knows the secrets held within a man. How is it that we think that knowing God would be any different? To know of God one must inquire of His Spirit, search through that which is spiritually discerned, compare spiritual to spiritual. The Spirit searches all things. This is where the natural man fails to understand.

kjv@Psalms:119:1-48 > > RandyP :

From the very core of his heart outward the psalmist is asking God to perform a thorough work. By God placing his eyes/his heart/his understanding on the righteousness of His judgments, guiding his path with precept and statute and command, by blessing and standing for him as he stands against those that rage against truth, man is transformed in God's way. This petition reaches all areas of his walk.

kjv@1Corinthians:3 > > RandyP :

Paul continues to address the divisions in Corinth. He could have just said to stop it, but, instead used the opportunity to teach important doctrines. The carnal mind has not been escaped to this point as there are envying and strife. Thinking oneself to be wise, glorying in certain men over others when all are doing their work for the Lord are caused by spiritual immaturity. We are taught to look at a much larger picture of what God is doing and how other men and ourselves fit into that.

kjv@Psalms:119:49-104 > > RandyP :

A righteous God does not judge unrighteously. He does not do anything just because of the person asking it. The righteous God is not a respecter of the person but of the statute, of the law, of the principal involved. To be on the right of judgement is to be on the right side of the precept. To be on the right side of the precept one must know and act in accordance which takes study and meditation and daily observance of, to hate and refrain and stand against the opposite. This puts one at odds with those lawless and wicked and often requires the righteous God's re-enforcement.

kjv@1Corinthians:4 > > RandyP :

How is it that a steward is found faithful? In the apostle's case it was in the style of life that he had given himself over to. It was a rough life, much of the luxury that is part of our life were absent in theirs. Much of the danger and persecution that we shy away from they stood toe to toe against. They were made spectacles. A faithful steward today must expect similar. kjv@Psalms:119 speaks of faithful afflictions meant to stir us up from God.

kjv@Psalms:119:105-176 > > RandyP :

One of the things we miss the most in our doctrine nowadays is the concept of just how right each and everything God has said or done or decided or judged or testified of has been. We get caught up in the love and grace without understanding what it is that defines that love, defines that grace, makes it so immense and great: His righteousness. In the law, the statutes, the precepts, the testimonies these things can be searched out, can have their proper effect helping us to grasp His defining nature. We know now that in our faith that the Grace supersedes the moral code, that the spirit of it exceeds the letter, but, the Law still can be our schoolmaster not only teaching where we fall short but where God's righteousness stands out.

kjv@1Corinthians:5 > > RandyP :

We see that sin is not only what an individual does but how the congregation reacts to it. In the Law, the precept was given not only to the fornicator not to do it it but, to the citizens to revile and punish it. Their reaction either furthers lawfulness or furthers lawlessness in the community. In this new covenant they weren't to go to the extent of stoning the fornicator in the square but they were to strictly warn him and should he continue reject him from their fellowship. This assembly mistakenly gloried in their pious tolerance of this man and his acts.

kjv@1Corinthians:6 > > RandyP :

Just as this divides itself over it's leadership, just as this assembly tolerates fortification, just as they tolerate civil matters between themselves to be brought before a secular court, this body joins itself as if in marriage to these grievous forms of unrighteousness. The leaven mentioned in the previous chapter has raised up into a spiritual adultery of congregational proportions; and this among fellow believers. Surely not all have done individually these sinful things, but, the congregation is effected as a whole none the less. Tolerance and passiveness in this case is a sin just as pungent.

kjv@Psalms:124 > > RandyP :

Logistically and strategically Israel should not have existed to the extent it did. They were a people that was not a people beforehand. They grew and flourished like no other. Their numbers would not have kept them whole if not for the Lord. It should be obvious that His hand was upon them. When it was not they quickly realized it.

kjv@Psalms:125 > > RandyP :

We tend to personalize/individualize these verses. The trust spoken of is in the larger scale of His overall plan and His actions upon entire bodies such as the church and nations. The righteous and upright are plural and a force of His moving and shaping. From that we individually are more justly effected.

kjv@Psalms:126 > > RandyP :

Notice here that the weeping are not just holding still, they are planting; and that even in captivity. It is too easy just to give up, leave, clam up, wait, go a defeated direction. Those that don't plant during these times are missing out on a joyful harvest.

kjv@1Corinthians:7:14 > > RandyP :

Their salvation still requires belief and repentance just as the rest of us. This sanctification he is speaking of is of a setting apart. There are varying levels of sanctification. The unbeliever and the household are being blessed tangibly because of the blessing of God toward the believer and the children are raised in a better and more wholesome environment. It still would be better however that they all believe.

kjv@1Corinthians:7:1-24 > > RandyP :

These are general rules for marriage but, the principals involved are far reaching. Principal one: you are not your own, you are the others'. Principal two: don't hold back yourselves from one another except by mutual consent for spiritual matters. Principal three: stay engaged/invested in the marriage even if your spouse is a unbeliever if they are consenting.

kjv@Psalms:128 > > RandyP :

I am seeing this as a blessing of God to the individual believer and it revolves around being to eat the fruit of your own hands. There is a blessing of sustaining and protection and multiplication here allowing one to plant and to be able to see and partake of the return. If your hands have not planted there probably wouldn't be all that much to eat but, then none of us really plant as much as we eat. We know that there is a multiplication at work even for us. The man who fears God will plant. Wife and children will be a blessing, grand children and peace upon Israel. What I am considering is a general blessing, for not everyone will see this. Some brothers will die valiantly for us in war, Jerusalem may not even be occupied or obedient, enemies may at once amass along the borders of Israel. But, in a spiritual sense, in a general sense, in a sense we may not have even considered God will bless every man that fears him.

kjv@Psalms:129 > > RandyP :

Who is saying this? Israel. Makes me wonder how many of these other psalms were as the voice of Israel and perhaps not so much the voice of any one individual. If so, the thing of immediate interest is that it was not the forces from without that took Israel down, but, the forces within.

kjv@Psalms:130 > > RandyP :

Twice he repeats "more than they that watch for the morning; so there must be importance to it. The morning is the time of work, the hunting and gathering needed to sustain. A man forced to rest by darkness is eager for the morning dawn. The believer's soul waits for a similar spiritual dawn and in the Word hopes. The dawn deals with righteous judgment of iniquity, a purging, which no man would escape unless by the forgiveness and mercy of God. Individuals will then stand in the light, Israel will stand also.

kjv@Psalms:131 > > RandyP :

When the heart is haughty and the eyes lofty the soul takes upon itself a great deal, increasingly large matters it really has no business in. I think of the political campaigns we are suffering these months ahead of elections. Presented are entire shopping lists of big and grandiose ideas/programs that each and everyone of us knows will never once be addressed. So why are we making concern over them, why to the near exclusion of the things that we would be able to address? This same type issue is true in our individual hearts as well. Oh yes, grand dreams and visions, miraculous intentions, marvelous causes, big and frequent squawks and chatter. It hardly ever results in any more than that. For some though, a new found calm and quietness, a weaning from the demanding tantrums of a suckling child, a trust and obedience to a more modest constantly maturing godly nature.

kjv@1Corinthians:7:25-40 > > RandyP :

What would a personal opinion be doing in the Bible? It shows me an example of applying principal. There are areas in our lives where we will find no direct scriptural answer or command. I don't think that God sought for each and every area to be commanded. There are several areas however we will find where it is best to apply principal. We are allowed to see how an apostle would reason such an area forward by principal. Yes it is his opinion and we have to take it as such, but, principals are born out great truths that have been meditated and applied in different areas that have similarity to the issue presently considered. Most people don't spend enough time even meditating these God given truths enough during to day to know how that they might relate to the question at hand.

kjv@Psalms:132 > > RandyP :

If His people shall keep His covenant and testimony...all of this. His covenant? That He has chosen Israel, He will dwell in Zion; that from the fruit of David: Jesus He will set His throne; that His priests will be clothed in righteousness and salvation and His people will shout for joy. How will this be when it has not been so for a long time? "Let" may be the key word.

kjv@Psalms:133 > > RandyP :

Brethren in unity is like sanctification oil to Aaron kjv@Leviticus:8:12. How good and pleasant must it have been for Aaron. How sanctifying it must be for us. Like in a dry land where rain does not come from May through October it is like a welcome and needed dew.

kjv@Psalms:134 > > RandyP :

Even the Gentiles like a wild branch grafted into the true tree are to be blessed out of Zion. Pray for Israel and Zion.

kjv@Psalms:135 > > RandyP :

He did (and does) what most pleases Himself. He did (and does) big big things. Certain things must bring Him great joy. Our drawing toward other false gods and idols does not please Him so He does against that which doesn't please Him as well. It is very much an insult that we would leave Him for a lifeless speechless deaf figment of our vain imagination just to serve ourselves.

kjv@1Corinthians:8 > > RandyP :

The principal is that knowledge is likely to puff us up. The example illustration is eating food offered to idols. The knowledge may be correct that the offering to idols means nothing, but so is the knowledge that some believers will be offended by it (right or wrong). Instead of puffing up about it and insisting to be right, bend towards the matters of another's conscience. What other areas can we apply this principal to?

kjv@Psalms:136 > > RandyP :

In each and everything His mercy is a constant. Even when He is slaying a king our smiting a people He is kind. How could that be? Field of vision! We are also told that in God mercy and truth have met together. In establishing Israel He established the microscope for us of all ages to clearly view all human nature and established the bloodline for our redeemer to come through. We are told of the wickedness of these kings and the hardness of the heart of this pharaoh and the blood guilt of Canaan to the extent that the land was spitting them out. We are told of a people that were not a people becoming God's chosen, established for the good of all mankind and through which His greatest gift/mercy/grace would come.

kjv@Psalms:137 > > RandyP :

It must be humbling when ones captors request to hear one of your hymns as if to rub your face in the fact that they are taking you back to their land to make you slaves. It drives home the fact that you've let a good thing go. Had they listened to God, had they returned their hearts from their false gods, had they obeyed it may not have come to this. But it has, and there naturally is bitterness towards these captors. Really though God's mercy from kjv@Psalms:123 is still at work in a reproving fashion. We should not be so hardened as to allow it to come to this.

kjv@Psalms:138 > > RandyP :

What a beautiful picture, a high God looking upon the lowly, considering the proud afar off. He operates towards them with both merciful loving-kindness and righteous truth. His oath and message is above His name.

kjv@1Corinthians:9 > > RandyP :

Seems that there is always a fuss over money, be it tithes or church salaries or building funds or pastor's portions etc. It comes to the point where the gospel is hindered by all the fuss. Some concern is rightly placed. Most concern is nothing more than serving the master of mammon more than the master of grace. Paul was well within his rights to eat of the grain he had milled, but, made a personal decision as an apostle not to partake of his portion simply because it would surely become an offense to weaker less mature believers. Not all ministers are in that same position nor should they be expected to be either.

kjv@Psalms:139 > > RandyP :

David here knows what we all should know. He knows that God's works and God's knowledge is too wonderful for him, His works just toward David uncountable like the sands of the sea. David realizes that even his body parts (fingers toes eyebrows etc...) were written before even being formed. Light and darkness are the same to Him, that there is no where David/we could hide that He would not be present.

kjv@Psalms:139:23-24 > > RandyP :

David has just spoken of those that speak against and take His name in vain, of a perfect hatred held against them as enemies. Here he wants to know that there is not any similar wicked way in him. Otherwise he would be a hypocrite and wicked to boot. Could there be a wicked way that God would disapprove of in our lives yet here today?

kjv@Psalms:140 > > RandyP :

Here is an interesting look at what we should know from Psalms kjv@STRING:Psalms+AND+know . A similar link regarding the wicked kjv@STRING:Psalms+AND+wicked . What do we know about them currently and what should we know.

kjv@Psalms:141 > > RandyP :

This constant talk about the wicked and of his own travail concerns me. Surely this not just any typical man nor situation nor prayer. The psalmist is being oppressed and surrounded for reasons not common to most of us in our personal daily lives. My concern is that we look at our common worldly difficulties in the light he looks at here, which is an intense spiritual warfare set against him as anointed king of anointed Israel being in the direct and announced blood line of the coming Savior. There may be a similarity to the persecution of the apostles and saints and martyrs, but to having ourselves a bad hair day?

kjv@1Corinthians:10:1-13 > > RandyP :

Ensamples they are, written for our admonition. Let's look at just the pure mathematics of probability. It is immensely more probable that we are beset by one of these traits than not. Idolaters, fornicators, tempters of Christ, murmurers, each trait more diverse and profound than first glance; and there are more. If one today thinks he stands he should take heed lest he fall. God knows this and is faithful. He has made a means to escape and bear it!

kjv@Psalms:142 > > RandyP :

Consider that over and over again the man has called out to pour from his soul his desperate troubles. The Lord hears and the Lord delivers and yet they come up again and again. Where is the righteousness in that? It is in the life long process that molds the man into what he spiritually needs to be, not just for this life but the life to come; it is in the inspiration ignited in others to aspire to the same. Snares have been privily laid by others, harm is meant, there is only one refuge and it is not in mankind. He complains of these others and their harmful intents but not the process and not the master that by this shapes the man into a vessel of honor.

kjv@Psalms:143 > > RandyP :

In all this trouble the important things come to light and for these things we become thirsty and are driven. We are caused to hear of His loving kindness in the morning, caused to know wherein we should walk. We are taught to do His will and quickened with true spiritual life. During these times remember the peaceful days of old. Meditate on all His works, muse on the works of His hands. Know that for His righteousness' sake He shall bring your soul out of trouble.

kjv@Psalms:144 > > RandyP :

The hand of strange children mentioned twice. The hand of our Lord. The future of our daughters and sons. David is willing to fight and willing to be taught to fight all the better. The Lord is His goodness, fortress, high tower and strength. But what about these strange children, is it David causing the fight with this attitude or is it the pesky perseverance of these strange children that pursue to overtake him? Is it the principals for which He stands for? Few if any have ever stood for what is right and not been attacked.

kjv@1Corinthians:10:14-33 > > RandyP :

We often look for clear and concrete guidelines when it comes to the many grey areas of life. Concrete guidelines are not always found. No clearer principal exits however than the conscience of others and the profitability to souls being moved/directed toward the kingdom of God. If it offends, set aside any personal liberty for the moment. Do all to the glory of God.

kjv@Psalms:145 > > RandyP :

This is one of those psalms to remember when you need a boost. We all have times that we are so narrowly focused on our daily affairs that we loose sight of the bigger picture. We get caught wondering what He will do for us when we should observe what He has done for all. Let us fill our heart with praise and our eyes with wonder.

kjv@Psalms:146 > > RandyP :

Thankfully the Lord is not the cotton candy non-judgmental nebulous be whatever you want Him to be god many imagine. His judgments are not just against but for. His judgment produces actions which come to the aid of those needing action the most.

kjv@Psalms:147:15 > > RandyP :

We often put the concept of God spreading His word solely into the hands of man, limiting His word to the places man can get to and the time frame it would take for man to be able to get there and the reaction the man or men would receive. God's word is not limited by any such thing; it moves swiftly. He can use man's willingness to spread just as He can use the frozen ice.

kjv@1Corinthians:11:3 > > RandyP :

Our attention gets caught up in the controversial roles of man and woman and by this misses the inclusion of Christ being subject to God.

kjv@1Corinthians:11:1-15 > > RandyP :

There will always be a tension between the sexes that the mischievousness can manipulate into near frenzy. The fact is that Paul could have said anything about male female relations, gone any direction with it and still have been sharply criticized. In the culture to which Paul was specifically addressing certain customs took on profound spiritual meaning. Their assembly was being torn on both sides by the debate over these roles as related to public worship. The debate inflamed them to the point that meaningful worship and assembly ceased. Our culture is plagued by much the same debate and sadly to much the same end. What then is the principal to follow? Subjection for the sake of worship. Do not let your liberty inflame the conscience of a weaker believer or your worship get in the way of everyone else's. And remember if allowed into worship that God is not the author of chaos.

kjv@Psalms:148 > > RandyP :

There is a place where even inanimate objects can praise the Lord, in our eyes and hearts. They praise Him just by being, by the place that they fulfill amongst all creation. Animate creatures as well, though they may not intellectually know they experience which is just as good as knowing. Humans may well place too much on knowing and too little on simply connecting and being part of the praise all around.

kjv@Psalms:149 > > RandyP :

In the new covenant we think of the two-edged sword as God's written word and the bringing forth of His agape to all peoples as our mission. We Gentiles might not have this honor today had it not been for the establishment early on of Israel and it's place in the history of our ancestors who often received it's vengeance and punishments. This tiny nation inflamed us. By standing allied against it yet being strongly defeated we saw it's God Jehovah. It's Jehovah eventually led us to His Son our Lord. Now we reach back to Israel with His agape and His word to complete the circle.

kjv@Psalms:150 > > RandyP :

kjv@Psalms:37:4 Delight thyself also in the LORD... What more could one's heart desire? I'm ready. Join me?

kjv@1Corinthians:11:16-34 > > RandyP :

There is concern over the way this congregation views and implements it's Holy Communion. This is not to be a drunken party nor a food line, it is a solemn partaking symbolically of the flesh and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Anything other, anything reason less becomes a curse or judgement.

kjv@1Corinthians:11:16-34 > > RandyP :

Interesting tid bits that should not be overlooked. There are divisions today just as there were back then. We are to look at divisions as a means to observe who is approved, they will stand out all the more. Also, the churches are judged within so that they will not be judged without; if so what happens when they are unwilling to accept judgment? Also, there seems to be a connection between the misuse of the Holy Communion and sickness even fatal sickness.

kjv@Proverbs:3 > > RandyP :

In many of the proverbs I notice that the child or the son is receiving the teaching and lives it forth through a process of correction and refinement. There is a personal reward continuously in that. The reward from others seems sometimes to come later as a man, sometimes much later. So often our youth are looking for the reward of others here and now to make their personal reward; correction is not part of the equation at all.

kjv@1Corinthians:13 > > RandyP :

Hope now abides because we know that it wont be long through this dark glass, we will see face to face. Partial shall become full.

kjv@1Corinthians:14:1-20 > > RandyP :

The building/edification of the congregation is the key to spiritual gifts. If they do not build others of what use are they in the assembly. Tongues publicly require interpretation and prophecy clear spiritual revelation.

kjv@Proverbs:3 > > RandyP :

The way of the Lord often is instruction and correction and persistent study and work. The way evil/lust quiet enticing. A young man's resistance can be warn down if not fully guarded. This is true in both a carnal and a spiritual sense.

kjv@Proverbs:7 > > RandyP :

The wise son and Israel are taught in the same breath. There is a practical street sense to this and a loftier spiritual sense nationally. Spiritual warfare can produce the same enticing fascinations. Because of the nature of the content addressed here it may be better understood this wise son must be at least an adolescent.

kjv@Proverbs:7 > > RandyP :

The good man character is also used by Jesus a couple parables kjv@Matthew:20:11 kjv@Matthew:24:43

kjv@Proverbs:8:13 > > RandyP :

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom/knowledge/instruction here then is wisdom beginning to talk as to what fear is.

kjv@Proverbs:8 > > RandyP :

I sense the suggestion that before creation the plan was all laid out, Jesus was to be our redeemer. Wisdom became all that which moved that plan forward, the establishment of the covenant, the law, Israel, the prophecies, the conviction of the Holly Spirit. Wisdom was there when all these essential things were framed, it is there evident in all creation revealing even the Godhead so that we are without excuse kjv@Romans:1:20. Wisdom is the purpose and direction and establishments leading all men back to their savior.

kjv@1Corinthians:14:21-40 > > RandyP :

All things are to be done decently and in order, everything done to the edifying. Notice that even if a word of knowledge were to come to you sitting that there is a time and a patience and an order. The earlier church I sense was a much more organic and participatory fellowship than we would allow for today. Perhaps we should lighten up on the reigns a bit!

kjv@Proverbs:1 > > RandyP :

Proverbs typically are short perhaps single verses of two stark contrasts. Here an interesting contrast is developed over the entire chapter. A gang of evil enticing roughions and a docile uncommitted society of simple minded fools. One is obviously setting a trap for themselves, the other secretly trapped in the cruel rewards of their simplicity. Which is worse?

kjv@Proverbs:2 > > RandyP :

Chapter marks are a more recent development added to the Bible for purposes of easier reference. Sometimes they get in the way of the more fluid reading that the writer intended. It is interesting way to read these proverbs to remove these chapter partitions and read larger chunks of instruction. kjv@CONCORD:Proverbs:1-8

kjv@Proverbs:9 > > RandyP :

Two woman are portrayed, wisdom and a noisy clamorous fool. Wisdom is an invitation to a feast already prepared, foolishness is an invitation to secret taboos and pleasures. Both pursue the same type man, the simple.

kjv@Proverbs:9 > > RandyP :

Simple mindedness can be thought of as open mindedness; it can be both good and bad. An open mind can lead to the acceptance of the possibility of wisdom all ready being prepared beforehand there for the taking, for the shedding of and separation from foolishness. It can also lead to nothing more than an attitude permitting oneself to scorn the notion of true wisdom and an investigation into stolen and secret sensual pleasures. One way leads to life the other to hell. Ones focus should not be on having an open mind just for the sake of having an open mind and being able to self justify any and everything, one should have an open mind for the sake of seeking absolute truth for it will catch up with us sooner than later. Perhaps having a clear mind should be a better objective.

kjv@Proverbs:10:24 > > RandyP :

Interesting that the comparison here is between fear and desire. The wicked do not desire the inevitable and they fear that it will inevitably come. What do they have to fear? The judgment of their misplaced desires. The righteous desire the inevitable and their desire is inevitably granted. What is it they desire? Judgment leading to fuller communion with God.

kjv@1Corinthians:15:1-32 > > RandyP :

Without any doubt the central core of the Gospel is that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures, buried and raised the third day according to scriptures, witnessed by many and ascended to where all things have been put under subjection to Him and He to the Father. It is not just that He did it, it is that the scriptures all along said that He was going to do it. Of this core in particular the resurrection can not be separated without voiding the remainder.

