Posted on Jul 23rd, 2008 | 1 Comment | Read This Article »
In 1971, Led Zeppelin released a song titled Stairway to Heaven possibly getting the name from the ladder Jacob saw leading to heaven in Genesis 28:12. However, the original stairway to heaven occurs in Genesis 11:1-9 and is widely known as the Tower of Babel.
According to Genesis, the people of the ancient times decided to ignore God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it” but instead they all gathered in the land of Shinar, also known as Mesopotamia. They decided to make a tower to heaven to make a name for themselves and God disagreed.
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I got an email from a reader, John, asking about two things:
- What are the time period of 430 years and the promises referred to in Galatians 3:17?
- In the Septuagint, Exodus 12:40 mentions a 430 year time period also, but also says that the nation of Israel sojourned in Egypt and Canaan (as opposed to just Egypt found in your English Bible). Explain.
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Posted on Jan 18th, 2007 | 4 Comments | Read This Article »
When I was but a young boy and a much less mature and well read person, I would barter with God. We all have probably done this at one time or another. If you give me a new car, then I’ll pray everyday. I would also try to get instant confirmation of what God wanted me to do (see also Mark 8:12). I might say if you want me to do option A then make that man in front of me trip and fall. Or if I was really lazy then option A was heads while option B was tails. In reading the OT, it turns out that I may have not been as far off of orthodoxy as I thought. One way Biblical figures determined the will of God is by casting lots.
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Posted on Jan 11th, 2007 | 12 Comments | Read This Article »
One of the ways the Lord chooses to reveal Himself in the OT is through a mysterious character known only as the Angel of the Lord. The confusing thing about this Angel is that sometimes He is identified as a messenger for God and sometimes it seems as though the Angel is actually God. The very first time God uses the Angel of the Lord is not ironically to a patriarch, but instead to Abraham’s slave girl Hagar. In Genesis 16:7-10, the Angel of the Lord finds her and promises her He will give her offspring that can’t be numbered, a promise seemingly only God could make. The next time the Angel of the Lord speaks to her in Genesis 21:17, it is from heaven and names God as distinct from Himself (or speaks of Himself in the third person).
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Posted on Oct 26th, 2006 | 4 Comments | Read This Article »
Have you ever wonder that if Jesus was here today, what translation of the Bible would He use? Would He use the ever popular NIV? Or maybe He would hold to extremely literal translations like the NASB? Maybe He might enjoy his slang and prefer looser translations like the Message or NLT? Or perhaps Jesus, being the Word and the Word being with God and the Word being God, He might just quote from memory the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic that He Himself inspired.
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