November 1, 2017

All grown up!!! by Gary Rose

Now, there is something you don't see every day- a dog leading himself (herself?) through an intersection!!! What a dog!!!! 

I would like to say that all PEOPLE are capable of directing their lives, but I can't. Our nation has become a nanny-state; a place where the government takes care of you from cradle to grave. The good news is- under president Donald Trump this is slowly changing.

Reflecting upon this picture, I thought of the spiritual application of direction and immediately thought of a passage from the book of Galatians. But, I had to choose the right translation to convey the message...

Galatians, Chapter 3 (Young's Literal Translation)
  19 Why, then, the law? on account of the transgressions it was added, till the seed might come to which the promise hath been made, having been set in order through messengers in the hand of a mediator--  20 and the mediator is not of one, and God is one--  21 the law, then, is against the promises of God? --let it not be! for if a law was given that was able to make alive, truly by law there would have been the righteousness,  22 but the Writing did shut up the whole under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ may be given to those believing.  23 And before the coming of the faith, under law we were being kept, shut up to the faith about to be revealed,  24 so that the law became our child-conductor--to Christ, that by faith we may be declared righteous, 25 and the faith having come, no more under a child-conductor are we, (Emphasis added, vss. 25f.) 26 for ye are all sons of God through the faith in Christ Jesus,  27 for as many as to Christ were baptized did put on Christ;  28 there is not here Jew or Greek, there is not here servant nor freeman, there is not here male and female, for all ye are one in Christ Jesus;  29 and if ye are of Christ then of Abraham ye are seed, and according to promise--heirs.


So, I chose Young's Literal Translation. Where most translations use the english word Tutor, Young uses child-conductor. This most accurately reflects the original language, as the greek word (παιδαγωγον) referred to the slave that had the task of leading a young child around by the hand to provide guidance.

Christians are not under law, but grace. We are not as the immature which need to be hand-led about to do the right thing. We are to be grown up, mature- led by reason and discipline in the knowledge of Christ.

Now, for the hard part! We actually have to grow up!!! So, just do it, Gary!!!!

Bible Reading November 1, 2 by Gary Rose

Bible Reading November 1, 2

(World English Bible)

Nov. 1
Isaiah 21-24

Isa 21:1 The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.
Isa 21:2 A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media's sighing.
Isa 21:3 Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have taken hold on me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can't hear. I so am dismayed that I can't see.
Isa 21:4 My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.
Isa 21:5 They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!
Isa 21:6 For the Lord said to me, "Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees.
Isa 21:7 When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness."
Isa 21:8 He cried like a lion: "Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.
Isa 21:9 Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs." He answered, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.
Isa 21:10 You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!" That which I have heard from Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
Isa 21:11 The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?"
Isa 21:12 The watchman said, "The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again."
Isa 21:13 The burden on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites.
Isa 21:14 They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.
Isa 21:15 For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.
Isa 21:16 For the Lord said to me, "Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,
Isa 21:17 and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken it."

Isa 22:1 The burden of the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you have all gone up to the housetops?
Isa 22:2 You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town; your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.
Isa 22:3 All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away.
Isa 22:4 Therefore I said, "Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don't labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Isa 22:5 For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, in the valley of vision; a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains."
Isa 22:6 Elam carried his quiver, with chariots of men and horsemen; and Kir uncovered the shield.
Isa 22:7 It happened that your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.
Isa 22:8 He took away the covering of Judah; and you looked in that day to the armor in the house of the forest.
Isa 22:9 You saw the breaches of the city of David, that they were many; and you gathered together the waters of the lower pool.
Isa 22:10 You numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.
Isa 22:11 You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you didn't look to him who had done this, neither did you have respect for him who purposed it long ago.
Isa 22:12 In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth:
Isa 22:13 and behold, joy and gladness, killing cattle and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die."
Isa 22:14 Yahweh of Armies revealed himself in my ears, "Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you until you die," says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.
Isa 22:15 Thus says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, "Go, get yourself to this treasurer, even to Shebna, who is over the house, and say,
Isa 22:16 'What are you doing here? Who has you here, that you have dug out a tomb here?' Cutting himself out a tomb on high, chiseling a habitation for himself in the rock!"
Isa 22:17 Behold, Yahweh will overcome you and hurl you away violently. Yes, he will grasp you firmly.
Isa 22:18 He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be, you shame of your lord's house.
Isa 22:19 I will thrust you from your office. You will be pulled down from your station.
Isa 22:20 It will happen in that day that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
Isa 22:21 and I will clothe him with your robe, and strengthen him with your belt. I will commit your government into his hand; and he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.
Isa 22:22 I will lay the key of the house of David on his shoulder. He will open, and no one will shut. He will shut, and no one will open.
Isa 22:23 I will fasten him like a nail in a sure place. He will be for a throne of glory to his father's house.
Isa 22:24 They will hang on him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue, every small vessel, from the cups even to all the pitchers.
Isa 22:25 "In that day," says Yahweh of Armies, "the nail that was fastened in a sure place will give way. It will be cut down, and fall. The burden that was on it will be cut off, for Yahweh has spoken it."

