OOPS OF THE DAY ~ December 10

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Christmas Oops of the Day

When Joseph and Mary arrived at Bethlehem, she was about to deliver, but all the inns were full.  

Luke 2:7

Christmas Fact of the Day 

No! Luke did  not say “all  innS  were”.   He  said  “THE  INN WAS.”   There was only one inn in Bethlehem!

This little tidbit in grammar can make a lot of difference when we view the panic Joseph must have been feeling that night.

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

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OOPS OF THE DAY ~ December 9

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Christmas Oops of the Day

Joseph was a decent man, so decided not to tell all their friends the wedding was off, but to save Mary the embarrassment and just divorce her secretly.  Besides, it would give Mary time to get out of town,  have her baby somewhere else, give it away, and return home still with her pride and resume her life as it had been, sans Joseph.

Matthew 1:19 and Deuteronomy 22:13-21

Christmas Fact of the Day 

No!  Joseph was not just saving Mary from being embarrassed .  He was saving her from being killed!

The Law of Moses, under which they lived, said that a woman who was not a virgin when married could be publicly exposed by her newly betrothed husband.  Then she was to be stoned to death at the door of her father and mother.

True, we today who believe the Bible believe she was still a virgin.  But her pregnancy was “proof” to the villagers and the world that she had committed adultery.  

Can you imagine the taunts that Joseph endured by marrying a woman already pregnant?  What a strong and brave man he was.  More tomorrow.

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

Click here to download the app in your language. 

The two women fall into each other’s arms, locked in love, faith, and ultimate submission to holiness.

My dear friends in the Lord, I’d like to share with you how this book – STAR SONG – came about . When I was seventeen years old at Harding College in 1958 I wrote some of which you will read in this book. When I showed it to some of my girlfriends, they said I should write the entire life of Christ. I told them I was not old enough and had not experienced enough of life yet. But I promised I would write it when I was sixty.

Through the years, I added things and changed things, first on my portable Royal typewriter, then an electric typewriter, and finally my “amazing” Selectric typewriter. And the pages had smudges where I had erased and replaced words here and there and became aged and brittle. Much of what you will read now of Mary’s conversations with Gabriel, her family, and Elizabeth I wrote when I was seventeen. Also, most of what you will read from the time Jesus left the fortress with his cross to his last breath I wrote when I was seventeen.

Throughout the years, my growing number of pages were stored in closets, bottom drawers, and, finally, file cabinets as I moved through life from one place to another.  I even sometimes separated parts of them into inspirational pamphlets which I printed with those ditto machines with their purple ink and later on mimeograph machines, getting ink all over my hands and clothes. Yet, all through those forty-three years, I remembered my promise made in my dormitory room so long ago when we were all so young.

Then, when I was fifty-nine, having lived and experienced far more during those years than I had really desired, I sat down to finish writing my entire life of Christ. I cannot recall whether it was during the summer or winter months when I finished it, but it was in the year 2000. I had kept my promise.

SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ December 8

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Surprise of the Day

One of the last messages of God at the end of the Old Testament was

“I will send you my Malachi.” 

BOOK OF MALACHI

Fact of the Day

     The very last book of the OLD Testament – Malachi –  was written about four centuries before the birth of Jesus (which occurred at the beginning of the NEW Testament).  Through Malachi, God sent the world the above final message of hope.  Soon now (considering the age of the world) the promised Messiah (“Anointed One”) would arrive.  But how will the world know him when he gets here? 

     Don’t worry.  God explained…  

“I will send you my Messenger.” 

     Huh?  What messenger? You just said you were going to send your Malachi. Now you’re saying you are going to send your Messesnger. You’re taking us in circles!

     Well, Malachi’s name means “messenger” and as a prophet, he “delivered messages” from God.

     Ohhhh.  Was God planning for the prophet Malachi to live another four hundred years to introduce the Messiah (Anointed One) to the world?   That’s what it looks like.  Didn’t God just say…

“I will send you MY Malachi”

      Oh! He will send someone else who will be HIS Malachi!

