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kjv@Psalms:74 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@1Corinthians:11:1-15 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Proverbs:15:22 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Songs:1 @ @ RandyP comments: geneva@Songs:1 compares the female character as the church longing for her groom.

kjv@Isaiah:29 @ @ RandyP comments: 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 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Jeremiah:25 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Titus:3 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:44 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Lamentations:5 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Ezekiel:21 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@James:3 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:27 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Daniel:6 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@3John:1 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:9 @ @ RandyP comments: It seems that critics are consumed with the translations of small words. A translation of few corrupted and the entire text is called into question. The message of the Bible however in such large grandiose pictures that the changing of words here would have to be repeated throughout and still would not change the picture. The picture here is that chosen Israel has gone very wrong, and is left to receive the punishing end of a firm covenant. Is there not the picture of God's love? Is there not the picture of His blessings upon them? Is there not the picture of them chasing after gods other then Him? Is there not the picture of His patience and efforts for their return? How many words would have to be changed in how many places to alter this picture? Being confident of this picture we are all the more confident in the fitting of the other pictures in the collection that God's word so vividly paints, such as the picture of Christ.

kjv@Hosea:10 @ @ RandyP comments: Pictures of vines producing fruit, wheat producing flour, flour producing bread, leaven falsely puffing the bread up, sea's producing their own foam, night and day, light and darkness, faithful brides and harlots, sheep and goats, wheat and tares; such picture-grams fill the volumes of scripture. Over and over, situation after situation, pictures of nations and empires, of tents and temples, of times and eras, of deserts and fruitful places; how do they not mean what they mean? How do they lend themselves to mis-interpretation? God surely knows the heart of man, that two men will look at the same object and dispute over what it is. One man will pick it apart with small words, the other piece it together with larger pictures. God knows the limitations of human language and the deceitfulness of hearts. His word is constructed in such a way that the only doubt that can be left is the doubt of a rebellious self justifying reprobate.

kjv@Zechariah:5 @ @ RandyP comments: A two sided curse flies over the entire earth, one side curses all theft, the other curses all swearing. Theft and swearing comes in big and small ways, ways each of us try to justify and reduce, but, assuredly spring from the same heart. Think of it for now though as one whole. The collective heart can be measured out like a ephad of wheat, often Jesus described the Kingdom as wheat. Yet in the middle a woman is found sitting in the wheat adding to the weight thereof as a weight heavy as lead. This complete measure of wickedness is transported to be housed in Babylon. A woman of similar geographic description is described in Revelation as 'MYSTERY, THE GREAT HARLOT OF BABYLON' who reigns over the kings of earth. Could she be tied to the theft and swearing as well?

kjv@Genesis:2 @ @ RandyP comments: There must be purpose to the delay of Eve's creation. We do not know how long of a delay, but, it was long enough for Adam know the need for a help mate. The other beasts were created male and female from the start and reproduced after their own kind, Adam was no doubt observant of such. Eve is taken out of Adam by a rib which makes her creation unlike any other. She was not taken directly from the dust.

kjv@Genesis:17 @ @ RandyP comments: The token of the remembrance of this everlasting covenant was quite simple, male circumcision. Even Ishmael, who would later leave and become his own great people received this token in his flesh. The covenant itself is based entirely upon God's grace, the token is secondary and a fleshly symbol of a remembrance towards His grace. Mankind would still yet require a circumcision of heart to receive their savior/salvation; again entirely by God's grace. The descendent's of Ishmael should be made aware of this as well.

kjv@Exodus:5:2 @ @ RandyP comments: They are testing the waters of Pharaoh's with a much smaller thing, a three day prayer fest in the wilderness. Pharaoh's decision is not only based upon the request of the Hebrews, but, his image and perception of their God. In a sense he is absolutely right to ask who is this god and why should I obey him.

kjv@Exodus:13 @ @ RandyP comments: It should be known by the way the Lord ritualized this event that He did not intend to continue doing this specific type of massive deliverance again, not for the Israelites, not for any other nation or tribe; it was a once and for all proclamation of the deliverance in Christ to come. There are not other Christs therefore there are not other pictures of His complete deliverance given for the nations. God will show smaller more general deliverances hereafter but those are pictures of more daily deliverances after the all in all deliverance of Christ is received and followed. He always did these fortellings leading up to Christ through Israel so that the nations would not confuse these accounts with any other god. This exodus account will be retold and reminded many times more throughout scripture.

kjv@Psalms:60 @ Psalms:60 @ RandyP comments: By the time of son Solomon's reign, God had used David as an instrument of bringing Israel from the pits of "hard things" to a nation with all enemies subjected to it. It was a time like never before and never again for Israel. David from the start believed in God's promise and God's ability. These neighboring nations were to be overcome by God's hand if only there be a leader such as David faithful and fully expectant. It is a hard lesson to learn when we go about electing our own way and our own man, going about by our own resource as they had done in the reign of Saul. Israel was taught in hardship that it really didn't have it's own resource and had little ability to stand against such hardened external/internal foes. It is also taught by prosperous times that God can bring about a great many essentials outside of their normal resource to surround faithful leaders such as David. Battles begun being won for the cherished nation that by their own strength would have undoubtedly been lost (or not even pursued) largely by the faith and petition of a God fearing/seeking man. God surely teaches by the hard times and by the prosperous times; the message either way is much the same. This lesson unfortunitely would have to be relearned every few short generations.

RecentComments @ kjv@James:2:21 @ RandyP comments: Justification can be thought of on two scales, one being made right with God overall (this is by faith and faith alone), the second as proof one to another of our pre-existing overall faith (the faith that I have can be proven to you by the works that this faith has executed on/through me). If faith has not produced demonstrable works, one must wonder if that having been made right with God actually exists. For, the "made right with God" faith will unalterably cause corresponding demonstrable proofs. The larger scale justification is all important first and foremost, each of us must be made right with God by the imputation of Jesus' own righteousness covering over us. This is the justification Paul largely speaks to us of. The smaller scale justification then (and only then) is inevitable should this first condition be met. This is the obvious point James here in chapter 2 furthers.

So many unbelievers today look at Christian faith as a dead thing. One response is that they (unbelievers) want that to be. The opposing response might be that perhaps on an observable scale it indeed is dead is if we (Christians) have not the works to counter their disbelief with. Dead in this inference is to mean unprovable or yet to have tangible effect, not necessarily that the faith in some smaller but saving form does not exist.

RecentComments @ kjv@James:2:21 @ RandyP comments: Justification can be thought of on two scales, one being made right with God overall (this is by faith and faith alone), the second as proof one to another of our pre-existing overall faith (the faith that I have can be proven to you by the works that this faith has executed on/through me). If faith has not produced demonstrable works, one must wonder if that having been made right with God actually exists. For, the "made right with God" faith will unalterably cause corresponding demonstrable proofs. The larger scale is all important firt and foremost, each of us being made right with God. This is the justification Paul largely speaks to us of. The smaller scale justification then (and only then) is inevitable should the first condition be met. This is the obvious point James furthers. So many unbelievers today look at Christian faith as a dead thing. One response is that they (unbelievers) want that to be. The opposing response might be that perhaps on an observable scale it indeed is dead is if we (Christians) have not the works to counter their disbelief with. Dead in this inference is to mean questionable as to whether the first scale has actually been met.