kjv@Romans:1 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Psalms:79 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Romans:8:1-18 @ @ RandyP comments: 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 comments: 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:84 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Romans:15:1-20 @ @ RandyP comments: "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@1Corinthians:5 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Psalms:124 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:131 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Psalms:136 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:142 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@1Corinthians:11:3 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Proverbs:3 @ @ RandyP comments: 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 comments: 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:13:12 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:22:7 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Isaiah:14 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:25 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:32 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Philippians:1 @ @ RandyP comments: 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 comments: 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@Colossians:4:16 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:58:4 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Jeremiah:5 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@2Thessalonians:3 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Jeremiah:11:3-5 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@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:48 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:5:7-10 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Jeremiah:52 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@James:2 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@Ezekiel:32 @ @ RandyP comments: 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:40 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@2Peter:3:15-16 @ @ RandyP comments: 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@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@Hosea:4 @ @ RandyP comments: 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: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@Revelation:4 @ @ RandyP comments: If you have ever been blessed with revelation you know that your attention to detail is un-human. The things that you remember are remembered because there is divine meaning planted in each and every little thing, they are sealed in your memory because they are meant to be sealed. There is no doubt coming out that you are granted occasion to be a part of something foreign and miraculous and you want to go back into it without letting the moment get away from you. You try to get back into it for days, but, eventually realize that it has ended. It may be the only revelation you ever again receive or it may be years until another. Part of you however searches for it again in your dreams, in strange little occurrences, in voices you think that you might of heard. John here receives perhaps the greatest and most complete revelations ever recorded. The imagery and symbolism and threads tied to other bible prophets and covenant history that God uses is utterly mind blowing. John must have been exhausted afterward beyond human strength.
kjv@Micah:6 @ @ RandyP comments: Three things that the LORD requires: 1. To do justly 2. To love mercy 3. To walk humbly with God. It is the Lords' contention that none of these things have been or are being done. You might say that you have done enough good works. Have you done justly? You might say that you are a loving person. Have you loved mercy? You might say that you've tried when you could to walk a good walk. Have you walked humbly with God?
kjv@Zechariah:8 @ @ RandyP comments: If you could imagine a place and a time when every man speaks truth to his neighbor, truth and peace are executed at the gates, evil intent and false oath are far removed; God imagines much the same. Ten men of ten different languages come to the Jew and say let us together go speedily to worship your God in His city; that day friends will come. The seed shall be prosperous and the vine give her fruit, the ground her increase and the heavens their dew. The Lord shall cause this. How? How will He cause this? This causation is what we are experiencing now. It takes all of this to get us to there!
kjv@Revelation:19:6 @ @ RandyP comments: It is not that the Lord has just become omnipotent and reigns, it is that He always has and always will. Remember that this present vanity we've been subjected to comes out of a hope kjv@Romans:8:20, what better hope than to come to know Him for who/what He truly is. One can say the Lord is omnipotent but, what does that mean until all involved have experienced that? One can say the Lord is full of compassion in the same sense, what does that mean until all involved have experienced it? This then is a time when all of us have experienced the experience and we can conclude with knowledge and eternal confidence that this Lord God reigns omnipotent. These are not now just words!
kjv@Revelation:21 @ @ RandyP comments: The glorious new heavens and new earth. Jesus said that He goes to prepare a new place for us. It took Him six days to prepare the place that we are at. He has been over 2000 years preparing the place upcoming. It is a place obviously much different than this place, for one thing it is a place where the internal beauty of man's cleansed and purified heart unites as one to commune with its Lord and maker. In another way, it is a place where there is no more death, no more fear of death, no more pain, no more sorrow. It is a place too good to be true from a God too good for it not to be true. Today then, it is a faith, a hope, a truth unseen that guides us through the darkness of this day, an evidence of the long time goodness and intents of our Savior.
kjv@Genesis:1 @ @ RandyP comments: Another peculiarity we should not let escape our attention is that while there is a division between light and dark strkjv@Genesis:1:3-5 called Night and Day, the actual objects visually determining those observances for earth were not until kjv@Genesis:1:14-19 after even vegetation. Light and darkness till then were from a different source and that source was sufficient for massive plant life. In kjv@Revelation:21:23 we see a similar occurrence in the new earth.