     Well, my friends, if your head isn’t swimming with this play on words in the Bible,  hold that thought.  In a few days, the answer to this divine riddle will become clear to you.

     See you tomorrow!

You’re smart.  Read the Bible for yourself.  Find out for yourself.

SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ December 1

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Surprise of the Day

When people hold back from giving to God,

they lose more than their contribution would have been.

Haggai 1:1-11 and Haggai 2:19

Fact of the Day

  • 538 BC – King Cyrus allowed his enslaved Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple and city.  They completed the foundation amid enemies.
  • 520 BC – King Darius I defended the Jews to their enemies and gave them what they needed to finish their temple.
  • 518 BC – The Jews had done nothing.  So prophet Haggai stepped in on behalf of God.
  • 516 BC – They finally  finished rebuilding their 2nd temple.

 

  • THE JEWS:  “It is not time to finish the temple”.  
  • GOD:  “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”
  • THE JEWS:  “We’re earning wages, but put them in purses with holes in them.”
  • GOD:  “What you brought home, I blew away.  I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
  • THE JEWS:  “Why?”
  • GOD: “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.”
  • THE JEWS:  “We’re sorry.”
  • GOD:  “Give careful thought to your ways.  Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,

So, two years later they finished building the temple.  And what did God have to say then?

“‘From this day on I will bless you.’”

YOU’RE SMART.  READ THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF.

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Do you believe it, Mary? Can you? Try hard, Mary.

My dear friends in the Lord.  Of all 70 books that I have written, the series I poured my heart and soul into the most is this one:  Soul Journey with the Real Jesus – the life of our Lord in 8 lyrical novels.   I began writing them when I was 17 years old at Harding University.  I finished when I was 60.   Forty-three years in the writing. 

Won’t you come along with me and take a journey with Jesus?  You are one of them.  Probably you are several of them. Go ahead and struggle with him as they did. Laugh. Cry. Do mental battle with him. Emotional battle, too. Fight for your faith as they fought. Pause to listen for what you’ve never heard before. Then touch the soul of Jesus.  These are the stories of faith in the impossible. Hope in the inconceivable. Love for the invincible. It is the dreams of youth, the desperations of infirmity, the hopes of age, and the song of eternity. Follow the suspense as each person in Jesus’ life comes to terms with who they are, and who Jesus is. Jesus accepts them as they are. But can they accept themselves as they are? More than that, can they accept Jesus as he is? Both God and man? Both Creator and created? Both King and servant? It is the story of doubts explained away, animosities melted away, misunderstandings cleared away. It is your story and mine. For deep within each of us is everyone who ever went on a journey and struggled with Jesus.

I wrote it in present tense so you will feel like you are right there with them.  During December I will be sending you short exerpts from each of the ten chapters in book one, STAR SONG – entirely on the birth and childhood of  JesusHere is the first:

Enlarge the picture so you can read the rest of this excerpt from Chapter 1 of  Star Song & the “FIRST CHRISTMAS”.

Stock up on this beautiful 270-page paperback for Christmas gifts for only $9.75.  This 1/2 price is “at cost” for me. It is MY GIFT to you.

Here is the Amazon 1/2 price purchase link shortcut: https://bit.ly/4p9Aibm

To read chapter one FREE, go here: https://bit.ly/4om6pUs

 

 

 

 

 

OOPS OF THE DAY ~ November 27

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Oops of the Day

It is sinful to ever question God.

Habakkuk

Habakkuk 1:1-4  – Habakkuk 1:5-11  –  Habakkuk 2:19  –  Habakkuk 1:14-17 –  Habakkuk ch. 2


Fact of the Day

Yes and No.  We must not be rebellious and haughty to make ourselves superior to God, then decide God is powerless and does not really exist at all. That is the stuff that atheists are made of.

But, if we actually want to know the answers to our questions, YES.

HABAKKUK felt both anger and  defeat.   