Isa 23:1 The burden of Tyre. Howl, you ships of Tarshish! For it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in. From the land of Kittim it is revealed to them.
Isa 23:2 Be still, you inhabitants of the coast, you whom the merchants of Sidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished.
Isa 23:3 On great waters, the seed of the Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her revenue. She was the market of nations.
Isa 23:4 Be ashamed, Sidon; for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying, "I have not travailed, nor brought forth, neither have I nourished young men, nor brought up virgins."
Isa 23:5 When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report of Tyre.
Isa 23:6 Pass over to Tarshish! Wail, you inhabitants of the coast!
Isa 23:7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days, whose feet carried her far away to travel?
Isa 23:8 Who has planned this against Tyre, the giver of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth?
Isa 23:9 Yahweh of Armies has planned it, to stain the pride of all glory, to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.
Isa 23:10 Pass through your land like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish. There is no restraint any more.
Isa 23:11 He has stretched out his hand over the sea. He has shaken the kingdoms. Yahweh has ordered the destruction of Canaan's strongholds.
Isa 23:12 He said, "You shall rejoice no more, you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, pass over to Kittim. Even there you will have no rest."
Isa 23:13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. This people was not. The Assyrians founded it for those who dwell in the wilderness. They set up their towers. They overthrew its palaces. They made it a ruin.
Isa 23:14 Howl, you ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste!
Isa 23:15 It will come to pass in that day that Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king. After the end of seventy years it will be to Tyre like in the song of the prostitute.
Isa 23:16 Take a harp; go about the city, you prostitute that has been forgotten. Make sweet melody. Sing many songs, that you may be remembered.
Isa 23:17 It will happen after the end of seventy years that Yahweh will visit Tyre, and she shall return to her wages, and will play the prostitute with all the kingdoms of the world on the surface of the earth.
Isa 23:18 Her merchandise and her wages will be holiness to Yahweh. It will not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise will be for those who dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.

Isa 24:1 Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants.
Isa 24:2 It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest.
Isa 24:3 The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.
Isa 24:4 The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The lofty people of the earth languish.
Isa 24:5 The earth also is polluted under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant.
Isa 24:6 Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell therein are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.
Isa 24:7 The new wine mourns. The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh.
Isa 24:8 The mirth of tambourines ceases. The sound of those who rejoice ends. The joy of the harp ceases.
Isa 24:9 They will not drink wine with a song. Strong drink will be bitter to those who drink it.
Isa 24:10 The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in.
Isa 24:11 There is a crying in the streets because of the wine. All joy is darkened. The mirth of the land is gone.
Isa 24:12 The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction.
Isa 24:13 For it will be so in the midst of the earth among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.
Isa 24:14 These shall lift up their voice. They will shout for the majesty of Yahweh. They cry aloud from the sea.
Isa 24:15 Therefore glorify Yahweh in the east, even the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea!
Isa 24:16 From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs. Glory to the righteous! But I said, "I pine away! I pine away! woe is me!" The treacherous have dealt treacherously. Yes, the treacherous have dealt very treacherously.
Isa 24:17 Fear, the pit, and the snare, are on you who inhabitant the earth.
Isa 24:18 It will happen that he who flees from the noise of the fear will fall into the pit; and he who comes up out of the midst of the pit will be taken in the snare; for the windows on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.
Isa 24:19 The earth is utterly broken. The earth is torn apart. The earth is shaken violently.
Isa 24:20 The earth will stagger like a drunken man, and will sway back and forth like a hammock. Its disobedience will be heavy on it, and it will fall and not rise again.
Isa 24:21 It shall happen in that day that Yahweh will punish the army of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth on the earth.
Isa 24:22 They shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison; and after many days shall they be visited.
Isa 24:23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for Yahweh of Armies will reign on Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem; and before his elders will be glory.