kjv@Genesis:3:1-5 @ @ RandyP comments: A great many things are given and allowed in the garden. One simple thing is not. It is the one thing that often occupies our mind. People are to some extent defined by what they can't have, by what is forbidden just as they are defined by the fear of death. Not only is there what is forbidden, there is what is threatened, and there is someone readily willing to deceive.
kjv@Genesis:3:1-5 @ @ RandyP comments: The deception is a subtle twist of words over the meaning/extent of death. If the serpent had said that she'd die spiritually first, be exiled from the garden, live her and her generations in toil and turmoil, suffer famine and war and horrid transgressions from one another, and die a slow degenerating sometimes cancerous death, the deception would not have been as inviting. What is at question here is whether God would stand behind what He said and follow through; if so why? The why gets us into areas far beyond the thoughts of man.
kjv@Genesis:24 @ @ RandyP comments: The angel had prepared the servants way to prosper at this task. The blood line was to remain pure. I take it (way) to mean that he prepared Rebekah and her family's heart. The servant put a test before the angel so that he would know when he found the right woman. I have known people to put other tests out in their own prayers and dealings; I think that we need to be careful. Remember that Isaac was to become the continuation of the covenant with Abraham, this wife was to birth a great many seeds of the covenant. There is a righteousness there that may not be there if we place a similar test on which job shall we take or what city. Often our tests favor preconceived notions of what we would most like the answer to be and the situations leading to them born out of our dissatisfaction or restlessness. I am not saying that tests such as these are not good in certain cases, I am saying one must truly search out their intentions and honesty before making demands upon the righteous will of God.
kjv@Genesis:26 @ @ RandyP comments: We are not told what religious background Isaac is journeying amongst, but, see that it believes in the sanctity of marriage and that God curses certain behaviors/situation and blesses others. They are spiritually alert enough to see that they blessing is on Isaac as it was with Abraham. They first fear the extent to which he is being blessed and send him out only later to have a greater tolerance for him. Famine can be a scary thing as well. Through the blessing of the Lord however, famine can be a time of great investment and return. With a hundred fold crop during a famine ya you'd have to say it was God's blessing.
kjv@Genesis:35:29 @ @ RandyP comments: Sometimes the story line moves on without you even before your death. Less frequently to that, it may even come back to you for a final mention. Isaac was a great enough patriarch to have had both. How he had spent this time was no doubt important for himself, hopeful peacefully and content and richly blessed, important to those closest to him. God's written record allows him that privacy yet pays him the respect at his end.
kjv@Genesis:37 @ @ RandyP comments: The harder we work against something at times, the quicker it comes to be. Did anyone stop to think that the dreams Joseph was dreaming might be from God? Did Jacob? If anyone did, their judgment was clouded by the image that they had of their brother/son. It is one thing to dislike a sibling but, to dismiss that God could work through them is another. Some brothers became uncomfortable with outright murder; that would have been a good place for them to check their intents, but to substitute murder with slavery and forgery not much different.
kjv@Genesis:45:5 @ @ RandyP comments: This is a solid offer of forgiveness to pattern our own after. First, it does not seek anything further from them to make it or keep it happening. Second, it is based upon God's intentions and not either of the two parties involved. Third, it is concerned for reaction of the guilty towards their own selves.
kjv@Matthew:6 @ @ RandyP comments: Notice that the heavenly reward is not based upon the deed but upon the heart from which it was issued. That is not to say that we should avoid doing good deeds being fearful of our hearts intent, it is to say search the intents out and do these good deeds right and one will be all the better off.
kjv@Matthew:13:19 @ @ RandyP comments: This understanding is not a matter left to human intelligence, it is plain and evident to persons of all IQ's/literacy/backgrounds. Satan is not omnipresent so he utilizes man's sheep like pack and conforming nature. He will twist and distort ones intentions and honest curiosity, even God's own words to produce doubt and apparent contradiction to foster rejection and rebellion. It is not understood because the heart has fattened and calloused against it. A mans own peers become the fowls of the air as much as any demon.
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