First, he demanded to know why God allowed so many bad things to happen to his people, the Jews.  The enemy was invading them.  So God answered.

Second, he demanded to know why God delayed stopping evil from happening to people, so God answered.

It ends with Habakkuk’s verdict:  What evil we do to others will be done to  us. The ways the Israelites had been treating God and others were  returned onto them. 

Boomerang.

YOU’RE SMART.  READ THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF.

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SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ November 25

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Surprise of the Day

Events surrounding the birth and death of Jesus and the birth of the church on the Day of Pentecost were foretold 800 years before.

 Joel 2:10  –  Joel 2:16  –  Joel 2:28-29  –  Joel 2:31-32  –  Joel 3:2  –  Joel 3:9  –  Joel 3:14

Fact of the Day 

(The birth of Jesus was covered yesrerday from Joel)

BLOOD:  At crucifixion of Jesus, the Christ (Luke 23:33)

EARTHQUAKE:  At Jesus death and at his bodily resurrection. (Matthew 27:51 and 28:2)

SUN & MOON DARK:  At Jesus’ crucifixion (Mark 15:33)

FIRE:  “Tongues of fire” on apostles from Holy Spirit so they could speak in the language of every nation

SMOKE:  Holy Spirit when it entered the temple, and later Christians at baptism (I Kings 8:10-11 and Acts 1:38-39)

THE BRIDEGROOM:  Jesus (Ephesians 5 and Revelation 19)

ALL NATIONS: On the annual event of Pentecost (Acts 2:5)

DAY OF DECISION: (Acts 2:42)

YOU’RE SMART.  READ THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF.

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SURPRISE OF THE DAY ~ November 24

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible...and a few surprises

Surprise of the Day

Events surrounding the birth of Jesus were foretold 800 years before he was born.

 Joel 2:28  –  Luke 2:35-38  – Matthew 2:10-12  – Luke 2:8-14 

Fact of the Day 

“Sons and daughters will prophecy” – SIMEON and ANNA prophecied about Jesus’ future when Mary and Joseph took him to the temple for a special ceremony on his 8th day.

“Old men will dream dreams” – the WISE MEN (MAGI) from the east were warned by God in a dream that Herod was looking for baby Jesus to kill him, so to return home a different way.  

“Young men will see visions” – JOSEPH saw a vision of Gabriel telling him that Mary’s pregnancy was miraculous.  The night Jesus was born, the SHEPHERDS saw a vision of angels appearing in the sky and announcing Jesus’s birth.

YOU’RE SMART.  READ THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF.

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OOPS OF THE DAY ~

Things in the Bible not really in the Bible …and a few surprises

Oops of the Day

The Jews were required to give a tithe to the temple every year.

Deuteronomy 14:22-28

Deuteronomy 26:12  –  Leviticus 1-5  –  Leviticus 27:2  –  Numbers 21:2  –  I Samul 1:11  –   II Samuel 15:7-8  –   Psalm 22:11, 25  –  Psalm 66:13  –  Psalm 76:11  –  Psalm 116:8,14,18-19  –   Job 22:27  –   Jonah 1:7-9

Fact of the Day  

Yes and No!   It was much more. A good Jew gave about one third of his income, not just one tenth. (1) The Jews had to give an extra tithe every three years for their welfare program. (2) They had to pay for their vows, which in many cases were really special prayer requests.  (3) They had to buy animals for sacrifices for intentional sins, unintentional sins and sins requiring restitution.  (4) If they wanted to thank God for anything special, they had to buy grain for a sacrifice  (5)  If they didn’t have mney to buy the animals or grain, they had to take them out of their own supply, thus depleting their own “pay check.” (6) And every time one of their flocks or herds had a first-born “first-fruits”, they had to sacrifice it ~ another depleting of the “pay check.”  

Still want to follow the Law of Moses to get people to give more?

YOU’RE SMART.  READ THE BIBLE FOR YOURSELF

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