Nov. 2
Isaiah 25-28

Isa 25:1 Yahweh, you are my God. I will exalt you! I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago, in complete faithfulness and truth.
Isa 25:2 For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.
Isa 25:3 Therefore a strong people will glorify you. A city of awesome nations will fear you.
Isa 25:4 For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat, when the blast of the dreaded ones is like a storm against the wall.
Isa 25:5 As the heat in a dry place will you bring down the noise of strangers; as the heat by the shade of a cloud, the song of the dreaded ones will be brought low.
Isa 25:6 In this mountain, Yahweh of Armies will make all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of choice wines, of fat things full of marrow, of well refined choice wines.
Isa 25:7 He will destroy in this mountain the surface of the covering that covers all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations.
Isa 25:8 He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces. He will take the reproach of his people away from off all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken it.
Isa 25:9 It shall be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God! We have waited for him, and he will save us! This is Yahweh! We have waited for him. We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation!"
Isa 25:10 For in this mountain the hand of Yahweh will rest. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even like straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill.
Isa 25:11 He will spread out his hands in its midst, like one who swims spreads out hands to swim, but his pride will be humbled together with the craft of his hands.
Isa 25:12 He has brought the high fortress of your walls down, laid low, and brought to the ground, even to the dust.

Isa 26:1 In that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah: "We have a strong city. God appoints salvation for walls and bulwarks.
Isa 26:2 Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter: the one which keeps faith.
Isa 26:3 You will keep whoever's mind is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you.
Isa 26:4 Trust in Yahweh forever; for in Yah, Yahweh, is an everlasting Rock.
Isa 26:5 For he has brought down those who dwell on high, the lofty city. He lays it low. He lays it low even to the ground. He brings it even to the dust.
Isa 26:6 The foot shall tread it down; Even the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy."
Isa 26:7 The way of the just is uprightness. You who are upright make the path of the righteous level.
Isa 26:8 Yes, in the way of your judgments, Yahweh, have we waited for you. Your name and your renown are the desire of our soul.
Isa 26:9 With my soul have I desired you in the night. Yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you earnestly; for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
Isa 26:10 Let favor be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness. In the land of uprightness he will deal wrongfully, and will not see Yahweh's majesty.
Isa 26:11 Yahweh, your hand is lifted up, yet they don't see; but they will see your zeal for the people, and be disappointed. Yes, fire will consume your adversaries.
Isa 26:12 Yahweh, you will ordain peace for us, for you have also worked all our works for us.
Isa 26:13 Yahweh our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us, but by you only will we make mention of your name.
Isa 26:14 The dead shall not live. The deceased shall not rise. Therefore have you visited and destroyed them, and caused all memory of them to perish.
Isa 26:15 You have increased the nation, O Yahweh. You have increased the nation! You are glorified! You have enlarged all the borders of the land.
Isa 26:16 Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.
Isa 26:17 Like as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs; so we have been before you, Yahweh.
Isa 26:18 We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.
Isa 26:19 Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast forth the dead.
Isa 26:20 Come, my people, enter into your chambers, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the indignation is past.
Isa 26:21 For, behold, Yahweh comes forth out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain.

Isa 27:1 In that day, Yahweh with his hard and great and strong sword will punish leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and leviathan the twisted serpent; and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.
Isa 27:2 In that day, sing to her, "A pleasant vineyard!
Isa 27:3 I, Yahweh, am its keeper. I will water it every moment. Lest anyone damage it, I will keep it night and day.
Isa 27:4 Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together.
Isa 27:5 Or else let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me. Let him make peace with me."
Isa 27:6 In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface of the world with fruit.
Isa 27:7 Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or are they killed like those who killed them were killed?
Isa 27:8 In measure, when you send them away, you contend with them. He has removed them with his rough blast in the day of the east wind.
Isa 27:9 Therefore, by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherim and the incense altars shall rise no more.
Isa 27:10 For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.
Isa 27:11 When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
Isa 27:12 It will happen in that day, that Yahweh will thresh from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt; and you will be gathered one by one, children of Israel.
Isa 27:13 It will happen in that day that a great trumpet will be blown; and those who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and those who were outcasts in the land of Egypt, shall come; and they will worship Yahweh in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.

