**BOOKS** "Hidden Treasures: In the Biblical Text"

This is a post that I was originally only going to publish on Free and Faith. I decided that it's one of those books that could be of interest to everyone - whether Christian or not.

By the way, I am always astonished at people who will devote a lot of time studying secular subjects such as philosophy but never think to look seriously at the Bible. It might surprise even Christians to know how much of human history and secular history is corroborative. I have one acquaintance who, like myself, loves the Matrix movies. He can discuss the philosophies and mythologies of that series until the cows come home. When I once mentioned to him how the Bible runs deeper and is more complex than that work of fiction, he basically snorted at me. It was a friendly snort and done with love but, in his view, the Bible is a simple book of fables. If he only spent a little time exploring the book, it's languages, and its complexities, his mind would be truly blown. He's a very intelligent man and so curious about all things - except the Bible. And that is kind of ignorant.

I have been doing a lot of Bible study for the past couple of years. I have read the Bible many times but I have only recently been going deeper into the study of it. I have some trouble sorting and keeping information straight but I don't mind repeating lessons.

The study I started a while back is one by Chuck Missler - Learn the Bible in 24 Hours, which can be found in video format on a YouTube playlist and on Amazon Prime Video. It can also be found in audiobook form through Audible and via local library media streaming services like Overdrive and Hoopla Digital. I think the last time I mentioned it was when I was posting about my news-fatigue. I kept getting as far as Hour 9 and having to go back to the beginning. I have now ordered the book so that I can make notes as I go through the video lessons.

The Chuck Missler book I wanted to mention to everyone today is called Hidden Treasures: In the Biblical Text. And if you wonder why I study so many lessons by the same teacher, that's because I am very careful who I study under. Not every teacher is godly or has good intentions.

Anyway, this current book is one that I want to recommend to my friend the next time I see him. I have listened to his detailed thoughts on various philosophers and teachings so I want to challenge him to think about things from where I sit. Another Missler book on angels would probably be extremely interesting to students of physics. I was no genius in school but Angels Volume 1: Cosmic Warfare introduced me to quantum physics in an exciting way that I could relate to. Trust me when I tell you that while I had heard of Max Planck, I had no clue before why he won a Nobel. I am forever fascinated now! And my friend will be interested in learning that Missler shows why he believes we live in a digital universe. Wha-??? How Matrix-like is that?

I will do a post on the Angels series another time. Back to Hidden Treasures...

One of the most interesting lessons in this little book gives the reader an assignment to design a genealogy with 14 very specific criteria. Once you attempt to do this and realize how difficult (if at all possible), you are presented with how it was completed in the Person of Christ.

The first of 14 criteria

Another thing I am enjoying about this study is that I get to delve more into the Greek and Aramaic languages and history. I  have been able to study some common world history right alongside that shown in the Bible. It's fascinating stuff.

Like I said, I wanted to post this here because I wanted people who may not be Christian to know about the book. I want to challenge some of you to not just sit back and snort at the idea of a belief in Scripture but to at least know what you are scoffing at. Like any serious thing, the Bible is not something to be glossed over. In order for us Christians to confidently believe in the Gospel, we have to know it. The same goes for those people who may want to deny it. How can you deny what you don't know?

Anyway, I hope that this post encourages more people to study the Bible and the history it comes out of. It won't hurt that you will learn something about world history in the process. I was stunned by how much of the history I learned in school has to do with the history of the faith I profess.

By the way, that challenge to design a genealogy? You will get to study for yourself how all the criteria were met in the genealogy of Christ in the first 11 verses of the (Greek language) Gospel of Matthew.

Peace
--Free

And, instead of music today, I thought this was more appropriate

These Interesting Times

It's been an up-and-down month for me. The Up part is that I had some family in to visit for a few days. Always happy to see my peoples. The Down part is this freaking fatigue I've been fighting all month. It's the main reason that I haven't posted for a minute. Usually, I have trouble articulating to my doctors what my fatigue feels like. This time I will be able to tell them it was so bad that my bones actually ached.

I recently learned that there is another kind of fatigue a lot of folks are suffering with: "News Fatigue." Wow. There is a name for it and everything.

Pew Research has this from last year

Since I've had so much downtime this month, I've spent a lot of it doing Bible study. I think I've told you that one of my 3 favorite teachers is Chuck Missler. I probably even already mentioned his "Learn the Bible in 24 Hours" series as one of the best studies I've been through in a long while. I highly recommend it especially to skeptics and agnostics - anyone who has serious doubts about the authenticity of the Gospel message.