kjv@Proverbs:11:21 > > RandyP :

It is not that the righteous will not go through trials, it is that they will be delivered through/by them. NT writers consider these trial and tribulations as a edifying process of refinement.

kjv@Proverbs:11 > > RandyP :

Several of these proverbs in this section are dealing with the rewards of pursuing righteousness, many rewards here in this life. So often we view the wealthy as having received their wealth by ill means without knowing the slightest thing about how they achieved/maintain it. To wrap all rich men/women into the same corrupt bundle is to ignore what God is saying about what He wants to do.

kjv@Proverbs:12:13 > > RandyP :

Again it doesn't say that he wont see trouble, it says that he will come out of. Trouble here is associated with transgression. It could be that he will come out of his own transgressions by willingly repenting or it could be that the wicked man's transgression will cause him trouble that he will emerge from safely.

kjv@Proverbs:12:17 > > RandyP :

Speaking truth is associated with being a trust worthy witness; a witness that sheweth forth righteousness. Whose righteousness? God's

kjv@Proverbs:12 > > RandyP :

Like all scripture the proverbs take some digging into. Meaning may not be immediately obvious especially when two proverbs take the same point from two different directions. In a sense many of these appear as generalities when taken individually. But if taken as spring boards toward a greater reverence/fear of the Lord, the sum brings true wisdom/understanding; somethings that the casual reader will not spend time to consider.

kjv@1Corinthians:15:33-58 > > RandyP :

It is asked by many "how could it be that God is righteous when He allows this and that and there is such pain and obvious corruption"? A mystery is revealed here about how this corrupt life that God has planted in becomes righteous, what is incorruptible must be born out of what is corruptible much like a seed of grain. We tend to look at this life as if this were all that there is and not see the eternal purposes for which God has set our paths on. This explains much about God's patience and love and forgiveness even when considering the events/actions of the day as they appear to our simple minds.

kjv@Proverbs:13:1 > > RandyP :

Instruction often comes in the form of rebuke/reproof. Being willing to listen to it is the key to being wise. The rebuke/reproof has to wise of course otherwise it is mean cruel for it's own sake. Parents for instance need to be as wise or wiser than their own fatherly instruction, which many times means being wise enough to listen to our Father's rebuke as well.

kjv@Proverbs:13:12 > > RandyP :

If our hope is in something that has no possibility of coming forth or is not in the will of God or is not pursued in a manner pleasing to God or we never diligently pursued it the heart will remain sick. One must be honest about what is deferring the hope. Who, what, when, where, how, to what extent and to whose glory seem to be the appropriate questions.

kjv@Proverbs:14:4 > > RandyP :

Perhaps we should examine ourselves and ask what is my strong oxen and how do I take better care of it. Is it my education? Is it my field knowledge? Is it my professional acquaintances and associations? Is it my car? My tools? My skill? My courage?

kjv@Proverbs:14:6 > > RandyP :

There are some that pride themselves in their scientific and analytical technique but, that gets them nowhere further toward an answer if they are still are at the core scoffers/scorners at heart. They can talk circles around most of us lesser educated but, really what do their words actually say that this simple proverb does not?

kjv@1Corinthians:16:3 > > RandyP :

I may have mentioned before that the long distance transfer of monies was dangerous business back in this day. Not only did the actual envoy have to be fully trusted, I assume that diversions and disguises and stealth's had to be planned to avoid being robbed. Larger volumes of money may have to be sent out by multiple and less obvious means. A charitable Christian church was no doubt a target for thieves and a good place for them to plant conspiring informants. Paul's public announcement may itself be a ruse. This is my hunch and not a revelation. Would it be wrong if he did?

kjv@1Corinthians:16 > > RandyP :

If the church in Jerusalem was in urgent need of this gifting it was likely that they were going to have to be patient. Things were moving at the pace of the old world and various considerations were having to be made. Amongst all this wonderful doctrine and teaching the real world remains. I think that it is a refreshing to see that they were working through issues much like we have to today.

kjv@Proverbs:15:14 > > RandyP :

What does it mean to have understanding? It means to know to seek after knowledge. If we purse an issue thinking that we know everything about it from the start, this is not understanding. If we pursue thinking that simply by the strength of our own determination exerting force we will bend the issue to our favor, this is not understanding. Seeking knowledge means first seeking the fear of the Lord, humbling ourselves and our cause to His presence, listening for direction and knowing that it may well include correction and faithful obedience, this is understanding.

kjv@Proverbs:15:18 > > RandyP :

tsk@Proverbs:15:18 has some interesting links to some Bible characters known for their ability to appease strife.

kjv@Proverbs:15:20 > > RandyP :

A father would be most pleased if a son would deeply respect and have a warm open connection to his mom. It wouldn't matter as much to the father about the son's relationship with him; that would just be the cream on the cake. Should the son not have this connection to his mom neither father nor mom would be pleased especially the father.

kjv@Proverbs:15:22 > > RandyP :

The problem is that few of us have ever taken the effort of developing and maintaining a circle of wise counselors. It is a purposeful and extensive investment long before an issue ever arises. Knowing who to trust, who most sees things as they really are, having previous experience with them in smaller issues. Men seem to hold off seeking counsel until times where a circle of counsel cannot be mustered soon enough. Women tend to seek the wrong counsel, counsel that will tell you whatever they think you want to hear instead of counsel that is honest and fearless enough to tell you where you are wrong.

kjv@Proverbs:15 > > RandyP :

kjv@Proverbs:15:33 seems best to summarize all the individual proverbs we've now read best. Everything comes down to this - humility before honor, reverence is the allowance to become tutored by.

kjv@Proverbs:16:9 > > RandyP :

If the preparations of the heart are the Lord's kjv@Proverbs:16:1, if his goings forth are from the Lord and his way cannot be understood outside of the Lord kjv@Proverbs:20:24 and if it is only the counsel of the Lord that will stand kjv@Proverbs:19:21, what do we have other than to choose which of His steps to take? In light of kjv@Romans:1:18-24 God prepared hearts to follow after Him, He gave them a choice, as much as He prepared they still chose contrary, their steps now are directed (that choice leads to these steps) yet His counsel must stand - they are condemned for transgressing the preparation laid into their hearts.

kjv@2Corinthians:1 > > RandyP :

Whether Paul's team was afflicted or comforted, it was for our comfort and salvation. Both abounded with his team, sufferings and comfort because they abound in Christ. They were afflicted even to the point of death. They considered themselves dead and only by the deliverance of God did they continue. Our consolation is effectual in all sufferings but particularly in the same sufferings which they suffered.

kjv@Proverbs:17 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:Proverbs:17+AND+fool Look at how many times a fool is mentioned in this chapter. kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+fool makes for an interesting study as is kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+righteous

kjv@Proverbs:18 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+lips kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+tongue kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+mouth kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+word

kjv@2Corinthians:2 > > RandyP :

God causes us to triumph in Christ. He causes doors to open of the Lord and makes manifest the savour of His knowledge. To some that means life, to others death, to us sufficiency to speak forth. At times it requires strict obedience to those placed above us and at times it allows for forgiveness by proxy. There is great sorrow of heart and great joy as well, but, there is always thanks to God in all things.

kjv@Proverbs:19 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+of+the+LORD

kjv@2Corinthians:3 > > RandyP :

You will recall that there was a glory that shone from Moses after he had received the commandments that the people dared not look upon. The glory began fading and Moses began wearing a veil so as not to show the diminishing. Paul is saying that this was symbolic of the fading glory of the Law, it wasn't meant to remain as 'the' exceeding glory, it was meant to become a schoolmaster, as the sting of death. Liberty in Christ is 'the' exceeding glory, it cannot fade, the veil has been lifted. The Jews have yet to be awakened to this fact until the time of the Gentiles be complete.

kjv@Proverbs:21 > > RandyP :

I have typically viewed these proverbs as being directed toward individuals for personal consideration and use. But then I see the wicked, the workers of iniquity, plural, collective. How is it that we are to overcome their masses individually if we the upright are not affiliated collectively like they? For us to do justice/judgement large scale, mercy/charity, be prosperous but not greedy, be generous and not selfish, doesn't their have to be a strong element of collaboration and community?

kjv@Proverbs:22:7 > > RandyP :

This is not to say that it shouldn't be this way. The majority of the poor are poor for the reasons explained here in the proverbs. They do not rule themselves so how should it be expected to rule well over others. The borrower rightfully owes the lender all that he has agreed to return else he would be a thief. It could be said that much of our nation's problem is not that we are overly compassionate but, that we are ruled by the poor and by debt that we have no intention of paying back. Debt and severe covetness have become our vision of entitlement and we blame the rich and the lender for our deepening woes.

kjv@Proverbs:22:16 > > RandyP :

A government driven false economy develops around the service of the poor. Money that should be flowing to the truly needy is sucked up by the service providers and delivery mechanisms installed. It is not so much the rich who desires to increase his riches that oppresses, but the workers and providers who see the service of poor as their employment career and retirement. The government sees the system as a means of inflating their employment numbers. Where are the poor left? Better off? Oppressed?

kjv@Proverbs:22:17 > > RandyP :

kjv@Proverbs:22:17-21 changes meter for a moment. Note that it spans these several verses all at once.

kjv@Proverbs:22:26 > > RandyP :

How about the politician who strikes hands and puts the American people and their future generations as sureties for debt?

kjv@2Corinthians:4 > > RandyP :

Is Paul saying that only the Apostles are called to this stringent a life? That we should just sit back and bask in the glory that has been revealed in their work and sacrifice? Surely we are not Apostles, but, we are disciples, we are followers, we are partakers of the divine nature. If this is what Christ suffered, if this is what the Apostles suffered, then we too should be willing/expecting to suffer the same. It is in this manner after all the life and glory of Christ is revealed.

kjv@Proverbs:23 > > RandyP :

Dainties...deceitful meat...desirous. Not everything is as it seems. Not everything is as it is presented. People put the best spin on things. People have their way of making even the worst look the best. Their is a price that they have had to pay; no need paying it alongside with them or for them.

kjv@2Corinthians:5 > > RandyP :

There is a constant debate over works and faith. If because of faith you no longer live to yourself what do you now do? Some would say nothing for Christ did it all, grace not works. Others would counter you do what He would do, you work His work having given us the ministry of reconciliation, not for the salvation which is by grace but for the reward as His ambassadors.

kjv@Proverbs:25 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+false+witness kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+honey kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+woman kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+spirit

kjv@Proverbs:26:4-5 > > RandyP :

The application of reproof appears to be situational or conditional. For instance, if you snap back at him in like manner you are as big a fool as he. If you rebuff him at his conceit without a conceit of your own you may show where he is unwise.

kjv@Proverbs:26:25 > > RandyP :

kjv@Proverbs:6:16-19 ?

kjv@Proverbs:26 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+conceit

kjv@2Corinthians:6 > > RandyP :

The unequal yoke in context seems to apply to the burden of Christian work and ministry not so much marriage. While unequal marriages might hinder the work, so too might other gods, so might cultural/political/ecumenical alliances and causes etc..; I think of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches' yoke to the Nazi and Fascist party's in WWII. Paul speaks of marriages elsewhere to unbelievers and does not make so definite a conclusion. This context would also change our perception of the 'temple of the living God' phrase as well.

kjv@2Corinthians:6 > > RandyP :

The Church can also get yoked to unbelievers via following secular polls and surveys, by secular liberal intellectualism, cowardice, false association, etc.. It appears to be an accumulative marriage that is by cohabitation and commingling; by common law so to say.

kjv@Proverbs:29 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:Proverbs+AND+abomination

kjv@2Corinthians:7 > > RandyP :

It is plain to see the thought and care that Paul put into the charge he had been given over his church plants. Even in the face of severe tribulations word of them gave him great comfort and he was always thinking toward their edification.

kjv@Proverbs:30:4 > > RandyP :

I would be curious to know who he meant as son if he didn't mean Immanuel. David also had a sense of God's son in this era as well kjv@Psalms:2:7.

kjv@Proverbs:31 > > RandyP :

The virtuous wife parable is not so much as list of what she is doing as it is the attitude in which she is doing it and who she is doing it for. It is the attitude of being a tangible blessing to all. Caution must be given not to extend oneself to the harm of the marriage, that in all things she honors and exalts her husband.

kjv@2Corinthians:8 > > RandyP :

The ministry to the saints should be a ministry assumed by all believers. There is an expectation of equality where by my surplus at this time supplies to your needs and your surplus at another time will supply mine. Even during the difficult times, there are wonderful examples of believers squeezing extra out resources to others. We should not only commit to such causes but follow through on our commitments. In this we prove our love for the brethren. Sometimes we just expect God to take care of it not realizing that this is often how God takes care of it.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:1 > > RandyP :

Just days ago we had read kjv@1Corinthians:15 that the righteousness of God in putting us through this corruption was to break us down, have us die to ourselves that we might germinate to a spiritual plant/being (be born again). Here it says similarly the travail God has given the sons of men to be exercised with. From the observation from heaven it is a unnecessary and righteous thing and from our sense it is a grievous and sorrowful thing. This is because of the weight with which we invest ourselves into making something carnal out of this present corruption. We do not see the things under heaven as they were before nor the things as they will be. All is vanity, but, God submitted us to this vanity because of a much greater righteous hope kjv@Romans:8:20-23.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:2 > > RandyP :

For us the vanity becomes an emptiness and a travail. It is both discernible and tangible, intelligence and wisdom clearly detect it. We try to fill it with this and with that and the other but nothing seems to fill/overcome it. Even that which seems to be full it is vanquished by the consequences death. It is meant that it should not be filled in any other way than by subjection to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; be born of true spiritual/eternal incorruptible seed.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:3 > > RandyP :

Peter kjv@2Peter:1:4 described this world as a corruption that is in this world because of lust. Corruption can mean death and decay as it does for the sons of the lusting to be wise Adam/Eve. The thought of this death makes us to lust for all that we might have and make out of this short time which brings us to a corruption of all that is good and intended; lust upon lust and it's many other corruptions. What God has done by putting us through this is to be looked at in terms of forever that men should fear Him; a tremendously good and righteous work of making us righteous within the righteousness of His Son; raising us up from this corruption much as His Son a new spiritual creature. From this nothing can be put to nor taken away.

kjv@2Corinthians:9 > > RandyP :

Professed subjection to is demonstrated by liberal distribution of. The Corinthians had made a promise. It was good for them to have made the promise but, now they are more than a year behind on their promise and their good example has been used to convince others. God had supplied them both for their need and surplus and yet their gift was still not yet presentable. What kind of subjection is that? Are we given to the same subjection?

kjv@Ecclesiastes:4 > > RandyP :

If not for God in the heavens this life get odder and more vain with each and every consideration. From the foolish king down to the poor peasant the emptiness piles up. To think that that this how an agnostic and atheist thinks; this is his religion. Meaning is simply what ever gets us through. And if another man comes and steals our meaning then that is just too bad, perhaps it shouldn't have had meaning to us in the first place. If that meaning gets sick and she dies then I have only to know that my time will come as well; I have only the ground to look to past present and future, that is my meaning. And if I am unlucky enough not to find meaning then perhaps I am the luckiest of all.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:5 > > RandyP :

If not for God in the heaven, why would you not oppress the poor? Why would you not lie and cheat and steal for your larger portion? No it wouldn't be as satisfying as you had imagined but, hey it is better than being one of the oppressed. Really, what is there to stop a man from thinking this way? Love of country and nation? Love of doing right? Fear of what others might think of you? Surely the fear of the LORD is the beginning of Wisdom; wisdom for ourselves and for our nation.

kjv@2Corinthians:10:3-6 > > RandyP :

This is all one sentence. These items are connected as one. The idea of obedience coming before revenge is just as vital to the statement as the means of our warfare. tsk@2Corinthians:10:3-6 has some good links to look to.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:7:7 > > RandyP :

I am wondering how this works. A gift is given that destroys a man's heart, his heart to seek out a matter, his heart to proceed forward, his heart to stand firm against his oppressor, provide for his own. Sounds a lot like welfare and food stamps does it not?

kjv@Ecclesiastes:7:10 > > RandyP :

The wiser question might be where does the Lord want me now and what does he want me to do today! I thank Him for the good found in every day. I thank Him that He is there ahead of me through it all. He truly is my shepherd.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:7 > > RandyP :

Solomon has spent a great deal of time considering the ends of things. Sure they seem right to us here and now but, what of it in the end? He concludes that while somethings are better, some are wiser, all things are temporary, that they all end as vanity. Not everyone goes as far as to consider these things, the thought being "what does it matter?". It matters to the life to come and the abundant entrance ministered unto us into Christ's eternal kingdom kjv@2Peter:1:11.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:8:8 > > RandyP :

How many have I seen that have fearfully fought to retain the spirit upon their death bed only to drag themselves only further into fear and pain. It is a fearful thing to all but to those prepared to meet their maker it is a much anticipated moment and a short step into His arms.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:9 > > RandyP :

One event happens to us all and after that there is no more work and no more remberance of us in this realm. All that we have done for ourselves is occupy our time. Left at that it would appear to be vanity. Christ however did not come here in vain nor did He die in vain nor is this the end He intends. Live joyfully with thy wife, do all these good and wise things but, most of all live for Him.

kjv@2Corinthians:11:1-15 > > RandyP :

The fact that Paul has been addressing these things throughout this letter must mean that somebody(s) were accusing Him him of such. Other Jesus's are what we still face today. Selling another Jesus often involves placing doubt upon character of the saints of the true Jesus. Paul is attacked even today by numerous groups presuming to have a clearer definition of Jesus. It is not the same Jesus however.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:10-11 > > RandyP :

In his proverbial style Solomon shares his wisdom on sowing, on avoiding folly, on the poor, and on folly in the upright standing out like a stinking perfume. This section almost seems to break the previous train of thought that all is vanity. All is not vanity if the Lord blesses what is being done.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:12 > > RandyP :

Upon our deaths nothing more can be said or done. That in which we put ourselves to on this earth will cease and no longer be remembered. We have the option of spending this remaining time doing for ourselves or we can follow after our Lord and Shepherd to His final pastier. Fear God, and keep His commandments: for that is the whole duty of man. The end of all things is vanity if not for God.

kjv@Ecclesiastes:12 > > RandyP :

From our perspective everything may appear vain if this is our life and our end. From God's perspective nothing that He does is vain. He created us and set the time frame for us here among the earth bound with reason and purpose. What He has for us here and beyond that is for His pleasure

kjv@2Corinthians:11:16-33 > > RandyP :

You would think that a messenger of love and truth would be well accepted as people need a good bit of love and truth. You would think that people would be thankful for a man willing to suffer such things to bring us such truth and not complain that he was too soft or too hard or too.... We would like to think that if we are anything as believers that we are much like this man. Most likely though it is overwhelmingly possible that we are like the many that inflicted such upon him or looked away and that the people that we have put in charge of putting us in rememberence of these truths are not this type of man who has for a long time suffered our whims.

kjv@Songs:1 > > RandyP :

geneva@Songs:1 compares the female character as the church longing for her groom.

kjv@2Corinthians:12:12 > > RandyP :

Are we to take this that there are signs/wonders/deeds that only an apostle can do? Almost like an confirmation of apostleship? WHat signs and wonders would these be?

kjv@2Corinthians:12 > > RandyP :

An uncleanness/fornication/lasciviousness is sweeping through this church. Instead of being repentant and chaste they are seemingly becoming accusatory and slanderous of Paul. He had sent Titus but, it is quickly becoming an issue that he will have to address himself to answer his accusers. Sin has this manner where it puffs itself up, justifies itself by attacking/diminishing the person that represents righteousness.

kjv@2Corinthians:13 > > RandyP :

There is a fine line between edification and destruction when addressing situations like this. The sense that Paul has is that his accusers are attempting to rattle him, make him say something or do something that would turn out to their advantage. By challenging him to prove himself as an Apostle their hope is to make him over react or be over bearing enough to push people away, show that he is operating from his own pride and sense of possession. There is also the chance that he may shy away and underplay the situation as well. We, much like Paul, must be prayerful, direct and and Spirit led in these situations too.

kjv@Galatians:1 > > RandyP :

The opposition in Corinth seemed to focus their attack directly on Paul. The difference here in Galatia seems to be the infiltration of another form of doctrine which seems to center itself against the doctrine of grace. One seemed to be rooted in a very liberal grace outwardly that allowed for perversions and divisions, this one seems to be inward toward the vehicle of salvation.

kjv@Galatians:1 > > RandyP :

This account of Paul's conversion fills in a 3 year hole between kjv@Acts:9:26 and kjv@Acts:9:27

kjv@Songs:6 > > RandyP :

A possible explanationhttp://www.gotquestions.org/Song-of-Solomon.html http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/we_dig_montana/Song.html

kjv@Songs:5:16 > > RandyP :

There are internet reports that the Moslim's believe lovely here to be a reference to Muhammad. They translate the Hebrew muhammadim as Pbuh (Muhammad). Strong's does not us muhammadim it uses machmâd and I am not sure of the correlation. Even so, 956bc usage of the word does not necessarily suggest that the word is accurately translated into 700ad counter-evangelical doctrine. It could have meant "lovely".

kjv@Isaiah:1 > > RandyP :

home:BookOfIsaiah gives us a good background to Isaiah. We find ourselves in great rebellion, the LORD seeking to correct but, no correction being taken. If not for a remnant the nation would have already been destroyed.

kjv@Isaiah:2 > > RandyP :

The day of the LORD is a terrible day especially for the lofty of men. Peace activists quote the "swords into plowshares" but, do not realize the terrible fierceness with which He does that, how the earth is shaken and men crawl into caves and cracks in the rock.

kjv@Isaiah:3 > > RandyP :

These prophecies do not seem to be in chronological order. The day of the LORD in the previous chapter appears to me to be an end time prophecy and this a dispersion era.

kjv@Galatians:2 > > RandyP :