Isa 28:1 Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley of those who are overcome with wine!
Isa 28:2 Behold, the Lord has a mighty and strong one. Like a storm of hail, a destroying storm, and like a storm of mighty waters overflowing, he will cast them down to the earth with his hand.
Isa 28:3 The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden under foot.
Isa 28:4 The fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley, shall be like the first-ripe fig before the summer; which someone picks and eats as soon as he sees it.
Isa 28:5 In that day, Yahweh of Armies will become a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the residue of his people;
Isa 28:6 and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.
Isa 28:7 They also reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are swallowed up by wine. They stagger with strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment.
Isa 28:8 For all tables are completely full of filthy vomit and filthiness.
Isa 28:9 Whom will he teach knowledge? To whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts?
Isa 28:10 For it is precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, there a little.
Isa 28:11 But he will speak to this nation with stammering lips and in another language;
Isa 28:12 to whom he said, "This is the resting place. Give rest to weary;" and "This is the refreshing;" yet they would not hear.
Isa 28:13 Therefore the word of Yahweh will be to them precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, fall backward, be broken, be snared, and be taken.
Isa 28:14 Therefore hear the word of Yahweh, you scoffers, that rule this people in Jerusalem:
Isa 28:15 "Because you have said, 'We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol are we in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it won't come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and we have hidden ourselves under falsehood.' "
Isa 28:16 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. He who believes shall not act hastily.
Isa 28:17 I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place.
Isa 28:18 Your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it.
Isa 28:19 As often as it passes through, it will seize you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be nothing but terror to understand the message."
Isa 28:20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap oneself in.
Isa 28:21 For Yahweh will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his unusual work, and bring to pass his act, his extraordinary act.
Isa 28:22 Now therefore don't be scoffers, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, on the whole earth.
Isa 28:23 Give ear, and hear my voice! Listen, and hear my speech!
Isa 28:24 Does he who plows to sow plow continually? Does he keep turning the soil and breaking the clods?
Isa 28:25 When he has leveled its surface, doesn't he plant the dill, and scatter the cumin seed, and put in the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in its place?
Isa 28:26 For his God instructs him in right judgment, and teaches him.
Isa 28:27 For the dill are not threshed with a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod.
Isa 28:28 Bread flour must be ground; so he will not always be threshing it. Although he drives the wheel of his threshing cart over it, his horses don't grind it.
Isa 28:29 This also comes forth from Yahweh of Armies, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.

Nov. 1
1 Timothy 1

1Ti 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and Christ Jesus our hope;
1Ti 1:2 to Timothy, my true child in faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
1Ti 1:3 As I urged you when I was going into Macedonia, stay at Ephesus that you might command certain men not to teach a different doctrine,
1Ti 1:4 neither to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which cause disputes, rather than God's stewardship, which is in faith--
1Ti 1:5 but the goal of this command is love, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith;
1Ti 1:6 from which things some, having missed the mark, have turned aside to vain talking;
1Ti 1:7 desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say, nor about what they strongly affirm.
1Ti 1:8 But we know that the law is good, if a man uses it lawfully,
1Ti 1:9 as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers,
1Ti 1:10 for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine;
1Ti 1:11 according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
1Ti 1:12 And I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service;
1Ti 1:13 although I was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
1Ti 1:14 The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
1Ti 1:15 The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
1Ti 1:16 However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, for an example of those who were going to believe in him for eternal life.
1Ti 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
1Ti 1:18 This instruction I commit to you, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which led the way to you, that by them you may wage the good warfare;
1Ti 1:19 holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust away made a shipwreck concerning the faith;
1Ti 1:20 of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I delivered to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.

Nov. 2
1 Timothy 2

1Ti 2:1 I exhort therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and givings of thanks, be made for all men:
1Ti 2:2 for kings and all who are in high places; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and reverence.
1Ti 2:3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior;
1Ti 2:4 who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth.
1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
1Ti 2:6 who gave himself as a ransom for all; the testimony in its own times;
1Ti 2:7 to which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth in Christ, not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
1Ti 2:8 I desire therefore that the men in every place pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and doubting.
1Ti 2:9 In the same way, that women also adorn themselves in decent clothing, with modesty and propriety; not just with braided hair, gold, pearls, or expensive clothing;
1Ti 2:10 but (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works.
1Ti 2:11 Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection.
1Ti 2:12 But I don't permit a woman to teach, nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quietness.
1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Ti 2:14 Adam wasn't deceived, but the woman, being deceived, has fallen into disobedience;
1Ti 2:15 but she will be saved through her childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and sanctification with sobriety.