As far as watching the news, I've been avoiding it as much as possible. I also have posted about anything news-significant because... all the significant stuff seems so dark right now. Or maybe I'm just thinking too deeply.

We are living in a nation where the president is an open bully. He has publicly disabled people. He has used really distasteful language when talking about women, foreigners, and anyone who doesn't think he's "the ...One"???

But it's not Trump I'm bothered most by. It's fellow Christians who give him a pass on all of his abhorrent behavior towards anyone else as long as he is good to or for them. Or as long as they think he is good to or for them. Ben Howe has an interesting take on this. The very same people who thought Obama was the antichrist seem to be at the top of the Trump fan club. The whole political system is a stinking toilet so I'm not sure why people can believe one turd smells better than another. I know that is crude but anytime I talk about politics, crude is all I come up with. I told one of my nieces a couple of weeks ago that if Trump craps, he blames the stink on Obama. But, again, anyway...

One person defended their Trump vote by saying he is pro-life and good for conservative values. I find it hard to be happy about anyone's pro-life stance when they are okay with being cruel to children once they are born. I find it hard to trust Trump's support of Israel when I think he might have personal motives. Also, I can't get too excited about the way he encourages other bullies of the world. And let me clarify that I don't think Trump is a racist; I think he's an opportunist. If black people were his base, he'd be trying to join the Black Panthers and inviting the NOI into his administration. It's all about who makes him feel powerful and smart ("so smart, like genius smart") and bigger than he really is. By the way, Reddit (among other sources) has a whole subreddit about the hypocrisy of the current president. They could probably have the same sub for every politician there is. Politics is not a clean business, but Trump seems to be the one most proud of being a turd in the toilet.

Trump is a small, small man who has been given a very large pulpit. And most of the Christians I know are playing hype man for him. He lies, they make excuses. He poops on some of their hopes and dreams, they blame the stink on anyone else. He incites something ugly or hateful, they explain that he just "tells it like it is". I don't know what they will come up with now that he seems to be getting a lot loopier and unfocused. Even if he is focused, he might get desperate about his hold on the presidency. I don't like the idea of desperate people with that much access to power. And UPDATE - with the impeachment in motion... who knows?

When I used to read about the  "strong delusion" mentioned in the Bible, I didn't understand the concept. When I read that many people - even Christians - will be deceived, I didn't understand how that could be. Do NOT get me wrong here. I am not saying that Trump is the antichrist or anything. I am saying that he has shown me how people can be so deluded.

Chippewa.com nailed it with this illustration 

If someone as un-charismatic as Trump can gain the respect he has, I can just imagine worse. What happens when someone who is very charismatic and appealing and intelligent comes along with ugly rhetoric that sounds nicer? If people can be fooled by someone as distasteful as Trump, they will die for someone with a more attractive mask.

Whenever I doubt my theory, all I have to do is broach the subject with a Trump-supporting Christian. They most often lose their patience with me. I get to hear all the arguments about the sins of great men like King David and King Solomon, etc. I get it. But those were men described as being after the heart of God. They not only thought (unlike Trump) that they needed God's forgiveness, they craved it. Those were men who wrestled with their sins.  So don't come at me with comparisons like that. Trump has never been as bold about proclaiming his love of and dependence on God as he has about tweeting utter nonsense about his imagined 'genius'.

I do want my Christian friends to know that I pray for Trump. I pray for him the way I pray for anyone else. We are all supposed to pray for and encourage each other to be better people. I pray that Trump really comes to be the good man so many people believe he is. I pray that he starts looking to God for guidance. And I pray for my protection from some of the hateful people who follow Trump and hate people like me.

Now I am going to go take some vitamins and try to think about anything other than the news.

Peace
--Free

Can't See For Looking

Okay, folks, I'm going to "go religious" on you but, hang with me because there's something in here that even atheists might like.

How do you picture Jesus? I'm sure people of all faiths (or none) would be interested in knowing what he actually looked like. I have started reading other versions of the Bible in my personal studies. This weekend, I read passages from some of the Messianic Bible versions.

Years ago, my mother regularly watched a show called Zola Levitt Presents. Every now and then, I would sit and watch with her. That was the first time I ever thought seriously about the fact that Jesus was Jewish. As silly as it sounds, up until then (and I had to be at least 22 or 23) in my mind's eye, Jesus looked like this:

That's not Jesus.
That's Robert Powell

The actor Robert Powell isn't a savior but he played one in Jesus of Nazareth. Such a beautifully done movie with an amazing cast. Before that movie came along, I had imagined Jesus looking like the classic painting that was hung somewhere in the homes of most black families. You might remember the ensemble of paintings your grandma gave pride of wall space to - Jesus, MLK, and JFK.