There is no doubt that the doctrine of Grace is hard to understand down to it's deepest core, even by those of the early church and by Apostles that should have known better. The mind naturally wants to flip it around to do works towards justification. Our works fall short each and every time, even our best works. They are certainly not payment for sin and reconciliation. Christ's death would be in vain otherwise.

kjv@Galatians:2:14 > > RandyP :

Peter received correction. Had he been the first Pope and had the Pope been given immutable divine interpretation as supposed by Roman Catholic doctrine, he would not have needed correction. Paul would have shamefully exceeded his lesser authority. Their doctrine follows from a possible misinterpretation on the proclamation Jesus made that on 'this Rock' He would build His church. Rock more likely meaning the divinely revealed faith and not just Cephas 'the rock' personally kjv@Matthew:16:17-20 (literally - You are 'piece of rock' and upon this 'massive Rock' (which flesh and blood have not revealed) I build my church).

kjv@Isaiah:5 > > RandyP :

From Israel the Lord expected judgment. He found the opposite oppression. Right was wrong and wrong right, dark light, evil good. Reward was given for wickedness and house joined to house making large estates for certain well to do individuals. They were drunkards and wise/prudent in their own eyes, harps and pipes playing a much different song, the works of the Lord forgotten. We see that there was a hedge around them once, protection from the pest, the briers, the heat of the sun. The hedge was brought down to flush out the nation's wickedness.

kjv@Isaiah:6 > > RandyP :

The prophet did not have to be told that he was dirty, he knew by looking into glory, seeing the Lord on His throne, His long train filling the temple, angels and seraphim singing all around. The guilt/shame was sensed in His lips. The words going out, the appetite going in, the gestures of affection are all in the lips. It would be wise for us to consider his physical awareness of sin as we consider ours in light of the Lords full glory.

kjv@Galatians:3 > > RandyP :

mhcc@Galatians:3 M. Henry's commentary

kjv@Isaiah:7:1 > > RandyP :

Ahaz B.C 740-724 dict:easton Ahaz

kjv@Isaiah:7:5 > > RandyP :

Ephriam is another name for Israel now that it is divided from Judah.

kjv@Isaiah:7 > > RandyP :

This is a very detailed prophecy. In 65 tears Ephraim/Israel shall be no more and not long after both Ephraim and Judah shall be without a king being first under the hand of Assyria. The fruitful land shall be over taken with flys and bees and become briers and thorns suitable only for cattle. Heads and beards and feet will be shaven in utter humiliation. During this era of captivity the messiah will born, His name, her virginity, His diet and distaste for evil all are revealed. Each and every piece of this prophecy has been completely fulfilled within a 675 year time span.

kjv@Isaiah:8:3 > > RandyP :

Isaiah's wife was either called 'the prophetess' because of being married to one with the anointing or she had an anointing of her own.

kjv@Isaiah:8:4 > > RandyP :

By my count this would put the prophecy 12-18 months into the future.

kjv@Isaiah:8 > > RandyP :

Imagine how the people reading and hearing this would feel and what they would be compelled to do. The obvious reaction would be to seek out confederate alliances with stronger nations, but even the stronger nations themselves will be overcome by Assyria like flood waters. They would seek out familiar spirits and the occult, the Lord then would completely hide His face. The fulfillment of God's righteous redemptive plan, the Messiah Himself would become a stumbling block, a rock of offense, they would be in the dark. Again, each and every word was fulfilled. And as for the 'rock of offense' it continues to be fulfilled even today.

kjv@Isaiah:9:21 > > RandyP :

Manasseh, once the land of the tribes on the other side of the Jordan, now the land of Gilead.

kjv@Isaiah:9 > > RandyP :

How important to know that His anger is not turned but His hand is still extended. Israel/Judah/Manasseh have long strayed from any resemblance of covenant partnership with God; they have become exactly what covenant had told them not to be. The Lord has been more than long suffering towards them and is now prepared to do what He said would be done. This does not mean that it is all over though, that it all was a big mistake and that He is moving on without them; it means that they will serve His purpose just the same. For the present time it is to our benefit that this be, until the fulfillment of this Gentile age.

kjv@Isaiah:9 > > RandyP :

Should now we Gentiles glory that we have done better than Israel in obeying the Lord? No, no man shall glory except in Christ kjv@1Corinthians:1:27-31

kjv@Galatians:4:15 > > RandyP :

It appears that Paul's infirmity at this time may have been in his eyes or eye sight. Remember that his eyes at one time had been blinded and scaled over by the light of the Lord's glory.

kjv@Galatians:4:25 > > RandyP :

dict:easton Sinai

kjv@Galatians:4:25 > > RandyP :

Did you know that this Mount Sinai is supposedly also where Mohammed's horse Boraq ascended into heaven?

kjv@Galatians:4 > > RandyP :

Notice the passion with which Paul speaks of/to the Galatians as he extols the difference between the two covenants, how they are not to be inter-mingled.

kjv@Isaiah:10 > > RandyP :

The Lord is telling before hand what He is going to do as is right. He has been open and up front for generations telling them how it would be if did not keep their end of the covenant. He has extended the time before hand in patience and long suffering. Now is the time that He will act.

kjv@Isaiah:11 > > RandyP :

This prophecy of the Branch of Jesse appears to me to be of our Lord's millennial kingdom(?). There still seem to be poor and meek and wicked for Him to judge over, and nations. A second gathering of the remnant will be performed.

kjv@Isaiah:12:2 > > RandyP :

By the time all is said and done how true these words will be. How well we will realize and affirm "He has become my salvation".

kjv@Galatians:5 > > RandyP :

For Paul to say be not entangled in the yoke of bondage means that it is quiet possible to if not likely. It is something that we must guard ourselves from. In this case it centers around our perception of what justifies us in the end, the Law or Grace. In other ways it seems to be in resembling too closely the ways of this world or reverting back into our fleshly appetites and habits. The works of the flesh are manifest as are the fruits of the Spirit.

kjv@Isaiah:13 > > RandyP :

The Lord intends to use Babylon to accomplish His will on the one hand but, will punish them for their evil on the other. All of their strength and glory will come to nothing. He does not give up on Israel but, drives them hard to purge them. That He must drive them this hard says so much about the sin nature we are under; it is no little thing.

kjv@Isaiah:14 > > RandyP :

Removed from the context of the passage the section on Lucifer can be looked at as a description of the Devil; which may or may not be the author's intent. In context, we might think of it as a description of the king of Babylon who had similarities to the Devil and may have been heavily under his influence. The remainder of the prophecy in context namely the desolation of the city of Babylon has for a long time been fulfilled; the city ruin only recently haven been located by aerial satellite in Iraq. Plans are being made by some to rebuild it. It is mentioned again in latter day prophecy.

kjv@Isaiah:15 > > RandyP :

Moab is laid waste.

kjv@Galatians:6:14 > > RandyP :

There are those it has been reported who believe that cross was a symbolism added to the faith later by Constantine. Paul is not explaining a symbolism here, he is describing his key life principal. Whether he wore or prayed to a cross is of secondary consequence.

kjv@Galatians:6:11 > > RandyP :

I have heard theories that Paul may have been crippled or have a deformity in arm or hand. We have already summized that he could well have problems with his eye sight. We also know that he was beaten and stoned near to death on several occasions and therefore be severely damaged. The Galatians here would have been deeply moved by whatever this sentence points to; he does bear the marks of Christ.

kjv@Isaiah:16 > > RandyP :

The thought of invading troops walking freely through our streets is something we as Americans have not had to face. The long dreaded enemy of the Moabites, the lords of the occupation, doing as they pleased to whatever or whomever they pleased is one thing, but, to have it told to you three years in advance and to be told why another. You would know that you had done wrong!

kjv@Isaiah:17 > > RandyP :

The judgement continues throughout the region; Israel, Moab, and now Syria and beyond. The impact was devastating to all. History confirms that the Babylonian Empire was brutal and massive. It was not by accident nor their own doing however, but God's used their violent possessive treacherous nature to achieve His righteous purposes. Everyone had to take notice and the prophecies of Isaiah had to have been known/searched by many I would think.

kjv@Isaiah:18 > > RandyP :

Ethiopia? Look how far south this judgment reaches and that such a formidable army would be vanquished at such a distance. This is impressive!

kjv@Ephesians:1:3-6 > > RandyP :

We know at the very least that this predestination means that anybody/all that were going to be received into the eternal life to come was going to have to come to it through the adoption of Christ. Whether this means I or you specifically were chosen/singled out beforehand is not suggested by the language here but, may be quiet possible. The later may but a debatable point, not the former. Let us start off by what we know.

kjv@Ephesians:1:11-12 > > RandyP :

If this were to mean singled out beforehand, it could just as well mean that those specifically who first believed (early church, disciples) were singled out and not necessarily the rest of us who believed because of their testimony. Jesus for instance chose Peter at the shoreline and may have chosen him before even creation. This is not to disregard the predestination of all but to confirm at least this much.

kjv@Ephesians:1 > > RandyP :

An interesting unity of thought between Paul here and Peter's 'like precious faith' kjv@2Peter:1

kjv@Isaiah:19 > > RandyP :

Let's not forget that the Lord has created all nations. The God of Israel is known by these nations mentioned after frequent encounters. Now He is making Himself obvious. Egypt to this day has a strong Christian presence.

kjv@Ephesians:2 > > RandyP :

I sense that Paul is describing the larger body of believers; us, all, ye, we, both, together, strangers, foreigners, household, temple. The Holy Spirit inhabits a body of believers. He may work on/in us individually but, always for the benefit of the body. We often reverse this foundational truth, blaming/accusing the body, separating ourselves from it, criticizing/judging what is the work and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

kjv@Isaiah:22 > > RandyP :

The Lord does not do anything this serious without serious reason. He does not do without first making known the consequence and the transgression. There is a iniquity deep at heart. It is an iniquity that is of the type that cannot be purged even with this serious action except by death. Notice that they will be purged however. God has not given them up.

kjv@Ephesians:3:9 > > RandyP :

Jesus cannot be just another man. He was there with the Father before creation. The Father created it by Him.

kjv@Ephesians:3 > > RandyP :

Unsearchable riches, mysteries, things abundantly above all that we ask or think; this is our Lord and His Father. You ask me what kind of things. How could I know if they are unsearchable mysteries? You would say then they don't exist. Do things only exist that you can comprehend? Are they only believable if they can be comprehended? In a sense I can know the unknowable things by the things that can be known. In another, I don't really even know fully the things that I do know. All this does not mean that things are unbelievable, they are simply unknowable. Anything beyond that requires revelation.

kjv@Isaiah:24 > > RandyP :

This is an unimaginable time. To see everything broken down and laid to waste. To fear the next thing whatever it is to happen. To know what is was before and have none of that. All because of sin, the breaking of the eternal covenant, going about our lives completely void. This time may be a revelation of our inward selves, our spiritual habitat, our relationship with our creator; desolate, wasted, rotting and decayed.

kjv@Isaiah:25 > > RandyP :

I can't help but think that we have minimized sin to such a point where these actions of God seem extreme instead of thinking of them as faithful and true. That He would have to do all of this and to this extent should tell us everything that we need to know about this sin nature. By the time that we are delivered through and out of this present truth there is a tremendous new life. Death will be gone, tears wiped away, rebuke shall be lifted, a feast partaken of.

kjv@Isaiah:26 > > RandyP :

It is by the grace of God that we have everything that we have today. What if that is taken back or diminished? It would seem like a cruel punishment to those who think that it was all by their hand would it not? To those that knew that it was all by His grace it would seem well within His rights, deliberate and purposeful, even transformative almost like child birth.

kjv@Ephesians:4 > > RandyP :

We see the importance of the body of believers to our own personal growth process; it can not be escaped. Much of our development is in the striving for the unity of the Spirit, a most difficult but yet essential task. The bonds of peace, the unity of faith, the whole body fitly joined together, these are the works of the Holy Spirit and the directions given our pastors teachers and evangelists. When we give ourselves over to Christ this is what we give ourselves over to. Anything other is of our old corrupt selves.

kjv@Ephesians:5 > > RandyP :

There are those who follow after the darkness of this world in it's many components. There is us who have been called out of darkness into the light, to be light, light that manifests. Ways listed to do this include separating ourselves from that darkness, not partaking in their darkness, walking circumspectly, speaking joyfully to one another in psalms and songs etc, giving proper structure and definition to marriages. Walk in love as did Christ.

kjv@Isaiah:29:1 > > RandyP :

Ariel = Jerusalem, City of David

kjv@Isaiah:29 > > RandyP :

The Lord does not just do these things without purpose and results. The path of men digs itself into deep ruts unaware. As if those ruts become their treasured possession, they are not about to give them up. They have rationalized, fully justified, become comfortable in their rebellion. Hearts harden, the foreign becomes normal and nothing by God short of this seems to penetrate and steer the peoples where God intends. As far as they are concerned they are doing everything right. It is sad for them that they have to go through this but, informative to us; this is after all our sin nature as well.

kjv@Isaiah:30:33 > > RandyP :

Tophet = dict:easton Tophet

kjv@Isaiah:30 > > RandyP :

Like a child it would be quiet normal for a child to run from it's scolding parent. This people is attempting to run to Egypt, they wont however run away from the Lord there. Often in the Bible we see a top down view of the people from the king's rebellious heart down. Here we are seeing the heart of the people out on the streets asking to have the Holy One of Israel removed from their midst. The end of this judgment, the reward as described, does not appear to have come even now or is just now coming to Israel; it may even be for the millennial kingdom.

kjv@Ephesians:6:1-9 > > RandyP :

Do as unto the Lord, unto Christ, knowing that your master.... no matter what profession/station of life.

kjv@Ephesians:6 > > RandyP :

The amour of the Lord is not occasional attire; it is not 'Parade Dress'. Each item points to spiritual necessity not option. Spiritual warfare does not stop on those days that we wish not to play. These are the days which we need it most.

kjv@Isaiah:32 > > RandyP :

An interesting new character type is identified here - women at ease. I don't recall this type elsewhere such as the Proverbs where so many traits are profiled. I can imagine though where this trait would be dangerous being disconnected from the urgent religious and political matters at hand, disinterested in the catastrophic events happen all around, disassociating them selves from the poor/needy/oppressed/struggling/upright, attentive only perhaps to their own social rank and cultural standing. There is the sin of calling evil good and good evil but this almost the sin of not calling it anything at all.

kjv@Isaiah:33:1 > > RandyP :

There are those that can take advantage of others even in desperate times. Tragedy, catastrophe, evacuation, desperation always brings out those treacherous scheming thieves to prey upon the unfortunate and transitional souls.

kjv@Isaiah:33:15 > > RandyP :

This may sound easy to do now, but, who knows how they will react in times of great national fear and desperation, when the difference might mean food on ones napkin or a shelter for a cold night versus not. If it were easy during these times more people would be able to do it.

kjv@Philippians:1 > > RandyP :

Christ is being preached, by Paul's life and by his death, by others responding to Paul's absence some in contention some in love, by the churches outreach and operation even under extreme persecution. Some would think that they have the upper hand but, who has the upper hand over God? Is this not how He said it would be? Is this not a necessary part of our sanctification to share in His sufferings? Is He not sovereign and in complete control? Has any one or anything snuck up on Him that he had mistakenly underestimated or poorly considered? Of course not, for Christ is preached!

kjv@Philippians:2:12 > > RandyP :

There is the eternal salvation direct from our confession and repentance acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord, the salvation that because of His sacrifice was purchased and imputed to us. There is also the salvation having the knowledge of Jesus Christ that we are fruitful with as applied toward our daily circumstances and situations; this is the type of salvation that we work out. One can be saved in the one sense but yet be a poor worker of the salvation that effects daily life, even by the things in this same chapter Paul speaks to, contention and strife and isolation from the broader body etc..

kjv@Philippians:2 > > RandyP :

Paul has returned Epaphroditus to the brethren in Philippi to cheer this congregation up. Paul is also about to send Timothy his prize student to strengthen them. In his letters Paul seems to make everything even general matters as a teaching opportunity. We also see that Paul could only trust certain people for certain types of missions. Paul not only thought of who needed help but who it was that he was sending.

kjv@Isaiah:34 > > RandyP :

Edom is included in this list of destructions. It shall be to them as if the skies have fallen.

kjv@Isaiah:35 > > RandyP :

If this connects back to kjv@Isaiah:34 does this put it forward into a end time prophecy?

kjv@Isaiah:37 > > RandyP :

We tend to imagine the worst. If this enemy was strong enough to do this or that to the others than what chance do I have. The other nations stuck to their flase gods; God was using Assyria to clean their house. Judah had their false gods but, there was also a remnant of those committed to Jehovah; God was using Assyria as a means of cleansing and correction. What a tremendous testimony especially being that the Assyrian defeat was prophicied. God also used a false messenger from Ethiopia. All things work for God's purposes, the more open, the harder we look for that common thread, the sooner we will see the events and circumstances in our lives in their truer light.

kjv@Isaiah:38:5 > > RandyP :

Is this a common occurance? Is the kings life extended because he asked for it? or was it extended because in this time and place against Assyria Hezekiah's life meant more to God's plan than starting over with a new king in Judah? If so, then why did God allow his health to deteriorate in the first place? To affect the kings judgements from here on out?

kjv@Isaiah:38 > > RandyP :

The king was suffering from some disease causing the skin to boil. Indications are that it was making him to be bitter towards God. Hezekiah had been a good godly king, the right man for the times at hand in Judah, but, not even that keeps one from suffering deadly illness, the curse of Adam. We cannot say that bitterness caused this cancer. We cannot say that the illness was intended to bring to light a hidden bitterness that then could be dealt with. We can not say that Hezekiah's illness was intended to stir the faith of the others around him. For then we would have to say the same about anyone of us. Though these things may have resulted, we can say that God dealt with everything that happened with the good of His plan and love for His servant in mind. The same would have been true if Hezekiah would have been called back into the Lord's rest.

kjv@Philippians:3 > > RandyP :

Pressing toward the mark, not that we have already attained perfection; having no other confidence but in Christ, the fellowship of His death and sufferings that we may know the power of His resurection. How different this sacrifice/pursuit is from mere religion.

kjv@Isaiah:39 > > RandyP :

The text doesn't exactly say that because he showed them all that God was going to send them back to take all. The taking was because of the national sins of Judah and the prophecies of the previous chapters. Hezekiah was shown that there would at least be peace during his remaining fifteen or fewer years on earth. Why he would show them all his treasures for simply expressing concern about his prior health is to me a puzzle.

kjv@Isaiah:40:3 > > RandyP :

tsk@Isaiah:40:3 This passage is frequently quoted by the New Testament writers.

kjv@Isaiah:40:10 > > RandyP :

Does this confirm that His reward/work has been previously accomplished as then His work? If so, than this is a passage concerning His second coming. First He comes as a sacrificial lamb, completes the work and receives the reward, now He comes with a strong arm.

kjv@Philippians:4:5 > > RandyP :

How do we best show moderation to all men? Something to seriously consider.

kjv@Isaiah:41:26 > > RandyP :

The Lord is righteous. A large measure of that righteousness can be found in the fact that He announces what will be before it happens. It is not to show off, though it is impressive, it is to warn and instruct. It is righteous for instance for the highway department to put a warning sign before a sharp curve or steep decline. Whether there is good ahead or danger it is right of the Lord to show it in advance. It also shows that He is a Lord like no other with vision and capability to perform it.

kjv@Isaiah:41 > > RandyP :

You can imagine a tyranical king thinking that his mighty hand had done all this. How does he explain the fact that wonders have occurred even where his feet have not gone? that there is a momentum and wave far beyond his? Surely he will not admit that he has been played like a pawn just as all the rest. These things even are by God.

kjv@Isaiah:42:1 > > RandyP :

kjv@Matthew:3:17 kjv@Matthew:17:5 This is Jesus.

kjv@Isaiah:42 > > RandyP :

mhcc@Isaiah:42 worth the read!

kjv@Colossians:1:2 > > RandyP :

dict:easton Colossians

kjv@Colossians:1 > > RandyP :

What better explanation of who Jesus is to us!

kjv@Isaiah:48 > > RandyP :

Knowing the heart of man and His servant Israel, the Lord knew how we would bend the truth of this thing, that we would claim we knew it, that our own hands or our own gods brought this thing to pass. The Lord therefore declared it long before it happened, declared a new thing that could not be known any other way and performed it with intricate precision. This is how He has to operate given our blind and corrupted nature. It may seem terrible that Judah must suffer the furnace of affliction in double measure. It seems odd that this would be the only way left to refine them and prove His love/covenant. But, it seems odd that we would refuse to see things in the light of truth, follow His commandments and directions, not pollute His name with our rebellious and self serving whims.

kjv@Isaiah:48-49 > > RandyP :

Babylon did not gain it's strength by it's own greatness or doings. Their surge was as unpredicted and irrational as any other peaceable nation of that time. The fact that the Lord made it happen testifies to His power, not theirs. They were the 'Grand Lady' of the region. He made them into a war like empire perhaps like no other in history not for their own glory (He would quickly take that away) but to reproof Judah and alert the known world His displeasure with sin/the inability of man fulfilling the Law/the coming of His Messiah/His unmovable commitment His covenant to Jacob.

kjv@Isaiah:49 > > RandyP :

The Lord has done all this. The Lord is doing and will do all this. And yet Israel says that the Lord has deserted them, that they are barren and childless. Oh if they only knew the great thing that the Lord is doing all around them, the mighty fulfillment of everything that they though had passed. They shall not be ashamed that wait for Him.

kjv@Colossians:4:3 > > RandyP :

The Lord makes evangelical opportunities to speak for those that are watching for them. For most of us that means the daily one on one talks. For some that means the larger event or location based individual or team efforts. The fact that Paul asks us to pray for these means that the Lord does seek these types of prayers.

kjv@Colossians:4:12-13 > > RandyP :

Some are given the burden of prayer. It does not say what other positions or responsibilities this person may of held. To be saluted as a warrior of prayer and acknowledged for a particular burden for some specific congregations is illustrative of how Paul's team operated.