“They did not receive the love of the truth” by Roy Davison

http://www.oldpaths.com/Archive/Davison/Roy/Allen/1940/051-LoveTheTruth.html

“They did not receive the love of the truth”
This is said of those who perish: “They did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). How sad! They could have been saved if they had chosen to love the truth!
Someone who does not like the truth, cannot love the Source of truth.
God is the God of truth.
“The truth of the LORD endures for ever!” (Psalm 117:2). “Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O LORD God of truth” (Psalm 31:5). How can someone who does not like the truth, love the God of truth?
Jesus is the truth.
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). How can someone who does not like the truth, love the Son of God? “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed” (1 Corinthians 16:22).
When Pilate stood before Christ and asked about His kingdom, Jesus explained: “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate responded, “What is truth?” (John 18:37, 38).
They who are “of the truth” listen to the truth because they love the truth.
God’s word is the truth.
“The entirety of Your word is truth” (Psalm 119:160).
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).
“The word of truth” is the gospel of our salvation (Ephesians 1:13). “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth” (James 1:18). How can someone who does not like the truth, value the word of God?
Someone who does not like the truth, prefers something false.
The unrighteous suppress the truth.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). “Men of corrupt minds” “resist the truth” (2 Timothy 3:8).
Some pretend that truth does not exist.
In our schizophrenic ‘post-modern’ age, many deny that truth can be known or even that truth exists. (Schizophrenic, because they are absolutely sure that they cannot be sure about anything!)
Jesus said something different: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
People deny the truth because they want to escape from the truth. They will be lost unless they repent. Paul tells us to correct “those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth” (2 Timothy 2:25). God wants everyone “to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
Some want to “adapt” the gospel to the “post-modern age.” The gospel does not need to be adapted, it just needs to be preached. Post-modernists are dead wrong. They need to repent and accept the truth.
All who do not love the truth will be lost.
Paul, in his second letter to the Thessalonians, explains that people perish when they do not love the truth.
At Thessalonica Christians were being persecuted. Paul assures them that it is “a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed” (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).
Paul affirms that God’s eternal punishment of “those who do not know God” and of “those who do not obey the gospel” “is a righteous thing.”
Paul then discusses “the mystery of lawlessness” and why many are deceived by “the man of sin,” “the son of perdition,” “the lawless one” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-8).
“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:9, 10).
“Love of the truth” is essential. All who reject the truth will be lost.
Truth is exclusive. The sum of two plus two is four. No other answer is correct. The number of incorrect answers is unlimited. When someone rejects the truth, the only alternative is to accept something false.
Because they do not love the truth, “God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12 ESV). Love “does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6).
People refuse to believe the truth because they enjoy unrighteousness. They reject the truth because they prefer falsehood. “A strong delusion” sent by God enables them to believe a lie that leads to condemnation.
Sometimes people who do not love God like to listen to God’s word with no intention of obeying it. God told Ezekiel: “So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them” (Ezekiel 33:31, 32).
They listened to Ezekiel for entertainment. It helped them pretend that they loved God.
False teaching tests our love for the truth.
Satan empowers the lawless one to work “signs, and lying wonders” to deceive those who do not love the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:9, 10).
God allows this as a test to reveal who really loves Him. "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’ - which you have not known - ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him” (Deuteronomy 13:1-4).
Someone who loves the truth, relies on God’s word for instruction: “And when they say to you, ‘Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:19, 20). Peter gives the same charge: “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11).
Someone who loves God does not listen to false teachers. He knows they are false, he knows “there is no light in them” because their words contradict the word of God: they do not “speak according to this word,” they do not “speak as the oracles of God.”
Jesus, comparing Himself to a shepherd, explains: “the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:4, 5).
Paul warns: “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).
Love for the truth leads to salvation.
The saved believe and obey the truth.
We are chosen for salvation “through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). “In obeying the truth” our souls are purified (1 Peter 1:22).
The church of Christ is the pillar of the truth.
I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).
They who love the truth, proclaim the truth.
Some religious leaders try to please men rather than God. They are entertainers rather than sound preachers of the truth.
Paul warned: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3, 4).
Timothy was given a solemn charge: “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2).
I once heard Marshall Keeble explain: “‘In season and out of season’ means you preach it if they like it, and you preach it if they don’t!”
A preacher’s job is to tell people what God says, to “preach the word.” God told Ezekiel: “I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD’” (Ezekiel 3:4); “You shall speak My words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse” (Ezekiel 2:7).
The truth is powerful!
“The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
The power is in the word, not in the eloquence of man. God’s word convicts men of sin, and changes lives when heard by people who love God and the truth.
Many years ago I reprimanded a former classmate because in a recorded sermon he had not quoted or alluded to a single scripture! He explained that he was speaking to unbelievers so did not think they would be interested in what the Bible said!
Paul said something different: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
Once when visiting relatives in Abilene, Texas, they invited us to a special service on the ACU campus. Many congregations had dismissed Sunday-evening service so members could attend. Some 10,000 were assembled to hear a popular speaker.
He confided that on a Dallas golf course the day before, when a friend asked what he was going to speak about in Abilene, he told him that he did not know yet.
During his 45-minute discourse, he quoted a total of eight words of Scripture, which he misapplied. What was his theme? He told us how great the congregation was for which he preached.
What a wasted opportunity! If someone like Marshall Keeble had spoken, someone who preached the gospel powerfully and without compromise, “if they like it or if they don’t.” No doubt among 10,000, some would not have liked it. But lovers of truth would have been moved by the power of the gospel to give or rededicate their lives to God.
Do we love the truth?
Much depends upon it: our eternal destiny in heaven or hell. Let us love the truth, learn the truth, believe the truth and obey the truth so we can be saved by the God of truth through His Son who is the way, the truth and the life. Amen.
Roy Davison