 However, my mind's eye (and the movie and paintings and so many church fans) got it wrong.  Jesus was a Jewish man so he most likely did not have those brilliantly blue eyes and I'm pretty sure he didn't have the whole rock star look. Looking back on that movie now all I can think is that the late Michael Hutchence would've wished to be that fine. I'm not being flip. Just look at that photo again.

According to the Bible “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” (Isaiah 53:2 NIV) It's been opined that based on his racial makeup and manual labor occupation as a carpenter, he was probably of a darker complexion and had some sun damage to his skin. Along with the Bible identifying him as being not very handsome (whatever that means), he may have looked more like this:

Source: Popular Mechanics

That's more plausible, right?  The article at Poplar Mechanics makes a lot of good points. Our minds are so polluted with stereotypes about people that we want to think good people must be physically attractive. Just think of that so-called black doll/white doll syndrome - as true or untrue as that might be. Or the fact that attractiveness can play a huge role in our lives.

Listen, I am not pointing fingers at anyone else's ignorance here but my own. Not only did I have the wrong idea about Jesus's appearance, but I just about had heart failure when I heard the Lord's Prayer spoken in the languages Jesus used.

Uh, why doesn't he sound British!?!?!? I'm just kidding. Some filmmakers aren't kidding.

Now, it had at some point in my much younger life occurred to me that we Westerners had the wrong impressions of Jesus. And some people were just completely stupid on the subject. I can remember some kind of anti-semitic rally or demonstration taking place near wherever my family was living back in the mid-'70s. My mother and her friends stood in support of the Jewish people. What was so silly is that there were only about 6 Jewish people in that community. Maybe the racist idiots just wanted something to rally about. Who knows? But I remember my mother shaking her head in disgust at the people carrying crosses while they chanted about "dirty Jews". Much like the Klan and other so-called 'Christians' who hate just to hate or judge in hate, these people forgot, I guess, that their Savior was Jewish. (And, by the way, the saying is not "Judge not" with a period at the end. It is "Judge not lest you be judged."  People always forget that last part. So, you can judge others if you're free of sin. Anybody? Go ahead. I'll wait. I'll just be over here taking this plank out of my eye.)

My whole point is, I have never fully appreciated everything about the Lord I serve. Like most people (I'm assuming), I tend to think only in flavors I know of. Now that  I have it in the forefront of my mind that Jesus talked, walked, ate, prayed, and lived Jewish, I get it. I can see a little deeper into my study of what he said and did while on Earth.

Just like I did in seeing Jesus in my shallow and one-dimensional way, I do the same thing in other areas of my life. I have got to work on that. I need to start viewing people as they are and not how I want or imagine them to be. Same goes for life and situations in general.

One of the sayings I remember from my childhood in Texas was "Can't see for looking." It was your response when you saw something shocking and someone asked if you "saw that". I apply it to my life in other ways. Sometimes, when I make an immediate judgment about a person or situation based only on shallow information, I later realize I missed the bigger picture. Can't see for looking and sometimes, can't hear for listening.

I'm not the only one with this weakness. This is the reason that a lot of us have shallow and ever-changing standards of beauty. It's why we assume intelligence based on slick looks or words. It's why we so often don't see the full worth of people and life. We're too busy looking at the cover to read the book. Because that takes time, doesn't it?

At any rate, I'm really enjoying my Bible studies now more than ever. By the way, for those of you who may not own a Bible - or a lot of Bible study resources - you might want to check out eSword or My Sword  Both have a variety of Bible versions, concordances, commentaries, and other help. Both are free (with expanded options for purchase). I've been using eSword and I'm amazed at the number of tools available in both the app and pc versions.  Usually, when studying my Bible, I have to sit by my computer with 20 browser tabs open to all the different resources. A single app or program is more productive. Actually, the modules for the two 'sword' products are somewhat interchangeable and updates are being made all the time. Check out both no matter which operating system you use. I'm currently using eSword on both my Windows pc and Android phone. Here are the links:

• eSword for phone and computer
• MySword app and for computer

By the way, there are huge selections of language options in both programs. There's a slight learning curve but, hey, I managed to figure it all out so...

That's it for now. I hope that at least some of this information is useful to you guys out there. Even if you're not "religious", information is always good to have.

Peace

--Free

Sharing a few of the songs I've been listening to this evening

Amazing, amazing, amazing grace

I have loved this song for years

Oh, blessed Prince of peace

"Stop fighting a fight that's already been won."