kjv@Colossians:4:15 > > RandyP :

Church is where ever people regularly meet. Often we get too wrapped in buildings and architecture and pipe organs and stain glass. A house, a park, a drive-in theater, a school, a rodeo grandstand, a prison cafeteria all work just as well if not better. It is not the type of place that is important but the types of hearts that gather.

kjv@Colossians:4:16 > > RandyP :

There are other epistles that Paul wrote. Perhaps several. Perhaps daily. Paul was not attempting to write for inclusion into some soon to be published New Testament collection. He was not seeking to dominate the other writers with his massive content. He was addressing the needs of the people and congregations that he was placed directly over (Romans possibly being the exception - perhaps planted by acquaintances that he had discipled). His letters were treasured enough that people kept hold of them. By the time the Testament was canonized several years after his death there were enough of these verifiable copies still circulated for them to be included into what we hold today as scripture. Many of these other letters, though I am sure were treasured have either been lost or cannot be accurately verified as there were many plagiarizers of his name and authority even yet today.

kjv@Isaiah:50 > > RandyP :

One that truly fears the Lord should walk in a confidence such as this. The Lord did not cause these things to happen but, His arm is not shortened that He can't get us out. He gives us the tongue of the learned, the ear to hear. He will be our help. If there is no light in us, He needs to be that light and that fire. BY this we will not be confounded and those that contend against us will not succeed for it is He that works through us. Fear the Lord, hear and obey His voice, walk in His light

kjv@Isaiah:51 > > RandyP :

The matter of perspective is all important; who is who and what is what. Heaven and Earth and everything in it, all this has the Lord done and still does. What man/nation is there that can alter one thing, and yet this is who we fear. In this case we read of the children of Abraham, the children of Zion. God has indeed given them over to a measure of correction. It seems like a long time and an impossible burden for them. The Lord will accomplish His will and their is none to stop Him; the cup of trembling shall be removed.

kjv@Isaiah:52 > > RandyP :

The confidence of the couple chapters can be found in this: that there will be a 'Servant'. He shall deal prudently, exalted, extolled, be very high. His visage will have been marred more than any other man. The nations have been told of Him and soon shall see and consider and know that all that was told them was true. All eyes will be astonished. For the eyes of Zion's daughters will be opened and Zion itself returned. Who is this marred man? What is it that He will return to dothat we have been told about Him that will astonish us when we see it come true?

kjv@Isaiah:53 > > RandyP :

Again we read of the 'Servant' as being the 'Arm of the Lord'. His visage so marred beyond any other; a tender plant wounded for our transgressions. He has poured out His soul unto death. The details here are exquisite. Can there be any doubt as to who Isaiah is talking about? The Father sees the travail of this particular soul and shall be satisfied. He bares their iniquities and justifies many.

kjv@Isaiah:54 > > RandyP :

The effect of the 'Servant's' redemptive work is glorious. The life to follow extreme. For now we have this eternal hope. It guides us and feeds us and inspires us. Soon it will be our reality. Instead of a flood of destruction it will be to us a flood of supreme love and good will.

kjv@1Thessalonians:1 > > RandyP :

People do notice. There is not a particular individual mentioned here. The congregation is likely acting together as one, they are working and laboring doing things as a body that are being observed and talked about. One thing that stands out is that they are not doing what everybody else is doing, in this case having turned from idols. For this they suffered affliction yet withstood the pressure with patience and hope. Such things stand out and are talked about distances beyond our personal knowing and causing the gospel to be spread. Where can we stand out in our churches today?

kjv@1Thessalonians:2 > > RandyP :

We see the effort and attitude that the Apostles team took on to plant the Church of Thessalonica; the burden that they had, the focus, the care and diligence. Peter's team may have had a similar framework as described in kjv@2Peter:1:5-8.

kjv@1Thessalonians:2 > > RandyP :

We know from past writings that Paul was aware of when the Lord had closed or opened a door for the ministry. Given the level of public opposition, affliction and persecution etc.. it makes me wonder what a closed door looks like. Here we see Satan hindering. How does that look different enough to know the difference between the two?

kjv@1Thessalonians:3 > > RandyP :

It is hard to know how people will react to pressure. You work hard to establish something. You may have to step aside knowing that the work is not yet completed but progressing forward. You hope and pray and send envoys to check in now and then, but, it is a nerve racking ordeal no doubt. The pressure these early churches were under was considerable. The forces (even Satanic) specifically following the team of Paul extreme. The hindrance mentioned may not have been so much upon the team being able to travel there as much as what their arriving might have brought. Were they ready? Was the lack in their faith something to do in the armament of believers against the Satanic warfare being experienced?

kjv@1Thessalonians:4:5 > > RandyP :

concupiscence is a forbidden lustful longing

kjv@1Thessalonians:4 > > RandyP :

It is clearly evident that this church is operating in a good amount of love. Paul exhorts them to love all the more and gives them a picture of what that is to look like working quietly and honestly with their own hands, abstaining from the prevalent idolatrous fornications and lusts.

kjv@1Thessalonians:4:13-18 > > RandyP :

There are differing theories that can be scripturally supported regarding the dead in Christ. The most common would suggests that this passage is speaking of the body being at sleep but the spirit being fully awake and present with the Lord. This would allow for Paul's 'being absent from this body means being present with the Lord' comment as well as Jesus' 'this day you will be with me in paradise' statement as well as others (beggar and rich man etc..). Others suggest this is a literal sleep (like Lazarus), that time is imperceivable in eternity, that from our side this sleep is for a while, from eternity it would be instantaneous. There are other plausible explanations as well. Either way, the Lord has matters well in hand, and the soul is at a state of grace and peace.

kjv@Isaiah:55 > > RandyP :

The covenant He makes with us Gentile tribes is the same that He made with David. It is without price and satisfy like no other. He has chosen and glorified a nation that was not a nation so that the others will take notice and turn from the wicked and foolish ways. His ways are like nothing we would intellectualize and His word will accomplish that which He purposed without fail. Joy and peace and great blessing will be the end result.

kjv@Isaiah:56 > > RandyP :

The call goes out to all peoples not just Israel. Israel has gotten itself into big trouble at this point because it has forgotten the Sabbaths. They have proven and illustrated over and over the nature of all men having had difficulties laying maintaining the Law and fulfilling their end of the covenants. If not them then certainly not the Gentiles. For them this Sabbath will become this 'Servant' (the promise to and mercies of David) described previously t(he salvation to come, the righteousness to be revealed). His watchmen Israel for a time will be blind, but, they too will come from their own drunk fest around to this gracious feast at the table of a greater covenant.

kjv@Isaiah:57 > > RandyP :

Idolatry, sorcery, adultery go hand in hand, they are part of the same mind set. These are spiritual sins that play out in physical ways. The participants know first hand the emptiness of this way but yet continue due to their despising God. They seem to know God and are aware of His holding His peace for this time, therefore purposely taunt it to His face. The symbolisms pictured here of stones and posts ointments etc.. would have direct meaning to them being specific to elements their religion.

kjv@Isaiah:57 > > RandyP :

The plan is not for God to have to contend much longer. The time that He will is of His choosing. All paths cannot lead to eternal blessing and not all souls will be unconditionally accepted. This moment is but an opportunity to turn oneself around. He has now accomplished all that His righteousness/mercy has required Him. He will perform that which He has promised. He will dwell eternally only with those of humble and contrite hearts, revive their spirit and once and for all heal them. For the others it will be a raging murky sea of their own consequence apart from Him. How much clearer can the choice be?

kjv@Isaiah:58:4 > > RandyP :

What an interesting statement. Fasting to make ones voice heard on high instead of fasting to hear the 'Voice on High'. Fasting for strife and debate? Much caution should be made to fast for the right intents.

kjv@Isaiah:58 > > RandyP :

The fast and the Sabbath are mentioned together in one passage. We see illustrated how easily the fast can be contorted into something lesser that it is not. The true fulfillment of the fast is much more wide spread than we most often allow. Can the same be said of the Sabbath then being that they are placed within the same prophetic declaration? Is this the fast He has chosen? Is this the Sabbath He chosen?

kjv@Isaiah:59 > > RandyP :

This is a massive description of sin and how things are seen from the Lord's vantage point. Let us remember that this is not just the Heathen Gentiles that He is talking about, this is also the Religious Hebrew to whom this is addressed.He looked down and saw no man remember. This is why He has had to do what He has done. This is why He seems as distant as He does. This is why there will be a day of His vengeance. Not because He is a big meanie, because this massive and profound iniquity (of which we are barely aware) cannot any longer be allowed.

kjv@Isaiah:60 > > RandyP :

It is amazing how differently Jerusalem will be viewed and treated in the age to come. How many centuries has it been hated and trampled. Yet it is the sign of His covenant. When He finally glorifies it it will be truly glorified. Other peoples will bring from their treasure to make it the delight of nations.

kjv@Isaiah:61:1 > > RandyP :

Jesus quotes this early on in His ministry as being Him

kjv@Isaiah:61 > > RandyP :

We wee the nations serving Israel and the Israelites being special priests to them. There is a definite order and social/religious structure in this new kingdom.

kjv@Isaiah:62 > > RandyP :

It may seem odd that there is such a focus on singular objects, Jerusalem and Zion in the age to come. Surely the focus will be on the Lord, but, the tangible proof of that focus will be these symbolic things. That the Lord has done this, that it is now viewed by others as He had said it would is the proof of His commitment. That we would come to do this in this manner is then proof of ours.

kjv@Isaiah:63 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:Spirit+of+the+LORD The Holy Spirit has been active all along.

kjv@Isaiah:64:4 > > RandyP :

kjv@1Corinthians:2:9 quoted by Paul

kjv@Isaiah:64:8 > > RandyP :

kjv@Romans:9:20-24 alluded to by Paul

kjv@Isaiah:64:6 > > RandyP :

kjv@STRING:our+righteousness

kjv@Isaiah:65 > > RandyP :

There will be work and labor in that age, but, it will be pleasant and not cursed as it is now. A man will eat of his own labor.

kjv@Isaiah:65 > > RandyP :

I cannot explain how a Hebrew today would be able to explain away the fact that their Lord was found by another people and not them because of their rebellion. It is said so and has been said all along. How does one explain this passage if it doesn't say what it says. It is not as if we went out seeking to replace them as the apple of His eye, it is that sought us out and found us because they wouldn't listen.

kjv@Isaiah:65 > > RandyP :

They are still the apple of His eye as we are reading. If only He was theirs.

kjv@1Thessalonians:5:18 > > RandyP :

So what is the will of God concerning us? What is it that He is grooming in us no matter what our situation? Intelligence? Superior charm and tolerance? Personal mastery and the ability to channel His energy to achieve our many goals? No, thanks!

kjv@1Thessalonians:5:18 > > RandyP :

kjv@1Thessalonians:4:3 suggests that the will is to sanctify us. Could these two seemingly different concepts go hand in hand? kjv@STRING:will+of+God

kjv@1Thessalonians:5:23 > > RandyP :

kjv@1Thessalonians:4:3 sanctify to abstain from fornication was previously mentioned at least in the Thessalonian's case. sanctif

kjv@2Thessalonians:1 > > RandyP :

The work of Christ here is explained as being two fold: using the tribulation of others to grow and stir us, using the persecution of others as the mark against them in the day of judgment. We should not be discouraged by tribulations which to us is a righteous token of His judgment, a sharing in the same things He Himself suffered.

kjv@2Thessalonians:2 > > RandyP :

There are purposes to His plan beyond the simplicities of our daily life and struggles. There is the revealing of the Wicked One who must be outed before the Lord's return.

kjv@2Thessalonians:2 > > RandyP :

For those who say that the Bible does not teach about Hell and a Satan, one would have to remove 2Thessalonians from the Bible to make that conclusion. While they were at it they would have to remove the very words of Jesus Christ and the remainder of the Old and New testaments as well.

kjv@Jeremiah:1:8 > > RandyP :

Wouldn't you think that such a young God fearing prophet would be a treasure to Judah considering the rough patch that they are going through? What would he need delivering from?

kjv@Jeremiah:1:16 > > RandyP :

Idolatry and worshiping works of ones own hands seem to go together. Now days, it can be said that we no longer have other gods by name, that we don't see idolatry like this anymore. Rather, where there is the worship of the work of ones own hands there is likely idolatry. Logic today has been twisted, that we all could worship the same God just in different ways. We know however how Jehovah looks upon this twisted belief, it being another god just as vile as Baal or Malack. This is part of what makes Jehovah so despised amongst these so called worshipers. These are not the worshipers of Jehovah. How can they be the worshipers of the one true God?

kjv@Jeremiah:1 > > RandyP :

At least in Jeremiah's case he was chosen out before he was even formed in the womb. In this case chosen to be a prophet. And he became a prophet at a very early age with great impact and miraculous confirmations. How much further amongst us does this extend? We are not told directly here. Are we chosen before the womb? This argument is used pro and con in the abortion debate. The suggestion that a mother's rights trump God's (even if not pre-selected in every conception, merely rather on the possibility) should cause alarm. Only the hardened soul can completely wipe this fact off the board without at least some resemblance of consideration. Then there is the consideration that even if not chosen, even if not chosen to be a prophet or great historical figure, God saw fit for that conception to occur.

kjv@Jeremiah:2 > > RandyP :

The language of these pictures paint an indelible image that cannot be erased nor altered no matter what translation. Withered vines and broken cisterns, insolent camels and wild asses, brides in harlots attire, butchers stained in blood declaring themselves innocent. These things cannot be mis-interpreted into being something better or good about the state of Israel/Judah. The Lord is extremely upset there can be no doubt.

kjv@Jeremiah:2 > > RandyP :

We have it that Israel had crossed the line quiet some time ago. The Lord requests that they look back to a time very early on 'the love of their espousals' that He seems to view fondly. If we look back we see that even in that time Israel didn't seem so faithfully betrothed. Yet the Lord has waited. He has been more than patient. If that was a fond time for Him just imagine how bad things must have been now at this critical point.

kjv@Jeremiah:3 > > RandyP :

Signs of sin of the nation Israel here are refusing to be ashamed, adulterous idolatry, dealing treacherously, seeking salvation from hills and mountains, perverting ways, not obeying voice of Lord. In their division with Judah, which may have been rightful in and of its self, they had moved the their center of worship from Jerusalem to the two high places within their own borders to avoid having to go into Judah to worship. Which was a massive transgression. They were also fighting apparently over the possession of the Ark of the Covenant. The cure? Return from backsliding, acknowledge your transgression against the Lord and the scattering of your ways to strangers.

kjv@Jeremiah:4 > > RandyP :

I see two possible explanations as to why the language very similar to kjv@Genesis:1 would be used here. 1a: This coming judgment will so severe as to symbolically set Israel/Judah back to the beginning as if none of this covenant had ever been. 1b: It will be so devastating as to appear as dark and chaotic as earths infancy. 2: Gap theory suggests a gap between kjv@Genesis:1:1 and kjv@Genesis:1:2 where this type of judgment actually occurred to a pre-Adamic human or angelic race on earth; that what we read is not an account of creation but of a earth's first restoration. Both explanations may not be exclusive as well.

kjv@Jeremiah:5 > > RandyP :

Remember that the Lord is declaring this in advance. He had offered to them the possibility once again to escape, but, knew in this case that they would not. If He knew they wouldn't accept these terms why would He even offer them? By having this declared, by having this written for the sake of the remnant, they in the future will know these things to be true and thus the Lord to be greatly feared.

kjv@Jeremiah:5 > > RandyP :

The emphasis is on the fact that both Israel and Judah believe themselves to be all of this, that the Lord supposedly is with them and yet there is not a man to be found that executes His judgments; no one fighting for His cause. They have become rich and that is their own proof. The Lord had stricken them and they have not grieved, consumed them and still they have not received correction. Certainly we as a nation must be concerned of this too, but, therein we see the difficulty; individuals may believe, even majorities of individuals, the course of nations however are not necessarily stirred by well intentioned individuals.

kjv@Jeremiah:6 > > RandyP :

The Word of the Lord to them is a reproach and their ears will hear nothing of it. How then should this be dealt with by Yahweh? Does the people's 'god of unconditional compassion' have to just sit back and take it? Many today continue this notion of God's unconditional compassion not knowing what compassion even is nor knowing what an extremely compromised position a righteous God is placed under by such faulty/selfish definition. Rather, God's unconditional compassion is in that no matter what one has done/no matter how badly one may have sinned and acted, Jesus Christ died and raised for the purchase providing means for your return. Should you choose to return/repent/compromise yourself and thus receive this unconditional grace He will unconditionally pardon and accept you into His everlasting kingdom. God's great compromise is in the giving of His Son. If you are unwilling to accept that alone for your salvation, what more can/would He do?

kjv@2Thessalonians:3 > > RandyP :

Who is it disrupting this church? Men who do not work but that are expecting to eat, to be fed from other's labor. How many are there of these men in our church today? How have we responded to them? Have we admonished them? Have we set them out? We think of our modern church as an open invitation to the Gospel not realizing that to them we have presented an open invitation for us to feed and shelter them and allow them to cause divisions amongst us playing upon our compassionate (but blind) intentions. This is true in a physical daily living sense as well as in a spiritual ministerial/evangelical sense. One must work to eat and eat of his own hands.

kjv@1Timothy:1 > > RandyP :

This letter is a interesting change of focus from Paul's previous. Those letters were written church congregations and regions of churches. This is personal letter to one of Paul's dearest team members, a man that he has taken on somewhat as his protégé. We are afforded a look into a much more personal and professional part of the Apostle's outlook. Much like two artisans/composers comparing insights/notes, the elder to the younger.

kjv@1Timothy:1 > > RandyP :

Matters of the Law today as in their day have stirred divisions and confusion in the Church. The Law is of course good when understood in it's rightful/lawful context. The Law brings us to the knowledge of Christ. It is a hired nanny who brings us by the hand from distances where we were to the very doorsteps of the master. It is not the master, the Lord is the master and His grace is the primary curriculum. Paul himself testifies to this fact. The Law is a yoke, a bond, a sentence, the sting of death. We would not have know sin except for the Law. It shows us how we are, how futile our situation is against our sin, the need for the Christ and His complete redemption. (see kjv@Romans:5-6)

kjv@Jeremiah:7 > > RandyP :

If one could imagine taking the temple called by Yahweh's name with all of it's history and using it to worship Baal, sending prophets and no one listening; how angered the Lord must be. When a religion becomes a place and not a person, worship a happening and not a lifestyle, judgment for everything except what is to be judged, this is what you have. Where are the priests? Where are the great orators of truth? Where is the resistance or reactionaries? Does a religion that sacrifices it's live children really have that much to offer other than in your face God rebellion?

kjv@Jeremiah:8 > > RandyP :

How could one say after having seen these things come to pass that they were not from the Lord when He told them before hand what exactly He was going to do and why? This did happen as it was foretold and we have a considerable amount of historical proof. We do know how they reacted and what their religion became after this up to the time of Jesus on earth; that they saw it as exactly this as well. Even that however was not enough. So then, how can we say today even that the Lord did not do this and that this was not why?

kjv@1Timothy:2 > > RandyP :

Hard as it is to understand, Paul's restrictions upon women teaching were not because of some hatred or prejudice he had upon women. We see from his letters that many women loved him and that they held important positions in his ministry team. Paul honestly expresses his reasoning, a fact that cannot be denied, Eve was the one deceived not Adam. How that further plays out in the daughters of Eve is not so clear but, it must be considered. To inflame one's self, to jump hastily to the womans defense can be just as much a proof of what Paul is cautious of as it is proof against. One must also consider the types of women drawn to a woman pastor, who might see her position for something she does not intend, and what the make up of the church then becomes. The verse actually does not forbid women from teaching per se, it forbids a teaching that gives an feminist impression or that could be percieved to be in conjunction/tainted with usurping authority over men.

kjv@Jeremiah:9:24 > > RandyP :

The thought should not be that when the Lord acts in loving kindness He acts one way and when He acts in judgment it is another. The Lord always acts in loving-kindness just as He acts in judgment. There is no separation. Those that think that a loving God would not judge are caught in a loop of self justification, nothing that they could do deserves His judgment, or so they think. Instead, judgment and mercy go together, there cannot be one without the other especially when you are talking the hearts and lives of billions of people. Ask yourself, what is loving about sovereign Deity that simply over looks all of the ills men inflict upon themselves and others? What is loving about a God that created us to be happy and fulfilled as one thing but allows us to be everything other than that in this sad sad state?

kjv@Jeremiah:9:3-5 > > RandyP :

Could any of us say today that we have been valiant for the truth on earth? God makes Himself and His will known to man at great expense to Himself and yet may continues not to know Him? He perpetuates the testimony and revelations of His Son throughout all time at great expense to His valiant ones and we see it as irrelevant and unapproachable? We proceed from evil to evil never satisfied with the evil just committed? Never filled full of our evil to the point of drawing back from the table and declaring that is enough for me, I can take it no more? Asking our neighbor and or brother as if they would know truth and be valiant for truth any better?

kjv@Jeremiah:10 > > RandyP :

Is it not in God to have feelings as well? We go about as if we are the only ones that feel violated and forgotten and grieved and spoiled. Is it that He is unaffected by what we say and do or is it that it just doesn't matter to us? Is it even in our way to direct our own steps? We demand of Him to be righteous enough not to be affected by these things that we do, to be above it all, but not of Him to be righteous enough to actually do something about all of this.

kjv@1Timothy:3:16 > > RandyP :

Remember this verse. It should roll off the tongue just as fluently as kjv@John:3:16

kjv@1Timothy:3:10 > > RandyP :

One is proven blameless and found to be of good report before being considered for the position of deacon; not afterward or by the process of. The job isn't up to anyone who thinks that he might be a good candidate, it is up to the few that have proven themselves to be in very substantial and difficult ways. The powers of deacon and bishop are too tempting otherwise for those who simply seek to obtain that power for their own glory.

kjv@Jeremiah:11:3-5 > > RandyP :

It all sounded well and fine at the time. God promises all of this and all they had to do is simply obey. They did not though in that day nor did they in Jeremiah's. No where along the way did they, they could not. This is the nature of sin. Despite all the good intentions from both parties the sin nature will not do that which is in the best interest. It always works against that thinking that it alone is in the right/has it's best interest at heart. It may not always be a conscious decision as well but, more as an impulse of the flesh that is intellectually justified after the fact. The purpose of God's dealings are to prove to us this nature so that the necessity and redemption of His Son's blood may be depended upon.

kjv@Jeremiah:11 > > RandyP :

The chief complaint seem to be of the worship of false gods. From that branch out a multitude of other whoredoms and transgressions. As God has amplified Israel/Judah that all the nations of all the times might watch and hear of His dealings, such a nation as this called by His name and home of His tabernacle hear on Earth cannot be allowed to much leeway. Double measure blessings. Double measure curse and reproof. Today, we should know well the Lord's feeling towards other gods and false worship, but instead we seem to glory in it.

kjv@Jeremiah:12 > > RandyP :

The Lord promises that He will do all this but, it will not be without purpose, they will be brought back into their inheritance for one more test. Should they not pass that final test, He will utterly pluck the nation out of the land. He did just that. For nearly two thousand years Israel had been plucked/scattered and destroyed. Even the land itself largely became a desolate place. So when He had said 'But if they will not obey...' we could have guessed what their response was when they came back from this first testing was going to be.

kjv@Jeremiah:13 > > RandyP :

The antidote for national pride is national shame. In shame the false reasonings and consequences cannot be ignored. The base of wicked's power is broken up and the people are forced into a moment of thinking for themselves. People will reflect upon the words of these many prophets. How can transgression be explained away when the case against them is so well presented beforehand?

kjv@1Timothy:5 > > RandyP :

The full time charge of the church is for those with absolutely no other means. They are to be given shelter and provision and daily tasks to do for the church as is proper. The church produces outreach to others as well in attempting to connect them to the resources of their own families, the community, redevelopment or retraining, fostering marriage/match making within the fellowship. There are many to take advantage of the church and few wise enough to commingle compassion with prudence. The church is forced off task and those most needy are neglected. If the church is to act this way then so should we as individuals as well.

kjv@1Timothy:6:10 > > RandyP :

It is too bad that the whole verse isn't quoted the many times others quote this. The further context gives the quote much greater definition. We should get in a habit of this as well.

kjv@1Timothy:6 > > RandyP :

This epistle has been written to encourage and develop a younger pastor on Paul's team. It is interesting how the letter dives into the more daily essentials of being a pastor and an example of Christs to the fellowship and community as a whole. The functions of a church, the how to's of keeping the church activities focused and not distracted, it's investment in the truly needy, it's absence from vain arguments and partiality, the qualifications of elders and deacons, what to look for in people that may intend to take advantage of the church's compassion, etc... all these things good for us to know as well; pastor's or not.

kjv@2Timothy:1 > > RandyP :

Timothy appears to be suffering some type of affliction leading toward possible discouragement. There is a constant resistance towards the gospel, the greater the accomplishments the greater the push back. No doubt Timothy's ministry is having an impact judged by the resistance it is receiving. Paul is encouraging Timothy not to hold back or shy away from what his ministry is facing, the Lord has not left him high and dry. What good is it to do all of this good and yet give it up because of some resistance? The Lord Himself suffered such, it is a sign of righteousness.

kjv@2Timothy:2 > > RandyP :

When the heat of affliction is on a congregation is pulled many unpredictable directions. One man alone cannot hold it all together. It benefits from previous study and training and relationship fostering and building, it is helped by preparations and establishment of others in their roles and armaments, but, in the end it just has to be given in it's entirety to God. The pastor must not rely on his own strength and resource, ego or pride in these times, he must rely as he did day one on the hand of His Lord.

kjv@Jeremiah:14 > > RandyP :

If one were to listen to the many prophets of that day one would think everything to be all right. A prophet like Jeremiah would stand out because he would be contrary. The people tend to pick and choose their prophets based upon what serves them best. One wold think that God works in numbers, so if the majority of prophets all said one thing that this would likely be the word of God. Most generally this could not be further from the truth.

kjv@Jeremiah:15 > > RandyP :

Remember again why this has come about. This is not just the Lord being mean. He has given them plenty of opportunity which they have in no way ceased. There is idolatry in the temple, there is a lack of any judgment toward the needy and oppressed, they have hired themselves their own prophets, there is insolence and hardness of heart towards God and they will not turn from it. He has proven Himself to be patient for their return yet they have not. How does one deal with such a people to turn them without such stunning and obvious force?

kjv@Jeremiah:16:5 > > RandyP :

It is not that the Lord would have to perform this evil, He would have to simply remove His good. Think of how much good He has over our lives and what it would mean if those particular things were no longer there. Think about Judah then which has received these things in double measure.

kjv@Jeremiah:16:10 > > RandyP :

All of this and they are still unaware and justified in their doings almost as if to mock and jeer.

kjv@Jeremiah:17:9-10 > > RandyP :

Whose heart is deceitful above all things? Did He qualify or pin point certain hearts? Move this forward to the time Jesus Himself stood upon this earth with a crowd gathered round Him. Was their any in the gathering not of a deceitful heart? Those that wanted Him killed in God's name? Those who followed just for the free fish? The hypocritical zealots? Even the disciples arguing over who will be the greatest? Whose heart is deceitful above all things? The heart...Our hearts!

kjv@Jeremiah:17 > > RandyP :

The Sabbath became the kings test. If they were able to do this one thing all of this would pass. They were not able. Most likely they gave barely an ear to Jeremiah there at the gate.

kjv@Jeremiah:18 > > RandyP :

Instead of turning to the Lord they intend to take it out on Jeremiah. This is how the evil imaginations of the heart work. Will the message go away? Will God not raise up a hundred more prophets just like him? What can be hoped to be gained if this is indeed the word from God? This is the problem, there is no word of God so thinks the heart. The word of God is whatever we want it to be. God is intending to judge them, they are intending to judge God.

kjv@Jeremiah:23 > > RandyP :

False prophets kjv@Jeremiah:23:13 caused Israel to error, kjv@Jeremiah:23:14 strengthen hand of evil doers that none return from their wickedness, kjv@Jeremiah:23:15 spread profane throughout the land, kjv@Jeremiah:23:17 prophesy God's peace/no evil, kjv@Jeremiah:23:27 think to cause the people to forget God's name, kjv@Jeremiah:23:32 cause my people to error by lies/lightness,kjv@Jeremiah:23:36 pervert the words of the Living God, kjv@Jeremiah:23:38 say that they are moved by a burden from the Lord.

kjv@Jeremiah:22 > > RandyP :

The kings of Judah surely had their part in this coming judgment. There was a long pronounce track record of God pleading to them through His prophets. They were warned, they chose not to listen. They were commanded to execute judgment on behalf of the people and would not. They enslaved them for their own gain and ended up loosing everything. To the end that later, when other nations looked upon the wreckage they would know that this was not typical downfall of just any nation, this was God's people that had deserted their God.

kjv@Jeremiah:19 > > RandyP :

The sight of Jeremiah breaking the ancient potters vessel at the east gate should burn in the hearts of Judah even to this day. The words he then proclaimed echoed true. Unfortunately, they still did not listen, whatever they had thought to gain from worshiping Baal was more convincing than loosing it all, being captive, and becoming so desperate as to eat their own children. Was it really?

kjv@Jeremiah:20 > > RandyP :

Jeremiah is imprisoned for message at the east gate by the chief priest Pashur. He imprisons himself at the same time in a fit of depression. Every word that he had spoken in this prophecy is later proved to be right but, that is not of console to the prophet. I would imagine that even in these times the Lord brings people alongside to comfort, but, what really can be said? It is a tough time for all of Judah especially those in the right. The name given Pashur - Magormissabib suggests moved by fear all around.

kjv@Jeremiah:21 > > RandyP :

Pashur inquires of Jeremiah, perhaps while Jeremiah was imprisoned by Pashur, perhaps later we are not told. Either way it has to be an odd situation for both men. The answer given Pashur is much the same but now with detail as to the king's demise.

kjv@Jeremiah:24 > > RandyP :

This is a powerful vision we are allowed to see into of the good and evil that can be purposed in the same decisive action. The same fearful action upon two different types of figs causes the utter shame of the one and the future establishment of the other. This should give the depressed and afflicted prophet hope as it should the true figs amongst us as well.

kjv@Jeremiah:25 > > RandyP :

Many would place the first world war in the early nineteenth century A.D., a major reshuffling of the power structures of the world. What is described here is perhaps the first world shift in the fifth B.C.. What had begun in a smaller scale in the 6th included Israel but, not Judah nor Eygypt etc... No nation now was allowed by the Lord not to drink from this cup. It was not a war of powerful alliances but of fracturing splits and singular domination. We see here God's greater vision, we have been focused too narrowly on Israel/Judah (false prophets, kings,etc..) and not on the entirety of mankind. The cup is prepared and filled in Jerusalem, but, is shared on all the nations. Babylon is used to begin the drunken slug-fest but, it too fractures soon after and is forced to drink as well by the much inferior Medes. The void is later filled by the Persians and then the Greeks.

kjv@Jeremiah:25 > > RandyP :

http://www.biblestudy.org/prophecy/empire-history.html

kjv@Jeremiah:27 > > RandyP :

Much of what the prophet has said has begun to come to pass. The evidence should be clear. Yet the other prophets are saying what has been taken away thus far will be taken back and the temple restored by their word. The Lord is flushing these false prophets out. The king must be aware of the Lord's doings here; those nations that will place themselves under the yoke Nebuchadnezzar will be spared, those who rebel or think otherwise will be consumed. Willing humility, acceptance of reproof, subjection to the counter intuitive is what will save the nation in the long run.

kjv@Jeremiah:26 > > RandyP :

Not a good time in the land to be a prophet. A sign of the inflamed rebellious nature of the people towards the things of God.

kjv@Jeremiah:28 > > RandyP :

One must ask themselves "do I speak for the Lord"? We all intend well. It would have seemed good for this all to end within two years. Good for the people, but, what about for the Lord. Is it that the Lord is only concerned for our good and not for His own? His good was being served in a thorough purging of our rebellious hearts, a rooting out of the spoiled figs and tainted prophets. Sure the people were put to shame and humbled, but, isn't that better than being stiff necked and hard hearted? If you intend to speak for the Lord you better well know what He would have you to say.

kjv@Jeremiah:29 > > RandyP :

I am just as confused here as the people must have been. Multiple messages coming from multiple places? Who is right and who is wrong? Do we listen to Jeremiah or Shemaiah who wants Jeremiah killed? Remember, we are reading the story line clinically detached; we know who is right in the end. They did not have such luxury. Would you vote for seventy years of peaceful subjection (running the risk of deep foreign integration) or a few years of radical revolt and resistance? Which prophets are true and which are false? Aren't they all about the same from ground level? Again, luckily we know the story.

kjv@Jeremiah:30 > > RandyP :

Interesting that Jacob is mentioned here with all he was put in subjection to. We know how Jacob was finally made to prevail; not against his masters but with and for his masters to the miraculous deliverance of his own people. When is this to come? Has this all ready come about? Or is this something yet in the making?

kjv@Jeremiah:31:33 > > RandyP :

A new covenant kjv@Hebrews:8:6-13 kjv@Hebrews:10:5-25

kjv@Jeremiah:32 > > RandyP :

I find it hard to believe the claims of some cults that the Jews are apostate beyond repair and that they themselves are now the true Jews. What has the Lord drawn them through? When were they scattered? When did their fathers do only wrong? They may be saved in the knowledge of Jesus Christ but, undoubtedly, they are not the Israel/Judah spoken of here. The Lord will put His fear into their (the Jews) heart that they will not leave Him anymore.

kjv@Jeremiah:33 > > RandyP :

The Branch of Righteousness (Christians take to mean Jesus) grows unto David (comes down dwells among us in the flesh) executes judgment/righteousness in the land (some would take to mean an earthly rule but could mean a spiritual rule as well) Judah will be saved (again could mean spiritually) and Jerusalem dwell safely (spiritually secure in the knowledge and spirit of the risen Christ) David shall never want a man on his throne (because Jesus has moved the Davidic throne to the eternal kingdom, the right hand side of God the father, the God/Man rightfully sits on it forever more) neither shall there be needed any sacrifice or offering (for the God/Man on the throne has become unto us our final sacrifice, the complete atonement that the Father provides for us all). If this is not so, I see no other way that this covenant has not been broken or ceased for over two thousand years. Do you?

kjv@Jeremiah:34 > > RandyP :

At this point, even when they do something right, they turn from it to do wrong. What good can be done unless they are purged clean?

kjv@Jeremiah:35 > > RandyP :

We are given an example of proof that it is within the heart of man to keep some form of covenant, that it is a matter of choice. This example was a very difficult and sacrificial choice. The right choice is always rewarded. Judah long ago had made their choice. God could have carried out their chastisement long ago, but, He has been careful to let us know that He has gone more than the extra mile towards them before executing this. It has given us plenty of opportunity to realize that this is not only the way it must be, it is also done for their ultimate good. We should see the certainty of our own depravity and the need for the Lordship of His Son and the redemption provided by the gracious gift of His Son's own blood.

kjv@Titus:1 > > RandyP :

Having been reading through Jeremiah of late it is plain to see that not much has changed over these hundreds of years with the zealous Jew (they profess to know, in works deny, unto every good work reprobate). Structure and backbone are being developed in the early church with a focus on Elders and Deacons, in part to be able to withstand the pressures of these self serving gainsayers.

kjv@Titus:1:15 > > RandyP :

This is the type of opposition I most often run against. They set out only to disprove my position, not that they have any better position of their own, to them all positions are faulty. To them the fact that I would have a position suggests a flaw within me, regardless of what it is. So is it that I need to argue my position better? Or is it that I need to argue their defilement in this particular mindset better?

kjv@Titus:2 > > RandyP :

We have here a solid model of how/what the congregation should be exhorted by Titus and the elders that he is putting into order. The message should be uniform and authoritative. How to behave presently/what to look forward to/what to believe. If we were to do just this we would be all the better off.

kjv@Titus:3:9 > > RandyP :

This is very similar to what Paul had exhorted to Timothy in his young ministry as well.

kjv@Titus:3 > > RandyP :

The necessity of maintaining good works; all of us. It is not just having an intention to do them, it is not just us studying to know how they might be done, it is us stepping forward into them and adapting within them to get them done. It is not just beginning them, it is us maintaining them for the long run. Notice how many people Paul has involved in his good works. They are part of his, he is part of theirs, we are part of the Lord's; small works, large works, works we don't even know are being done we are striving to be fruitful in. Peter shared a similar vision of being fruitful in the knowledge of Christ kjv@2Peter:1. See also kjv@Romans:12. In fuller context, these works are to be done yet with an eye on reasonable subjection to the civic and legal principalities that govern all.

kjv@Jeremiah:36 > > RandyP :

One might ask "why does the Word of God need to be written"? "Can't He just speak it into our hearts"? Jehoiakim knew the things written in Baruch's scroll. It testified against him recording a long history of the king's rebellion and transgression. The king's advisers knew well how he would react for they had the scribe and prophet to hide away. The Lord undoubtedly knew as well, just as He knows today. The heart hears what the heart wants to hear, it reasons as would serve it's own desires the best. Nothing is beyond the scope of the deceitful heart. The written word is as much to testify against the fleshly heart as it is to convince it. Today we have the testimony of several thousands of years and several other Jeremiahs in written form. Is the heart then any different today?

kjv@Jeremiah:37 > > RandyP :

Have you ever had someone do everything they could against you only to later come back to you for advice? Jeremiah asks the obvious "why do you come to me, where are all your prophets, why not ask them"? Did Zedekiah really think that Jeremiah for the sake of some possible friendship or for the chance of being released would have anything other to say than what had already been said?

kjv@Jeremiah:38 > > RandyP :

We can sense how others perceived Jeremiah. He was a traitor bent on the surrender of Jerusalem to the Chaldeans. He was causing division within the ranks and was using religious sounding speech to dishearten the masses. Left at liberty, he would use highly visual grandstanding techniques such as wooden yokes and ancient vessels to invoke dissent. The word was out on him. Imprisoned, Jeremiah would of course not be stopped, but, at least perhaps contained; his where-abouts known.

kjv@Jeremiah:38 > > RandyP :

In the end, the Lord has still given the king a choice. He can surrender himself without a fight and live or he can fight and die and his household be mercilessly brutalized. We like to think that freedom of choice always involves something more than that. Look at Jeremiah the prophet of God. What choices did he have remaining? He had done just as God had said; where is his safe out? What makes us think that somewhere there is a better outcome? That we can negotiate or force our way into some dreamy personal victory or acceptable compromise? Most often, the only choices we have are the choices left to us.

kjv@Jeremiah:39 > > RandyP :

What do all these men of Judah think now? Was Jeremiah the source of their downfall? Or were they? Or was he the lone prophet willing to stand forth and warn the peoples? Did Jeremiah hoot and howler and brashly reply I told you so? Many of these men did not live to be able to hear nor think at all. The ones that did live had too many problems of their own to be thinking of such. And as for Jeremiah, perhaps the saddest and most broken of them all... a call out to the far distant king of Ethiopia next on Nebuchadrezzar's list.

kjv@Jeremiah:41 > > RandyP :

The United States itself has learned successfully the type of concerted and focused effort and force to conquer a complete nation, but the nearly impossible dispersed effort of maintaining the rule over it. Here bands of rogue men are able to nearly do as they pleased, even assassinate the appointed leader at will.

kjv@Jeremiah:42:7 > > RandyP :

Even a man of God as Jeremiah was had to wait on the answer of the Lord. One would think the Lord would be eager to get the remnant up and running, after all they seem sincere and honest in their desire. The Lord's timing is perfectly right however, even if it is not what we would expect.

kjv@Jeremiah:42 > > RandyP :

Just because the people of the remnant appear to be sincere in their approach to serve the Lord does not mean that they are sincere. A terrible thing has happened and continues all around them. Their fear may be not as much for the Lord but, for their own safety. They may say that this is what they'll do, but, the test is will they? God certainly wants to do good for them but first it is up to them. Which fear is the fear that will motivate them most?

kjv@Hebrews:1 > > RandyP :

The Son is even above the angels. They minister unto His needs. All things including angels were created to be His inheritance. They minister for us the heirs of salvation.

kjv@Hebrews:2 > > RandyP :

We can look at Christ's death selfishly in terms of dying for our sins or we can look at it as Him destroying him that had power over death/to deliver those in bondage to death/to be a merciful and faithful high priest/to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Which is the more accurate picture? Which has the most power over your life?

kjv@Hebrews:2 > > RandyP :

The writer is purposely using several references to the Psalms as his grounding points. To the Hebrew reader these would have been very familiar quotes but, driven in a new and fuller context.

kjv@Jeremiah:43 > > RandyP :

The lesson I guess has not been learned yet. The leaders are lead by fear, not by fear of the Lord. Everything Jeremiah has said has panned out and yet he is despised like this. This time he offers them calm and peace and they will have none of that. What else can be said?

kjv@Jeremiah:44 > > RandyP :

We see how the mind will always justify itself. Their argument is that because they stopped their offerings to the queen of heaven these things have befallen them. When did they stop making these offerings? Haven't they made them all along? Even to others gods as well?

kjv@Jeremiah:44 > > RandyP :

Suggested here in this text is a goddess largely worshiped by the women. We sense that men were typically excluded. Many of the male gods now have fallen yet the complete destruction of a nation has not rooted this one out; it has only strengthened it in the void. We are again looking down on this from a clinical view as readers knowing beginning/context and end. They are living it in real time without the top down insight. They are left to decide by observing the mounting evidence around them. The idolatrous mind certainly sees the evidence in a much different fashion. For those of you lead by your heart this should be a warning; the heart may be 180 degrees off.

kjv@Jeremiah:46 > > RandyP :

Egypt is in a bad spot. Not only are they being cursed for harboring the adulterous remnant of Judah (who were told not to go into Egypt or they would be a curse) they are judged by all the gods and idols of their own making. Surely the Lord has not kept this secret from them, we have some evidences of His dealings with them from this and other prophets. Other nations should be warned of this as well. When they see what and why this has happened to Egypt they should realize that this could be them as well.

kjv@Jeremiah:47 > > RandyP :

God has never intended to work in the life of Israel alone. It has always been His plan to work in the life of all mankind and He has done that throughout. He has used Israel/Judah as His insertion point, His needle carrying the needed inoculation strategically planted. It is in their reaction to the antibodies, vile and repulsed, that they are stirred, inflamed and angered in to accepting His serum.

kjv@Jeremiah:48 > > RandyP :

The conditions in Moab are just the same, pride and false gods. If not for the pride perhaps one would see that what has happen to the others may happen to them as well. If not for pride one might sense that something consistent and immense is happening in the region having to do with the God of Israel.

kjv@Hebrews:3 > > RandyP :

The unbelief of Israel in the wilderness is given as a example to us of the deceitfulness of sin. They saw many great wonders on their course, but, even seeing was not enough as they were still deceived by their hearts into many things that angered God. We too must examine ourselves daily as we think that we are doing right toward God. So much though is done in unbelief, by our own fear, limited by our perception of the size and scope and purposes of the Lord. We may not be in the promise land yet and we may not be in the bondage from which we were delivered out of, but, we certainly are in the middle of a considerable and lengthy process.

kjv@Hebrews:4 > > RandyP :

It sounds contradictory that we must labor to enter into our rest. We can assuredly enter into that rest today but, today is not that day of rest. Today we know Jesus Christ to be our rest and we enter into that rest laboring for Him until His work for us here in this day is done. The rest for us today is the peace and assurance and hopefulness of that day and His high priesthood. The rest for us in that day will be to be there with Him, to be like Him, to partake of all the grace and goodness that He has stored and readied for us. Our rest is in His completed work. His two-edged sword, penetrating as it is, is used to bring us through to there.

kjv@Hebrews:5:7-10 > > RandyP :

Christ learned obedience by what He suffered and thus was made a perfect high priest. We similarly learn our obedience by what we suffer for Him. One might say "wait... I am not suppose to suffer... I believe in Christ... He suffered for me". Christ obeyed the Father in suffering for us. He suffered what we could not and even would not for we were not capable of obeying to that extent. Yet we are supposed to obey in our own measure and often the only way to learn to obey is to suffer. In this case we suffer for/because of Him; for the stance we take/defend in Him.

kjv@Hebrews:6 > > RandyP :

The belief is that Jesus arose to the right hand side of God the Father. The hope is that we will see and be with them there; that we too will enter because of Him. This hope is our anchor, it is our strong consolation, we take refuge in it, it enters within the veil. Along with this belief and hope there are evidences that accompany this salvation, living works, works that He does upon us, works of obedience that lead us toward His perfect obedience with a similar obedience of our own. Many of these works that we obey Him in are toward the saints and the brethren. Some, having tasted of this goodness, have still yet removed themselves from this obedience, from this hope, their living works having become dead works deceive them into a complete apostasy. They become as briers and thorns whose only use is to be burned.

kjv@Jeremiah:51 > > RandyP :

The righteousness of Judah had nothing to do with their own righteousness but, of the Lord's choice, His covenant with them. His righteousness made their righteousness and this form of righteousness is much much different. In the same fashion, Judah's escape from their captivity to Babylon was not in their own hands, their Lord was going to use the Medes to break their bonds. It cannot then be said that it was the hand of Judah, nor even the hands of the Medes (not with the impossible impenetrable odds that the Medes were up against); only by the hand of God. The Lord has used Judah in this same fashion to break many a nation since and continues to use them today; a nation the rarely was a nation with an army the rarely was an army.

kjv@Jeremiah:52 > > RandyP :

Lest we forget, the very symbol of Israels former glory the Temple is completely gutted and burned. The picture of judgment is complete. The few people that remained in Jerusalem were gathered and executed in stages.

kjv@Jeremiah:52 > > RandyP :

What does this completion of judgment mean in the grand scheme of spiritual things? Does it mean the the experiment is over? Israel is finished and we move on to plan B? Does it mean that God has learned from His mistakes and will start up in a different fashion again? Or does it mean that there is something vital for all of mankind to understand? Something of our depraved sinful nature that even with promises, even with miraculous deliverance and provision, even with tremendous blessing and tremendous cursing and every sort of intention revival and effort, none of this has any effect upon the true core nature of man's deceptive heart. The heart does not obey because it cannot. The heart cannot be spiritual because it is not. All that we intend and invent and contrive is but utter vanity. What is blind cannot see. In this unfamiliar light we sense that only by His grace and by His election are we separated from this wretchedness.

kjv@Lamentations:1 > > RandyP :

Harsh as this captivity sounds, we have to remember that it had been foretold long before even by Moses. It was part of a covenant promising good if they had kept His command and evil if they did not. They did chose repeatedly to do not. God warned and reminded them of the covenant repeatedly; they still did not. He showed them occasional glimpses of both blessing and curse; they did not. Jerusalem appears now as a broken harlot. Where are her many lovers now?

kjv@Lamentations:2:14 > > RandyP :

tsk@Lamentations:2:14 Here are numerous reminders that the Lord had exposed the false prophets to them on several occasions and yet they still listened to the others. False prophets did not end during this captivity nor did they end in the time of the early church. They remain and flourish today. They are exposed over and over and yet do we listen to them. It is in part because the true prophet discovers our inequity, in part because we are self justified and vain, in part because our image of God does not allow for Him to do this.

kjv@Hebrews:7:1 > > RandyP :

dict:easton Melchizedek more info.

kjv@Hebrews:7 > > RandyP :

Two supreme orders of the priesthood, Levi and Melchizedek. The one supersedes the other. The former has brought us to the realization of need for the later. The lesser has been our schoolmaster leading us to conclude in the positive to the greater; the greater being formed by the oath of God. Jesus is the centerpiece/cornerstone of this greater order and not of the lesser. This is a stumbling point for the Jews even to this day who assume the Messiah is a Levitical order high priest. If so, then why did Abraham pay tithes and David prophecy?

kjv@Lamentations:3 > > RandyP :

It is interesting now that we know more about Jeremiah how similar his lamentation is to Davids psalm. Both were in positions that you would think would be well respected and that people would gather alongside to support and comfort. Both seem almost alone. The things that the Lord had them do set much of which was on the peoples behalf set them apart and made them targets. No singular enemy mentioned but an overwhelming mass of momentum and continuum labeled as godlessness/wickedness. The prophets comfort is instead the recollection that not a thing happens that God does not set forth; the goodness God intends for us all for a long moment can appear as an evil until our hearts are completely turned. If not for these times how would our heart know? During these times how would our heart not know?

kjv@Lamentations:4 > > RandyP :

From this distance we may loose the scope of context a contemporary of Jeremiah may have sensed. One thing we now we might miss is just how impossible this all may have seemed. All of the eyes of the other nations looking on this would have known how unbreachable the defenses of Jerusalem would have been and yet they were utterly destroyed; and if Jerusalem then surely theirs. It was known to them as well that Jerusalem was the Lord's and that the Lord had not let iniquity go unpunished even/especially amongst His own. Predicted now is the fall of great Babylon, an even greater impossibility. Surely there would be the sense that if this is to happen that all of this can only be of the Lord.

kjv@Lamentations:4 > > RandyP :

The other thing we might be missing as to the real time context is just how complete and desperate the destruction is all around Jeremiah. What he is seeing at ground zero is simply unfathomable. He speaks of the destruction of Sodom to have been merciful compared to this.

kjv@Lamentations:5 > > RandyP :

He questions why it is that this must last so long, but, you will remember it was part of the promise, they had their chance to avoid it. You might also remember recently we read that not all were yet convinced that the God of Abraham was the means of proceeding forward from this, many females were blaming Jeremiah's God for not allowing them to provide drink offerings to their imaginary Queen of Heaven. The question might better be how long will it take them to get past their continuing iniquities?

kjv@Hebrews:8 > > RandyP :

Quoted is kjv@Jeremiah:31:31-34. Elsewhere in Jeremiah kjv@Jeremiah:24:7 it is written that the heart to know after God will be given by Him and that this will cause us to return to Him with our whole hearts. It is precisely what the Law could not do.

kjv@Ezekiel:1 > > RandyP :

How do you describe such a sight in human words? I am sure that the author is trying the best he can, but, the amount of detail that it is taking almost confuses the picture.

kjv@Ezekiel:2 > > RandyP :

The fear of the Lord often takes second place to what we fear might be said or done by other people like us. Perhaps Ezekiel is shown these mysterious heavenly things so as to reduce his fear toward other men. This along with the Lord's own words not to be afraid of them.

kjv@Ezekiel:3 > > RandyP :

Though we are not the prophet specifically being addressed we should assume that there is a responsibility in the same sense of ours to our stiff-necked generation as well. A man may well die in his sin regardless, but, that is not for our interpretation. Our concern is that he is presented with the Gospel and has the opportunity whether he accepts it or not to choose not to die in his sin otherwise his blood in some measure is on us.

kjv@Hebrews:9 > > RandyP :

The purging of the conscience from dead works is one of the more interesting phrases in this passage. kjv@Hebrews:6:1 was the other mention of these dead works and in the context of that seems to center on the obedient works of Christ having their work on us by means of our obedience.

kjv@Hebrews:9 > > RandyP :

The pattern is complete. What was done for the remission of sins in the Mosaic Law through the sprinkling of blood was a shadow we would latter recognize when Christ came to actually fulfill the greater covenant. His sacrifice is once and for all however.

kjv@Ezekiel:4 > > RandyP :

Think of the strange public methods that have been employed to broadcast the impending judgment. Here Ezekiel is to lie on one side on a tile 390 days continuously and 40 days on the side eating only the rations given at the start and bread cooked on dung. Jeremiah was breaking ancient pots and such. Wasn't it Isaiah walking naked for three years? Certainly not just anyone could get the message out by doing this, these men must have been fully established as prophets before hand in order to have impact. With the state of things the way they are this well may have the best of all options. It is rarely the convincing intellectual dialog and reasoning we think of that is called for. Knowing that God is perfect in all His ways, it makes me wonder what methods He might have for us today?

kjv@Hebrews:10:1-23 > > RandyP :

Nowadays, minus the temple, there is no way for Jews to perform their sacrifices. I am sure that they have used some of these same scriptural quotes to justify their position, that the sacrifices weren't really needed in the first place. The problem for them still would be that there is no remission of sins without the sprinkling of blood. The Christian followers have not ceased from the sprinkling of blood, it is that the blood now is the blood of God's chosen one, the sacrifice He Himself provided as with Abraham, Jesus Christ. His sacrifice is once and for all and complete.

kjv@Hebrews:10:24-39 > > RandyP :

There are times in all Christians lives where they miss the mark, where they become drowsy or sloppy or unfruitful even counter productive. There are times even when we shake our fist and blame God (as in the death of our young child). We have all encountered times when we wondered if this draw back passage wasn't written for us. Self condemnation can be a tremendously discouraging thing. I would imagine however, if it is still in your heart to get back to the things of God, if there is still the will to repent and rejoin the body in fully restored standing, if the love of God is still wanted and sought after, then you definitely have not crossed this final point yet. This is written for the man where there is none of crushing sorrow, confussion and desire that remains, he has completely given himself over to his own condemnation, forever sealed in the hardness of his own heart.

kjv@Ezekiel:7 > > RandyP :

In times such as these the people are more than willing to seek/hear from prophets, too bad they have rejected the words of the prophet before all of this. Even in these time of seeking they are more likely to seek a prophet more to their suiting. In addition to these tendencies, the priests and ancient counsels have been long absent. The Law and texts which would confirm the true prophet are effectively silent because of those that were in trusted with them having chased after other gods and religions. The prophet is left largely alone in his foreknowledge.

kjv@Ezekiel:8 > > RandyP :

How easy is it for us to judge the actions of God without seeing what it is that He sees. We are rarely afforded the opportunity to see what is occurring amongst us in secret. We judge things by our own decency and by how we imagine our fellow man to be. In this case the very temple has been invaded by the wicked. The holy things are such an attraction to the unholy, like a open light to a miller moth. We find it hard to imagine such abominations but, then again we look closer and closer and we see that there is almost no end to what the heart of the unholy will think of and do. This is what God sees. This is why His anger is raised. And then to see how the rest of us blindly react to His doings?

kjv@Ezekiel:9 > > RandyP :

Is there any way that by action or word we today say

kjv@Ezekiel:8 > > RandyP :

Imagine this seeing this vision as the elders of Judah sat there in the parlor before you. It wouldn't surprise me if they were there to tell him how things were going to be if he didn't stop with all the rhetoric. Before the vision you might be thinking 'well these guys know what they are doing', 'intelligent people can see things different ways', 'how could all of them be wrong and only me right', 'hmmm...maybe some compromise is called for'. Then with the vision seeing these men the way God sees them? This is such a curious passage!

kjv@Ezekiel:10 > > RandyP :

I am sure that the author went to painstaking detail to accurately describe the details so that we would understand and picture the sight. I can not. What I do get is that as odd and foreign as this all seems to be, the actual glory of the Lord still stands out and is supremely discernible. On it's own it would have been terrifying to see this four faced creature and hear the thundering rush of it's wings. In the presence of the glorious light of the Lord curiosity replaces fear along with wonder and praise to it's creator.

kjv@Ezekiel:11:19 > > RandyP :

Some of Israel (not all) was regathered at the end of the seventy years. The Temple was rebuilt and put back into service but, the hearts of Israel barely changed. They awaited an even more horrific judgment that Jesus himself would prophecy. In Jesus Christ a new spirit is given and hearts were changed but, Israel not regathered awaiting a final gathering yet to come in the end of the age of Gentiles. We see that every word of this prophecy is accurate, the time-line however not as direct as we might read.

kjv@Ezekiel:12 > > RandyP :

Again, a visual message given to the rebellious house. They may not listen but, it will not be said that they were not shown. They will ask questions but, will not consider. The words will not be prolonged any longer, the time has come.

kjv@Hebrews:11:1-19 > > RandyP :

Faith is most commonly defined as something we believe or hope for. Here it is better defined as something that totally moves us and shapes the course of things to come, a leaving of ourselves to commit/pursue the greater promises laid before us. Faith is a both a destination and the road/process of getting there. It is it's own country.

kjv@Ezekiel:13 > > RandyP :

There is the common thought that the Lord is always for peace; if you speak toward or prophecy of peace you may be speaking for the Lord. There are seasons to each and everything and this time in particular was not a time for peace. They were falsely speaking from their own spirit giving the people hope and desires therefore confirmed this hope; all of it false. The few righteous were cast down for speaking truth, the wicked up lifted in the void. The measures of security (gaps/hedges/wall) were cheated and poorly repaired. Questionable methods were adopted by prophets and prophetesses to support their work being not supported by God. All of this was to be exposed to the people in the judgment. We too will see the prophets of our day in correct light upon ours.

kjv@Ezekiel:14:9 > > RandyP :

Does this mean that God lies? That He deceives? Think of it this way, if He created the mental faculties to believe the truth when they heard it couldn't it also be said that these faculties could also be used to believe their own vain imaginations rather than the truth? If God made certain things to be more enticing than others to guide man along the straight and narrow, cannot that gravity toward be corrupted and converted to something else? If that which is meant for good can be used for harm, if that which locks men's hearts into good instead can lock them into falsehood, cannot it not be said then that God in this sense has made it so?

kjv@Ezekiel:14 > > RandyP :

Three righteous men of the ages are given as repeated examples. The righteousness of these men can only save themselves; not even their immediate sons and daughters can be saved unless by their own individual righteousness. So too, only you yourself is saved if so be, your family and friends will have to be saved themselves by their own righteousness. Any righteousness any of us would have is found solely in the righteousness of Christ Jesus and on the personal confession of that alone will any individual be delivered.

kjv@Ezekiel:15 > > RandyP :

From one fire into another, from time to time as individuals we may feel this so, this though is speaking of an entire nation. How would it not be known that the Lord has set His face against them? Few of us have ever felt this type of judgment upon us. In our own lives we may think it or even make it be so. Often we perceive His instruction/correction falsely as so but, rather that is His love. Some moments we may feel as if persecution suffered in His name is so but, rather that is simply sharing in His sufferings. When the Lord however sets His face against an entire people it no doubt will be known by those people. These are not moments where the possibility will be debated or interpreted.

kjv@Ezekiel:16 > > RandyP :

They then remember not the days of Israel's youth, an abandoned un-suckled bloody fetus mercifully adopted and raised by the Lord into world wide prominence and splendor. They today forget His covenant will be fulfilled and established forever when His anger is pacified. In between is a time of incredible whorish lewdness beyond what any other sister nation can claim. His anger, as with all things, is pacified in Christ Jesus; they have yet to see how this need be so.

kjv@Ezekiel:16 > > RandyP :

By the Lords account, this whoredom is not just a certain era of Israel, it goes deep into it's very youth and forward into a time yet to come when His anger is pacified and the covenant is forever established. The sisters of Israel have been shown and continue to see the Lord's anger against Israel. How is it then that neither Israel nor her sisters see the way to the Lord through the witnessing of His anger?

kjv@Ezekiel:17 > > RandyP :

When the Lord says that the other trees of the field should know, we then should fully know that the Lord expects that by this action against the nation of Israel that the other nations involved will know what is occurring by His hand. They would know of the covenant between the king of Judah and Babylon that God was for, the breaking of the covenant by the making of a covenant with Egypt which God was firmly against, and the confirmation of God's wrath by the resultant slaughter of the kings and princes of the house of Judah captive in Babylon. When the Lord speaks/acts it is not for Judah's ears/eyes alone.

kjv@Ezekiel:18 > > RandyP :

He hath no pleasure in the death.. Several times here it is illustrated what the righteous man would be doing and what the wicked do as well. These are not new things, they have been known all along. Yet so many choose the wrong path. There appears to be a decision, one can make themselves a knew person by choosing to do right. So why then do people not choose? Elsewhere we learn that this answer has to do with the sinful nature of man, a nature only curable by the sacrifice and resurrection of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ; imposing moral law upon this nature only illustrates its depravity all the more. Did great numbers turn to the living God by in the time of this prophecy? Certainly not.

kjv@Ezekiel:19 > > RandyP :

Two pictures, a lioness with her whelps, a vine fruitful by reason of the waters. Both paint a picture of Israel in her glory and Israel in her shame.

kjv@Ezekiel:20 > > RandyP :

The choice is not only to do whatever we will do but is whether to pollute the name of our Lord in the midst of the godless or not. Israel never really chose not to pollute, from the start there was always momentum. It was only by the merciful longsuffering of God that they were not given completely over. Notice how easy it was to pass down the rebellion of the fathers from generation to generation and how much near impossible to pass down the righteousness. The lure and pressures and ease were far too enticing.

kjv@Ezekiel:20:1 > > RandyP :

It never starts out good when the elders come to Ezekiel. So why do they come? They will not hear God, God will not hear them.

kjv@Ezekiel:21 > > RandyP :

Many read or else hear about these passages in the Bible and come to the determination that the God of Israel is mean spirited. For these years of judgment they fail to say the ions of longsuffering and mercy. Others would point to the ineffectiveness of God's plan not being able to turn the hearts of even such a small nation as Israel avoiding to consider that His plan is yet hundreds of years from being fulfilled. People under estimate the power the sin nature has over us and just how patient and steady God has had to remain over it to gain our redemption from it. If there is any mean spiritedness to observe, it is in the people who claim that God is over reacting, over sensitive, over bearing.

kjv@Hebrews:11 > > RandyP :

I have often look at this definition of faith as if it was me looking out into life's vastness and seeing the evidences of what I hope; if I looked hard enough and sincere enough I would see actual proof. Suddenly I have considered that it may well be intended to be the reverse. If I truly believe, the activities of my life will naturally become living proof that I believe; my faith will become evident. I have faith despite the appearance here of things, I live forward out of trust. Like Abraham, others can discern that I believe by the manner I proceed in trust and obedience, what I am willing to sacrifice, how and where I am willing to sojourn, what spiritual promises I am willing wait long past my physical death patiently for and how such waiting guides me. Faith is not a collection of scientific insight, it is a substance born of hope.

kjv@Hebrews:12 > > RandyP :

Those of us in the American church body should be concerned about the lack of chastisement. Where is it? We face certain opposition and the opposition seems to be growing. Opposition is not chastisement. In other places our missionaries face difficulty and persecution. Persecution is not necessarily chastisement either. Chastisement involves correction. Is it that we have nothing to be corrected of? Is it that we have been corrected and so now remain? Or could it be that our hearts have become hardened, that the accomplishments of the past have sent us sideways into pride, unawares or worse unconcerned, unable to discern where our needed chastisement might be found? Has our ear to it become deaf?

kjv@Hebrews:13 > > RandyP :

Mentioned more than once is the idea of remembering/submitting/saluting those that have rule over us. These rulers by context are sensed to be leaders in the church. The author speaks in tones of a absolute necessity. Who are these leaders today? and why are we not doing so?

kjv@James:1 > > RandyP :

The crown of life is given to those who endure temptation. Temptation will come and come again and again. Temptation comes when drawn/enticed away by our own lust. It may sneak in unnoticed. It may stand tall being fully justified and felt well deserved, but it does come. Endure doesn't give us the sense that we have immediately conquered, it gives us the sense that we may have stumbled and must now battle against and clean up the lasting consequences. To continue in such temptations is defeat, to endure to resist and grow and to strengthen by God's power and grace.

kjv@James:2 > > RandyP :

There is an eternal salvation and justification accomplished on our behalf strictly by the work of Jesus Christ our savior at the cross of Calvary. No other work can replace that. What James means by works leading to justification here is similar to what the author of Hebrews meant by 'the evidence of things unseen/substance of things hoped for' ( kjv@Hebrews:11 ), the effect faith has in producing corresponding action. It is difficult for one man to justify that another man has faith if their is no tangible evidence outwardly of said faith. It should be just as difficult for us ourselves to justify our reasoning for believing in Christ if we yet disallow His natural effect upon us causing us to act forward in a new and living way. If our faith leads us to no more than what faith in any other god would lead us to do or not do, what justification would we have for such faith? The question then must be asked 'how much does Christ's redemptive work on the cross mean to us personally'? 'To what extent does it/will it effect us'? Jesus called it 'abiding in' and Peter called it 'being neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ'.

kjv@James:3 > > RandyP :

The bulk of passage speaks of the power of the tongue and that it is impossible for both blessing and cursing to come from the same source. In context this is tied to leadership (be not many masters) and to righteous peacemakers. It is obvious to see the workings of the tongue in our own small scale circles, less likely that we are even watching it in the larger scope of our diplomats and peace envoys and national/world leaders. The statements here are just as true if not more so for the fiery tongues in the United Nations as it is on the Gaza streets. For us to know this is to radically alter our world view.

kjv@Ezekiel:22 > > RandyP :

We know by reading how God feels about Israel. We know how Israel feels about God. There is a broad gulf between them. How do the people of the heathen nations feel? What have they observed? Are they not as disgusted with Israel as God is? When the dispersed of Israel in numbers take refuge amongst them recounting the terrible blood and carnage in Jerusalem do they not take notice and see it as a warning?

kjv@Ezekiel:22:30 > > RandyP :

God had His prophets at this time. He had also we find out searched for a leader to make up a hedge but found none. Later He would find Ezra and Nehemiah but, this may illustrate to us a important difference in temperance or skill set or anointing between a prophet and a leader, that it is rare for one man to be both. Moses and David both prophesied (mostly Messianic) though not in the sense of a Elijah or Issiah, Ezekiel or Jeremiah. I can not think of a prophet that was made to rule.

kjv@Ezekiel:23 > > RandyP :

The Holy Spirit by these writings has gone to great lengths to have us understand what exactly is going on here. There should be no uncertainty as to what God wants us to know about this judgment. Multiple accounts, multiple graphical pictures, all similar in detail. The two sisters here are Israel (Samaria) and Judah (Jerusalem). Their adultery is religious and then political/economic and likely physical as well. They are depicted as doting upon their lovers. God is depicted turning their lovers against them, it will be the same foreigners they've doted on that will brutishly destroy them. Judah is especially coppable having watched Israel go through this beforehand and having had extended opportunity to repent. The question is why is it God is having Ezekiel go over and over again on these details, is it for our behalf?

kjv@Ezekiel:24:18 > > RandyP :

The prophet is human too. His wife dies the same day. Tragedy upon tragedy with work still to be done.

kjv@Ezekiel:24 > > RandyP :

Their eyes/desires are upon one thing. And when that one thing is taken away suddenly it's stare then shifted upon their sons and daughters and their own iniquity certain. Why must it come to this? I am asked why a person must fall to such depths before they see way to the Lord? It is implied that there is something wrong with a Lord that is only the Lord of the fallen. Rather, there is something wrong with the heart of a man that can not see the Lord while in his strength and youthful prowess/splendor, that his sinful and proud and arrogant nature must be ground down and disrupted, laid bare upon a table of self desperation before seeing light. The Lord of the fallen indeed if to be Lord of such souls at all.

kjv@Ezekiel:25 > > RandyP :

"They will know that I am the Lord". Ammon, Philistia, Edom..... Would the Lord have declared this if it were not going to be overwhelmingly true? If He was over stating it, perhaps less they were to become vaguely aware or momentarily recognize or have suspicion that this is the Lord's work, it would not be the same as 'thou will know'. By the tone of these pronouncements I think we can deduce that the Lord has long been in contact with these people and has produce tangible works within them, warning them at least in how best to view Jerusalem's captivity. They remain caught up in a 'old hatred' knowing how the Lord felt yet continuing, bringing upon themselves a judgment more final than even Judah's.

kjv@Ezekiel:26 > > RandyP :

With the judgments on these other nations, the Lord is producing a ripple effect even to the Isles to whom these nations had commerce. On the one hand I am thinking what if these nations hadn't acted out of the 'old hatred' would God's word have rang out? On the other hand I know that the Lord knew full well which heart they were going to react out of and was secure in His plans. The fact is however, that the word moves outward and forward in ways that no brilliant king nor strategist can consider, nor can we; effect upon effect, twist after human twist, sympathy or rebellion or not. His word does not return to Him void but accomplishes what He purposes.

kjv@Ezekiel:27 > > RandyP :

In the normal course of history many merchant hubs have risen and faded. A new and better port is built, an in defensible harbor is replaced by a defensible one, trade routes eventually move to more direct routes and highways, their cities slowly bypassed. That is just it, there is identifiable economic/strategic process and time. This was not the case with Tyrus. There is definite reason that the kings and merchants of the world are awe shocked and terrored. If the mighty hub of Tyrus can be so easily be destroyed in one sudden swoop, being thus prophesied and as a result re-fortified by them united, then they themselves stand no chance.

kjv@Ezekiel:28 > > RandyP :

If one gets a running start at this amazing chapter we get the sense that the king of Tyrus may have been the Devil himself. If we start here direct we get the sense that the king is being used to illustrate how the situation of his fall is similar in details to the situation surrounding the fall of the covering cherub Lucifer. Whether the two are the same or separate the details given of Lucifer are bountiful perhaps like no other passage in the Bible.

kjv@Ezekiel:28 > > RandyP :

The questions raised by this description of Lucifer are numerous. Of primary importance would be when did this fall happen and where, especially if the where was here on earth. If on earth, that would most likely place the when between kjv@Genesis:1:1 and kjv@Genesis:1:2 suggesting a gap between creation, a world that then was, and later a complete 6 day restoration following a major judgment perhaps like the world has since never known (not even the flood). This would explain why the Spirit hovered over a earth that was void and without form.

kjv@Ezekiel:28 > > RandyP :

There is the suggestion as well that this has nothing to do with Lucifer but, everything to do with the king of Tyrus. Poetic imagery is being used to describe a brilliant yet self worshiping man. The reader must decide.

kjv@Ezekiel:28 > > RandyP :

The warning to Ziddon seems to get lost here with the curiosity of the earlier passage. Its importance should not be overlooked. My sense is that like with the other nations the Lord has been working long and hard with them but, Israel itself is far too despised. It is right for the Lord to judge because they know Israel is His but they can not get over their vile hatred. We should look at this as a warning to ourselves and our nation as well. The second sense is that after being judged that many of these nations are wiped completely even out of the history books. For a long time the existence of these nations and cities mentioned were disputed. Of late however, archaeological evidences are mounting to re-confirm their one time existence and stature. Surely, God was not kidding when He said they'd be remembered no more.

kjv@James:4 > > RandyP :

The mention of friendship with this world along with lust to envy is used to describe our spirit. All of the things we want and have not, all the things we ask but do not receive, the strivings and wars, they have their roots in this combination. It appears to be within our power because if we are to come to Christ we must put aside these things. But, putting this aside involves humility and affliction, mourning and cleansing, which are the opposite of our envy and destructive to our friendship with this world. This mention may be just as much for the body of believers as for the individual.

kjv@James:5 > > RandyP :

The prayer and anointing of the sick is matched with the confession of faults one to another. It is one thing to believe in the power of healing, another thing to allow ourselves collectively to be honest and open to one another. It does not say directly that the illness is caused by fault, it says that the healing is assisted by its confession. And then the strength of faith has broader reach. Initiating and sustaining such a group openness is the difficulty.

kjv@Ezekiel:29 > > RandyP :

Egypt was not spared from judgment in fact they were given over as wages to Nebuchadrezzar for the siege on Tyrus earlier. They would be dispersed forty years then regathered as a much less imposing nation. This lasting humility was purposeful so as to rebuke Israel as well for relying upon Egypt for it's protection instead of God.

kjv@Ezekiel:31 > > RandyP :

mhcc@Ezekiel:31

kjv@Ezekiel:32 > > RandyP :

The picture I find interesting is that with all of these fallen nations laid into the pit, their swords (weapons of war) are laid behind their heads (as if their iniquity was detached and behind them) yet their iniquity remains in their bones. We might think of iniquity as this gun or this bomb or this weapon of mass destruction. What is truly evil is the heart that devised it, the intent of that heart towards it's use. When the weapon is removed it does not remove the heart the remains devising and intending.

kjv@Ezekiel:32 > > RandyP :

What we are seeing here is an end of a world age. All of these nations are either no more or radically changed into a mere shadows of their former selfs. The world that follows is of much larger more empirical momentums and shifts. It is the beginning of the very ages revealed as a statue in a dream to the king of Babylon interpreted by Daniel, a time of major world players.

kjv@Ezekiel:33 > > RandyP :

The way of the Lord unequal? I doubt that anything He could choose to say or do would be perceived as fair. It has nothing to do with His fairness and everything to do with our perception of who we want Him to be. For those that do not want Him to be at all absolutely everything about even the notion of Him is defiled. To those that want him to be their good luck charm and means to prosperity anything other than that which He would do is unnecessary and labeled as the work of the devil.

kjv@Ezekiel:33 > > RandyP :

A person could do right for all of their lives, trust in this track record and yet fail at one point and that record be stained as if no right ever happened. Likewise, a person could do wrong for life and at one point finally do what is right and wipe his wrong clean. How can this logically be? The only way these two opposites can prove true is if the righteousness relied upon is not the righteousness of the individual but the righteousness imputed from an intermediary. One man trusts in the righteousness of Jesus though everything that he has done up to now is sinful, another trusts that he has done nothing but right and in that opinion alone he is terribly wrong for the righteousness of true righteousness has not been imputed. Righteousness apart from our Lord's righteousness is no righteousness at all.

kjv@Ezekiel:33 > > RandyP :

The iniquity of others is of their own doing. However, their blood can be charged to another if the other knew to warn them and did not. It is interesting how the elements of equity/responsibility/and true righteousness inter play with each other in this chapter's context.

kjv@1Peter:1 > > RandyP :

I marvel that Peter can say as much so plainly to the common and intellectual both in one chapter as most men would take in volumes of books. We often think as Paul and John as the writers and Peter as the doer. If you were to go back over what he has just said and how much he just said floods of tears would suddenly flow. These are not the words of human genius, they are the words of a man who has lived this faith face to face with his Lord. He speaks of tremendous desire in the end to see Him again, to be willing to endure this present tribulation to see Him return in the glory that he himself has briefly seen in a transfiguration moment, and his love for those of 'like precious faith' who not having seen as he yet believe. If we were barely able to model our approach to life and faith similar to this man we would be all the better off.

kjv@1Peter:1 > > RandyP :

Peter is rarely quoted by the prosperity preachers as much as the others because these earthly things were of little importance to him. This coming from a productive business man. Of the many things more likely important to him tops would be unfeigned love toward God and brethren, the testing and trying of faith to its precious purification, the furtherance of the commission of the spreading of the Gospel to the vast world beyond. The prosperity message more times than not is a direct hindrance to these types of things.

kjv@Ezekiel:34 > > RandyP :

The flock here is identified as Israel. The Lord had set shepherds over them; they fed themselves on the flock instead. Some were driven away, some lost, some diseased, many scattered. Their good pasture was trampled and their good water muddied. These shepherds are no doubt spiritual and civic leaders. The answer is that the Lord himself becomes the shepherd; He is the Good Shepherd. In the end, when His glory is come, He will set David over them (David is not the Shepherd himself). There is a shame of the heathen that they bare (perhaps that the heathen recognize this Shepherd before they do).

kjv@Ezekiel:35 > > RandyP :

The descendants of Esau from the Seir mountains, the Edomites are to be judged. Esau and Jacob had reconciled, but, his seed had renewed the quarrel and become frequent enemies of Israel shedding their blood. They had supposed that both lands Judah and Israel would one day be their own and had taken strength in the desolation of Israel. I am unsure of the time frame for this judgment as it seems to be when the whole earth rejoices (which may refer to the Millennium?). The Geneva notes call the people mentioned Idumeans, I'm not sure if there is a link.

kjv@1Peter:2 > > RandyP :

Peter sketches out what it looks like to live outwardly in faith. Essentially it is to live as Christ who had committed Himself entirely to Him (The Father) that judges righteously, not reviling nor threatening, baring the sins of others. Having then this picture of Christ's submission to the Father, we likewise behave in all of our outward dealings not reviling nor threatening, baring the sins of others. Listed are some examples of that kind of living.

kjv@1Peter:2:24 > > RandyP :

Healing in the larger passage context more likely refers to the soul's restoration back to God, the removing of enmity. Healing of the broken hearted for instance is not so much a healing of the physical heart/arteries. Healing of the nations is not so much a physical healing of diseased people within those nations. Restoration (healing in this case) surely has more to do with proximity or position or good standing; the returning to the Bishop of our souls.

kjv@Ezekiel:36 > > RandyP :

Idumeans/Idumea these are Edomites.

kjv@Ezekiel:36 > > RandyP :

Israel is blessed more in the end then in the beginning not because of their goodness but because of His holy name. How can this be true if the Israel spoken of here is someone other than the Jews as some cults claim? They claim that the Jews are apostate, it says here that they will be given a new heart of flesh. They claim that God has moved on, it says that the prophesy directed to the mountains of Israel and the land that will be fruitful. Like the Edomites, these cults presume that it is over for Israel, that they are the true Israel, that they will inherit what was once the Jews. Theirs is not some special higher knowledge of the will of God it is a resentment.

kjv@Ezekiel:37 > > RandyP :

Some of the dispersed have been regathered here since 1947 + 1968. Many are still left to come. Judah and Israel are again solidified as one. The things not yet achieved is the revelation of the true Shepherd, the cleansing of their hearts, the installment of David as His king. Whether the raising of the bones is literal or symbolic, it would have to be at least in the case of David. These things are moving ahead quickly.

kjv@1Peter:3 > > RandyP :

Again Christ is given as the absolute example. Not only how He acted, but, how He saw Himself in the role of obeying The Father. Having this mindset more naturally produces these particular actions and influences this certain outlook. The picture is complete in the symbolism of water baptism, the good conscience answers to God, dying to the flesh and alive to the Spirit, fully immersed in sanctification. In the same way, whether in marriage, or business, or fellowship, conducting all daily activity being willing to suffer unjustly for His good rather than be condemned for participating in their bad. To the hope of perhaps saving some of their souls along with.

kjv@Ezekiel:38:2 > > RandyP :

We see some of these names appear again in Revelations. Here they often interpreted to be a confederacy of mid Asian Baltic and Caspian tribes/states Rosh (Russia) and Meshech (Moscow) Gog and Magog (northern). I do not know of a particular king in Ezekiel's time that this would be addressed to, many believe this to be addressed to a pre-tribulation president. It is not completely agreed upon however.

kjv@Ezekiel:38:6 > > RandyP :

dict:easton Gomer dict:easton Togarmah

kjv@Ezekiel:38 > > RandyP :

You can just imagine the size of the force that could be mounted right now by a combination of Russia Iran Ethiopia Libya Europe (at least the southern and/or Celtic union). Imagine them all descending upon little Israel being the size of Rhode Island. Imagine that God has drawn them in to a terrible defeat so that other heathen nations will know that He is God.

kjv@Ezekiel:39 > > RandyP :

Seven years of burning nothing but weapons for fuel. A gathering of many birds and creeping things to eat on the carcasses. Seven months of flagging and burying the dead. A national effort by every citizen to cleanse the land. This would be an effective way of making yourself known again to your people. It would certainly lift the veil from their eyes. Imagine being in Israel at this time. Given the odds of the battle this sight would only be by the hand of God.

kjv@1Peter:4 > > RandyP :

You can see just how much the subject of trials and suffering for Christ play into Peter's theology. He sees it as the necessary cleansing and separating agent in the believers life, thus the will of God. This leads him to conclude that the end judgment begins with the house of God and works outward. Essentially, it is suffering in Christ that shapes us and our reaction to and obedience in that we are judged by. It is the measure of just how faithful we believe Him to be.

kjv@1Peter:4 > > RandyP :

So should we go out a stir up some suffering? The gospel is preached that men dead to Christ might be judged as men of the flesh. They are this to begin with, their reaction once presented condemns them all the more. One does not have to go out purposely to stir things up, the Gospel of Christ does this by itself. By presenting the Gospel in it's truest form man's very nature is stirred against Him/Us.

kjv@Ezekiel:40 > > RandyP :

The chapter reads much faster than the vision would have played out. Imagine the time involved making these measurements 6 cubits at a time. In order to remember all this detail, Ezekiel must have been writing it down as each transpired.

kjv@Ezekiel:40 > > RandyP :

Having been around friends that are architects and structural engineers, I can sense the amount of thought and design that must have gone into this temple. The attention to scope and field and depth, semblance and symmetry and proportion, utility and aesthetic. I would imagine that Ezekiel is seeing this pristine and uninhabited. I would imagine the architect is seeing this with the flow of people in and out, the reverence and perception that He is attempting to evoke. I have seen the complexity of blue prints and schematics, I cant imagine trying to build this from a written description.

kjv@Ezekiel:40 > > RandyP :

What is the importance of these details to us today? That God has a great many (if not all) details planned out; that He is trying to tell us something needed to be known. Consider that this temple fell and was desecrated just as the first and yet it is not a mistake that God gave it such detail and foresight; it is all part of a much greater plan/dialog. Often physical things and events described in the Bible are shadows/pictures/blue prints of things occurring in the spiritual world put into a language we could more readily understand. I have heard men like Dr. Vernen Mc Gee attempt to show how the Temple, the things of it, the predetermined rituals spell out a spiritual description of salvation and atonement; things like the 'holy of holys' that only the high priest was able to enter after being cleansed once a year. North gates, south gates, having to go in one gate and out another, tables and hooks, borders of pomegranate and palms, etc..., they all have their meaning in a spiritual sense. The thing for now to know is that Jesus is the complete fulfillment of all of these descriptive types. To go back and rediscover what each of these types means is to study what Jesus was able to accomplish and who we are in Him; for us each detail measured out precisely.

kjv@1Peter:5:12 > > RandyP :

Silvanus would be an interesting man to interview having been a vital member of both Paul's and Peter's teams.

kjv@1Peter:5 > > RandyP :

Though addressing church elders initially, the message here applies to each of us. Humbling ourselves, casting our cares, subjecting ourselves to one another, being sober and diligent to resist the Devil, suffering willingly to the ends of perfection. Peter, I feel, is driving the point home that these worthy things are brought about by the constant feeding the flock and taking oversight.

kjv@1Peter:5:1 > > RandyP :

Peter's motivation by now should be clear. It should be our motivation as well. Peter considers himself a witness of Christs suffering and a partaker in the glory to be revealed. Peter is this in the truest sense perhaps like no other having been there with Him. Thanks in great part to His testimony/obedience we are/can be this as well. The sufferings of Christ are so crucial to our proclamation because they point to the hands of those for whom He willingly suffered for. The glory to be revealed is equally crucial because it tells us that this was no ordinary man that suffered these things on our behalf, it was the very son of God, the promised one of Israel, the name above all names, Jesus Christ and Savior the King of all kings. Those that are thus inspired and motivated will be partakers of both the sufferings of and later the Glory of.

kjv@Ezekiel:42 > > RandyP :

It may be that having seen the original temple that Ezekiel's contemporaries would have known how this Temple would have differed from the first. Perhaps they are following along in their mind right and left and forward as Ezekiel's vision goes. Many men today would be able to study comparisons of the two even the third yet to come, but it would be interpretive, their best guess. index:WEBLINKS temple has some videos and maps of the Temples in the bible search - images and bible - video sections.

kjv@Ezekiel:43 > > RandyP :

Further study off site is suggesting that Ezekiel's Temple would be the Third or Millennial Temple. I still don't quite understand. If there is a temple built at Tribulation and it is desecrated that would be the third. This chapter suggests that this will be the final temple, that His feet will never again leave. Is the same temple simply restored in the Millennium or the same design used; is the third essentially the fourth? Is there not a new and final temple in the new Heaven and Earth's new Jerusalem post Millennium? Confused!

kjv@Ezekiel:43 > > RandyP :

The Law and ritual return in this temple as do the sacrifices. If this is in the Millennium or later salvation and the remission of sins have already been achieved once and for all by the blood of Jesus and the order of high priest is now after Melchizedek and not Levi. These offerings then would either be symbolic and memorial or else a covering for sins that the sacrifice of Jesus does not atone for. The former makes greater sense to me.

kjv@Ezekiel:43 > > RandyP :

Could this be a symbolic service of the alters initial consecration? Maybe not an eternal requirement? Further investigation is required.

kjv@Ezekiel:44 > > RandyP :

Only the Levitical order of Zadok is re-installed, the rest bare their own shame. The daily service and requirements seems to be much the same as before the difference being this time that it is all carried out to the tee. This is performed for the children of Israel. There still appears to be strangers and uncircumcised that will not be allowed into this temple. If this is the third or final temple it must suggest a continued segregation of Israelite worship from Gentile.

kjv@Ezekiel:44 > > RandyP :

I find this an extremely challenging section of prophecy. The consequences of interpretation shape deep doctrinal foundations. The reader must study and ponder this deeply and come to their own conclusions; which is a very good thing. We are challenged by scripture every day. We are stirred. We are unsettled. We are encouraged to examine and re-examine. Nothing but Christ at times seem fully settled. This is what makes faith in the Bible real and living and dynamic; the constant challenge. Thereby we grow, we are shaped, we are moved. Some seek the answers that are readily available and figure if it is not readily there it is not there at all. Others however seek deeper into the broad context and the doctrinal consequence to shed light upon that which is not readily answered. Just because I am presently confused over this passage does not mean that the answer is not there, it means that I am being challenged. My curiosity is thus thrilled to explore it much further.

kjv@2Peter:2 > > RandyP :

The righteous souls are vexed by the ungodliness surrounding them. This is much of our tribulation. In particular are a type of godless that once knew of the Lord's righteousness yet returned to their own vomit becoming more unrighteous than before. They seem to elevate themselves to positions of influence in the secular community and cause great anguish with purpose upon the remaining faithful. This may or may not include a host of false teachers also. There is swift judgment upon them though perhaps not as swift as we might sometimes hope. They do however unwittingly perform a function of solidifying and growing our truer faith and resolve.

kjv@Ezekiel:45 > > RandyP :

A large parcel of land is sectioned off for the the ministers of the temple as a sanctuary for their homes. The home of particular interest is the home of the prince. Weights and measures are corrected by the princes under the prince to make right the tithes and gifts and commerce. Sacrifices are being made for errors, there remain sin offerings, reconciliation is mentioned twice. New moons and Sabbaths are ordained, there is a monthly cleansing performed for the alter and for the priests. All of this specifically detailed as for the children of Israel.

kjv@Ezekiel:46 > > RandyP :

Concerning the prince, burnt and peace offerings are being prepared for him therefore he is not a priest. He is required to make offerings and sacrifices, he must not be covered by the blood of Christ. He is gifting possessions to sons born to him and servants that work for him as inheritances. Who then could this be? My guess as of now... it is most likely that this prince would be David. That is if this temple is the final temple.

kjv@Ezekiel:46 > > RandyP :

Are we seeing that there will be possessions exchanged and given and inherited in the future? Are we seeing that there will be class distinctions between royalty and servants? We have seen mention previously of money and measurements of commerce.

kjv@2Peter:3:15-16 > > RandyP :

There should be no doubt that Paul was not only known by Peter but read and agreed with by Peter. What better recommendation can Paul's literary works receive.

kjv@2Peter:3:15-16 > > RandyP :

It has been the doctrine of some cults (even the universal church at times) that the unlearned masses must be kept from the holy scrip based on the possible misinterpretation and destruction it might cause them identified by this passage. The context however of this passage in light of kjv@2Peter:2 is more properly of those who once knew of the Gospel/Grace of Christ but chose not to continue, turned to oppress and afflict and teach falsely after their own increased unrighteousness and gain. Paul's writings in particular are targeted by these cherry picking wicked souls as points of fierce contention, points of apparent contradiction, points to slander and attack. Peter here stands up for Paul in uncompromising fashion and therefore endorses the distribution of his works. The general masses are greatly helped rather by the availability of unfiltered scripture, their trust in leadership deeply enhanced in the things that are not easily understood by the things that are. Those who are going to fall away are going to fall away any way. Disputes and factions may arise amongst us over certain points as we try to become learned, but, even that is used to challenge and stir and put essential truths into our remembrance. Challenge does not mean destruction, challenge means hunger and thirst and utter trust in the most certain hope of an eventual divinely revealed answer.

kjv@2Peter:3 > > RandyP :

The mass distribution/reading of the Holy Scriptures to the unlearned is also our church's only security besides the Holy Spirit that those proclaiming themselves as being 'the learned' are in fact 'The Learned'. Otherwise the door is opened wide for those wicked apostates to whom this passage and context alerts us to. We see this very thing occur through out the history of our church. To get to the essentials of falsehood one must bypass the essentials of truth. Truth number one = Scripture!

kjv@Ezekiel:47 > > RandyP :

There is a new and quite large river that will flow from Jerusalem to the sea. Healing waters, water purer than any other will be its claim to fame. It will heal the other waters that come in to it.

kjv@Ezekiel:47 > > RandyP :

I am not familiar with very may of these geographic points listed. From the ones I do it appears that if it reaches as far as Damascus that Israel will have gained considerable size.

kjv@Ezekiel:47 > > RandyP :

A few interesting indications of the future life of Israel. Fishing, there will be industry and markets and the need to eat, the brackish water where the healing water meets the sea will be particularly plentiful. Medicine, it will still be needed, there will be a new leaf from a new tree (evergreen) that will be used to produce a new medicine.

kjv@Ezekiel:48 > > RandyP :

The original blood lines will have to be re-established in order to do this. I doubt if this could be done right now with total accuracy. Much of the blood lines have been co-mingled or defiled and the proofs of the lines have been blurred. I would think that authentic right would have to be told to us by the Lord.

kjv@Ezekiel:48 > > RandyP :

We have commented before as to how several cults believe that Israel has been stricken from from the Lord's redemption plan because of their apostasy and that they (the cult followers) are now its spiritual replacement. If so, then explain this chapter. Does there not have to be the original blood lines?

kjv@1John:1 > > RandyP :

The core doctrines of the gospel are simply put to the reader by John in terms anyone even child can understand. From these core points we can expand the doctrine outward. The over arching truth is that any notion contrary to these points is either a lie by us or else a lie by Him; there is no middle ground. Light, fellowship with the Light, fellowship with each other, sin, confession of sin, forgiveness of sin and the cleansing of sin from unrighteousness are all a one way or no way proposition. Who shall be the liar here; man or Christ?

kjv@Daniel:1 > > RandyP :

The Lord is always moving ahead with His plans. As a nation Judah has now fallen into Chaldean hands but through the obedience of four young souls He plans to move Israel forward through the seventy year captivity. He has gifted these four with the skill, the knowledge, the situation and the opportunity needed. They won't be the only ones that He builds up and moves into place.

kjv@Daniel:2 > > RandyP :

They sought the mercies of God concerning this secret. Perhaps they would have rather thought that the king was losing his marbles and hastily making a way for them out wit the king for their freedom. The mercies of God in this case were much different. God was intending to share a revelation with the king and establish these Hebrew boys in the kings eye. The four's action saved not only themselves but, the other soothsayers and magicians as well.

kjv@1John:2 > > RandyP :

To abide in Him is to love and to walk as He walked. This does not come naturally. The special anointing that we receive as repentant believers teaches us of all new and necessary spiritual things. We are taught by abiding in Him, abiding is our school. We love as He, we learn. We walk as He, we learn. How then can we love unless we abide in Him? His love is not just any love, His walk not like any either. This love and walk we are unfamiliar with even to the point of being at enmity with it. It is only by His unction that we are able to do it. Some then by not abiding have come out from us and have become our opposite, the antichrists.

kjv@Daniel:3 > > RandyP :

It is hard for us to imagine the heart of a king that would be driven to do this, either put in the furnace those that don't worship him or latter cut up those that don't speak amiss towards Jehovah. I guess from a tactile sense a king must test the heart of his people. In another sense he must puff himself up beyond mere mortal to remain in solid control. It amazes me however that the masses blindly go along with it and carry their power to his feet. I know that this is a different culture, I know that their system of beliefs go different directions, yet the same basic mentality flourishes today. The people hold the power but, for the sake of something undetermined that they presume to gain, they bow to such a conceded and arrogant man.

kjv@Daniel:3 > > RandyP :

What is it about the appearance of the fourth figure that made even such a godless man come to the conclusion that it was the Son of Man? Apparently the Son of Man is not such a foreign concept to other religions and cultures. Apparently there is something universally identifiable about Him. We are not told what physical features were evident. We are not told whether others drew the same conclusion. We do know that such a conclusion would be humbling to man that sought for the masses to worship himself. It must have convincing enough at least for a time for him to make the second decree. Could he have spun this to his own political advantage?

kjv@Daniel:4 > > RandyP :

I sense a subtle transition in this testimony of Nebuchadnezzar from a belief in the mighty God of gods and the spirits of holy gods (polytheism) to 'Him' the blessed 'Most High' Him that liveth in dominion forever 'King of Heaven'. There is not enough said here to say that he became monotheistic but, his respect for one particular God certainly heightened. Without doubt his worship of self was tangibly altered to have published this account.

kjv@Daniel:4 > > RandyP :

A thought about free choice... Nebuchadnezzar had twelve months to consider the interpretation of his dream. For some the dream alone would be enough to alter/soften their hearts, or so we would hope, but, is that actually true? Daniel as much as said some sort of lessening would be possible. It was not ever said though that this chastisement would ever be avoidable, that the choice was totally his. It could be that over the course of twelve months Nebuchadnezzar did everything that he thought would hold this off only to realize that he was still under it's shadow. He may have hardened in the end. Therefore it is evidenced that as much as Nebuchadnezzar may have thought that he had changed, he had not actually changed; the pride was still deep within him. Our circumstances may be similar, God may be trying to remove a destructive trait or element from our heart. We may try (and be given time) to extract that ill on our own, but, until it is given into God's hands it is never really removed; it simply lays hidden producing further atrophy/paralysis. Where then is free choice? It is in accepting the way things must be. It is all things given into His hands.

kjv@1John:3 > > RandyP :

There is so much said here that entire books can be (and have been) written. For the moment it should be enough to consider that these things are all expansions of the core doctrine that John presented in kjv@1John:1 , namely that God is light and in Him is no darkness. If we are in God, so too there can be no darkness in us. Knowing the 'how' this is possible is knowing the 'what' Jesus accomplished in His death and resurrection and the 'who' He is. The working of this knowledge produces unfeigned love in us for the brethren, which is the proof positive of possessing this knowledge. It can be produced in no other way.

kjv@1John:3 > > RandyP :

Cain is purposely used as the counter example. This key information steers the understanding of this passage a direction it otherwise would not go. The context becomes the inseparable fusion of love and righteousness, it's perceived source/manner and the resultant actions occurring from. Two men make the same effort to worship the living God, the means of which produce two opposite ends. The same can be said of two men that worship, one finding the ability to love unfeigned, the other finding the ability to hate and inflict judgment.

kjv@1John:4:6 > > RandyP :

filter:NT spirit+of

kjv@1John:4 > > RandyP :

If I were to ask nearly any non-believer 'what is God?' the near unanimous reply would be "God is love". If I were to ask then 'what is love?' I would receive a multitude of varying replies mostly having something to do with tolerance for their sins. The question then to ask is 'doesn't that mean that love is whatever one wants/needs it to be?' or better 'that God is whomever we want/need Him to be?'. What kind of god can we ourselves make up? Is your wife whomever you wish her to be? Is your son? Is there any other working relationship that you know of that is determined by what you wish it to be? Are we not individual? Do we not have structure and backbone, interests and opinions and needs of our own that you yourself have to accept navigate and familiarize your self with? Isn't that the beauty of relationships? Why should it be any different with God? We love God because he first loved us. It was not our minute and varying personal perceptions of God with which He loved us, it was His gigantic eternal design for present and future, a love that would redeem us from our sins and set us aright into eternity. It was not our selfish 'I need you to be this' love or 'do this now for me or else' love or 'if you even exist' love for His love came before our love. What then is love? God is love? What is God? Creator and perfecter and possessor of our souls in whom no darkness dwells and in that He is absolute love.

kjv@Daniel:5 > > RandyP :

I am surprised that Belshazzar still adorned Daniel in the scarlet after his own judgment and the judgment of his kingdom was so pronounced. I suppose after seeing just a hand writing on a wall and Daniel being the only one to interrupt and settle the doubt, one would have to believe it.

kjv@Daniel:5 > > RandyP :

The kingdoms of men are ruled by God and He appoints them to whomever He will. Would He appoint a tyrant? If it served His purposes. Would He appoint a socialist or a mad man? If it furthered His will. He would? He has and He will. What then about His righteousness, is He not then an unrighteous God by appointing an unrighteous king? This God is righteous, mankind is presently unrighteous, His design is to lead us from our unrighteousness into His righteousness. If a good shepherd commands his flock to move forward and they move not, is it not right for the shepherd to send his dog? If it takes appointing certain men exhibiting the worst of our collective unrighteousness to show and move us off of our unrighteousness when we otherwise would not listen, is that not in itself utterly righteous?

kjv@Daniel:6 > > RandyP :

In the comments of kjv@Daniel:5 I had pondered the righteousness of God and the unrighteousness of man as it came to God appointing rulers, even if of questionable heart. Here immediately after that chapter, we see a demonstration of one of these leaders being played shrewdly/wickedly by a band of political malcontents to a man of God's harm/end. The king was aware of the trickery and sorrowful about it but, was not in a position to go against his own decree. We see a similar occurrence with Pilot regarding the sentencing of Jesus. We should be aware then that matters of righteousness and unrighteousness and leadership are not as cut and dry as we commoners presume, neither is the manner in which the righteous hand of God must deal with them.

kjv@Daniel:7 > > RandyP :

There is not a mention of rapture in this vision that I can see. These saints appear to be on earth the entire time. For a measured time they are worn down and overcome by the fourth beast. With an eye toward harmony with other scriptures we must find a way to explain these saints with the saints that are raptured. One way would be to say that these saints became believers because of or after the rapture. Include these with the Messianic Jews who will have their veil lifted and you have quite a number.

kjv@Daniel:7 > > RandyP :

Such a vision is troubling for all of us but yet we must keep the matter in heart. It is a terrifying time for the people of this world. The turmoil and suffering of the past world wars are pale in comparison. It is not just the exhibition of the wickedness of man but, the brutal demonic nature of spiritual principalities in full view. For Daniel, having the big picture brought down to human perspective through the use of descriptive symbols and characters is astonishing. Though difficult to know exactly who each character is and what the details mean, we all sense the general motion.

kjv@Daniel:8:25 > > RandyP :

'By peace he shall destroy many'. For many peace is the ultimate. Even for many religious God is all about peace. I am not sure whether this antichrist ever brings actual peace, but, the promise of peace would certainly be enough to motivate the masses. Peace while deceit prospers? Peace while the temple is desecrated? Peace while the Persians and Medes are being subjected? Peace while he stands up against the Prince of princes? This does not sound anything like real peace, it sounds like deception and domination. That is what these people think peace is however.

kjv@1John:5 > > RandyP :

I find the rhythm in the end odd. Such a metered and descriptive examination of godly love throughout the passage, to end in such an abrupt change of cadence 'keep yourself from idols' (out!). Is the transition from love to idols as so abrupt however? Are they not essentially the same thing? All that he has spoken of love and heavenly wittiness and sinlessness and divine providence, can they not be wrapped up in the few words of keeping yourself from idols? Where then do our idols exists?

kjv@1John:5 > > RandyP :

The idols spoken of here can be as simple as a Jesus other than the one testified of by the Father. A Jesus that isn't God made flesh. A Jesus who is not His only begotten Son. A Jesus who is not His beloved. A Jesus who is one of many ways acceptable to the Father. Any other Jesus makes this Jesus a liar. Try this translation: "keep yourselves from the Jesus that makes this Jesus a liar".

kjv@Daniel:9 > > RandyP :

The math if we understand one day to be one year correctly is exact, 490 years from the year of this vision to Christ's baptism, 434 from Ezra's rebuilding of the temple. Christ the Messiah is in Jerusalem but is cut off (not for himself but for our sins) and then shortly (AD70) the city and temple are destroyed. There is an unrevealed number of years of desolation (current) followed by a confirmation (or tribulation) of seven years. I am told that many Jews of the time by this prophecy expected the Messiah on this same schedule and by some Jews expectation even today He is nearly 2000 years late. When the veil is lifted they will understand their confusion as to Jesus (1 Messiah appearing twice lamb and ruler instead of 2 at once).

kjv@Daniel:10:12 > > RandyP :

Daniel had done two things right in order for his prayers to be answered, he sought/set his heart to understand, he chastened himself before God. From that point (even though at times it may not have seemed to him like it) his prayers were heard. Now the Lord comes.

kjv@Daniel:10:13 > > RandyP :

This is an insight perhaps like seen no where else in the Old Testament. Spiritual warfare 21 days with the prince of Persia, Michael coming in to assist the Lord. What else is going on around us that we are unaware of?

kjv@Daniel:10:21 > > RandyP :

The scripture of truth. Could refer to two things and perhaps both. The scripture as written thus far by Moses. The eternal plan as written and agreed upon from before creation by the Trinity. The Lord has always made it a point to reference scripture directly.

kjv@Daniel:10:21 > > RandyP :

Many have interpreted Michael as being the protecting angel over Israel. Michael was commander of the angelic forces that cast out the dragon from heaven kjv@Revelation:12:7 . We believe Michael to be present in the end times defeating the terrible invasion from the north. Michael is firmly holding with the Lord.

kjv@Daniel:10:21 > > RandyP :

I have heard it said that Michael tends to come in judgment, Gabriel tends to come with announcements and peace. I need to look into this further.

kjv@Daniel:10 > > RandyP :

Given the trembling and reverence given this figure, the language used regarding Him, the worship even to unconsciousness and dumbfoundedness (forbidden of towards even angels), I see little doubt that this is none other than The Lord Christ Himself that Daniel falls before.

kjv@2John:1 > > RandyP :

It really wouldn't surprise me if there weren't a great number of these letters written to various individuals by all of the Apostles. What is surprising is that this one was still able to be verified years later when the New Testament was canonized. This great lady must have been extremely well known, must have cherished this and taken such good care of it. She must have shown it to some influential people as well. I can see her eyes light up when she would begin to recount receiving it.

kjv@Daniel:11 > > RandyP :

Further reading:http://pages.suddenlink.net/dalede/dan11.htm http://www.letgodbetrue.com/bible/prophecy/daniel11.php http://www.drshirley.org/hist/hist07.html http://www.zianet.com/maxey/Inter2.htm

kjv@Daniel:12 > > RandyP :

Further reading:http://www.studylight.org/com/guz/view.cgi?book=da&chapter=012 http://www.godrules.net/library/clarke/clarkedan12.htm http://bible-truth.org/Daniel12.html

kjv@Daniel:12 > > RandyP :

I feel presently that I am not equipped to explain this kjv@Daniel:10-12 passage. There are a great many scholars that have looked into this much more deeply who disagree one to another. I started to add further reading resources as starting points, but, don't want to outright endorse any of these particular views. Like with much of bible prophecy, I believe that every single word is true and that when it is all fulfilled we will everyone say 'boy Daniel sure nailed that'. Until it is all fulfilled however, I marvel at the detail, I marvel at how it could explain this and that, I marvel at the angels and the means of communication they use. I seek to understand these things and I dig deeper and deeper into them.

kjv@Daniel:12 > > RandyP :

I know many people that have had much opportunity for productive spiritual fruit fall from the limb because of their insistence in figuring all of these prophetic clues together. It almost becomes a destructive addiction. If our commandment is to love one another as God loves us, certainly there must be a balance between the mental pursuit of knowing and the spiritual pursuit of simply acting based upon trust. Knowing how to comfort a friend is just as important as knowing 3 1/2 years for this and this king was... Some times sealed means sealed. Not to diminish the importance of prophecy mind you, but, to elevate the importance of being amongst the living and being fruitful in the knowledge of Christ.

kjv@3John:1:9 > > RandyP :

How would you like to be remembered throughout history as the man who more loved his preeminence and received them not?

kjv@3John:1 > > RandyP :

We should know that not everyone in the fold is for the fold. John may have written some of these smaller letters in part to gather intel and to make sure that the things/persons that he had sent were being received and used. He has taken the time to develop networks of 'wellbeloved' and so should we. We should be participants in this network that our true spiritual leaders are maintaining as well. Who knows, maybe one of these letters will be arriving at our desk one day.

kjv@Hosea:1 > > RandyP :

We are going back now to the time where Israel and Judah were two nations, just before Israel was put down. Hosea is a contemporary of Isaiah. He paints a vivid picture of the spiritual adultery of the nation that had gone whoring after other gods and could not stay faithful even though the Lord loved her dearly.

kjv@Hosea:2:16 > > RandyP :

The symbolism of husband and wife has been used to depict our spiritual nature by several authors in many places in the bible. Here, if I read this right is an interesting insight of a wife that sees her God as Baali or master when she should see him as Ishi husband. His love then is the key difference. A master can master with or without love, impose his rule over her. A husband loves and gives himself for her, he builds her up and protects her. Her perception and response is much different given the two.

kjv@Hosea:3 > > RandyP :

Israel's love for God is not the same as His love for her. This now is a second wife. She was a whore before they had met and she will continue. She has been told that she shall not play the harlot and the prophecy is given that there will be a time shortly that she will not be a nation, abide many days without a king or sacrifice and afterwards return.

kjv@Hosea:4 > > RandyP :

No truth, no mercy, no knowledge. Swearing, lying, killing, stealing, adultery. The Apostle John had said that God is light and in Him is no darkness. How can Israel be in Him and yet have this obvious darkness? His plan is for them to be removed from their darkness. First, they must be made to realize and understand their darkness. How does one that doesn't listen, that thinks opposite come to realize? Something is done to get her attention.

kjv@Hosea:5 > > RandyP :

You can imagine Judah as it looks out to see what is happening to Israel. One would hope that the sight of such would sober them up but, it does the opposite. There is wickedness in the midst, and man's wickedness takes the opportunity to expand in disaster where man's righteousness tends to hide. The Lord withdraws Himself as is best until they can acknowledge their offense.

kjv@Hosea:5 > > RandyP :

The offense is toward God. The lying, the killing, the adultery; the treachery of priests and murderous revolter's, pacts with foreign kings. One might think that the offense is against the nation, or toward the good people of the land, towards what could have been, towards those slain or persecuted. This is God's nation, His law, His chosen people, His temple; the offense is toward Him. To take this offense and not own up to it is a greater offense than any.

kjv@Hosea:6 > > RandyP :

Then shall we know, if we follow on... It is not only in the realization and acknowledgement, it is in what we follow after that. Many a man has been brought to realize, brought to acknowledge their sin, few however have then followed after what is right.

kjv@Hosea:7:11 > > RandyP :

The thing that they are told not to do is what they do. They spread their own net.

kjv@Hosea:7:7 > > RandyP :

Where are the men that can see aright, that can discern the times and legislate the course? They have been devoured. Did not even David in his Psalms sense that the wicked were out for as much? Well they've done it. Is this not true in our day and time as well?

kjv@Jude:1 > > RandyP :

Contending for the faith once delivered begins with praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping oneself in God's love, looking for His mercy unto eternity, having compassion for some, making the difference, saving some with fear, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. The fact that we would have to contend with others supposedly within our own faith means that it is not an easy list of things to do. We are warned that these apostates have crept in unaware and that there is a certain advantage and admiration inherent for them to do so. They are defined as dreamers defiling the flesh, despising dominion, speaking evil of dignities. They preach out of what they know naturally.

kjv@Jude:1 > > RandyP :

Compare this with 2Peter. In kjv@2Petter:1:5-8 contenders for the like precious faith begin by adding to their faith virtue (valor towards excellence) knowledge (revealed, spiritual) temperance (against similar brute knowledge) patience (persistence) godliness (living forward, spiritual obedience) brotherly kindness (striving for the unity of the Spirit) and charity (Agape love).

kjv@Revelation:1:5-6 > > RandyP :

What better description of who Jesus Christ is?

kjv@Revelation:1:9 > > RandyP :

What better description of the Apostle?

kjv@Revelation:1:13 > > RandyP :

kjv@Luke:9:28-36 John has seen this glorified Son of Man before. He knows of whom he is talking.

kjv@Revelation:1:18 > > RandyP :

Okay, maybe this is a better description of Christ Jesus from His own mouth!

kjv@Revelation:2:1-7 > > RandyP :

The all important first love. The church of Ephesus is doing a whole lot right. They contend for the faith as Jude would exhort, resist evil and suffer for Christ's name sake as Peter. Their first love no doubt was for Him as a person and for each other as His friends. For as much as they are doing right, they still need to obey the great commandment kjv@Mark:12:30-31.

kjv@Revelation:2:8-11 > > RandyP :

Nothing said about what the church in Smyrna is doing right or wrong, only what they have been and what some will be suffering for Christ's namesake. Be thou faithful unto death He exhorts.

kjv@Revelation:2:12-17 > > RandyP :

In Pergamos we see a likeness to the two previous churches, faithfulness under severe persecution and having to deal with apostates amongst the brethren. This church however had not been as successful holding out the apostates and is in need of repentance in this same regard. We could say in effect that they need to return to their first love as their first love would not have mixed and commingled these blots and dead relics.
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