The Scripture quotations in this article are from
The New King James Version. ©1979,1980,1982, Thomas Nelson Inc., Publishers.
Permission for reference use has been granted.
Published in The Old Paths Archive
(http://www.oldpaths.com)

Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem: Fact or Fiction? by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

http://apologeticspress.org/AllegedDiscrepancies.aspx?article=1101&b=Matthew

Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem: Fact or Fiction?

by Eric Lyons, M.Min.

According to the world’s most celebrated atheist, Richard Dawkins, “the gospels are ancient fiction” (2006, p. 97). They “[a]ll have the status of legends, as factually dubious as the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table”—full of “invented, made-up fiction” (pp. 96-97). Dawkins wonders why the “many unsophisticated Christians...who take the Bible very seriously indeed as a literal and accurate record of history and hence as evidence supporting their religious beliefs,” do not “notice those glaring contradictions” in the gospel accounts? (p. 94). What kind of “contradictions,” exactly? Consider the very first one that he mentions, regarding Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.
Supposedly, Matthew, Luke, and John give conflicting information about where Jesus was born. Dawkins wrote:
A good example of the colouring by religious agendas is the whole heart-warming legend of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.... John’s gospel specifically remarks that his followers were surprised that he was not born in Bethlehem.... Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all (p. 93, emp. in orig.).
Exactly where did the apostle John indicate that Jesus was “not born in Bethlehem?” Dawkins quoted from John 7:41-42, wherein the apostle recounts how, “Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?” (KJV, emp. added). Does this passage teach that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem? Not at all. John merely pointed out that some in the crowd who were listening to Jesus asked if the Messiah would come from Galilee or Bethlehem? These individuals knew that Jesus had grown up in Galilee (just as all of the gospel accounts teach: Matthew 2:22-23; Mark 1:24; 10:47; Luke 2:39-40; 4:16; John 1:45-46; 7:27). This group simply made the assumption that, because Jesus had grown up in Galilee, he was born in Galilee. But, that simply was not true (Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4). These individuals were ignorant of the place of Jesus’ birth.
Similarly, Richard Dawkins is ignorant of what constitutes a genuine contradiction, if he actually believes that this statement in John’s gospel account really contradicts what Matthew and Luke wrote. Were John to write that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, or that Jesus was born in Galilee, only then would there be a contradiction. But John never wrote that he believed that Jesus was born in Galilee rather than Bethlehem. The apostle merely reported how some of those who listened to Jesus imagined that He was born in Galilee.

REFERENCES

Dawkins, Richard (2006), The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin).