Oops of the Day  

Jesus first went to the temple when he was 12 and had celebrated his bar-mitzva.

Luke 2:31-42  –  Matthew 2:19-23

Fact of the Day

No! Bar-Mitzva was first recorded in history in the 13th century in France.  Jesus’ parents went to the temple every year. The likely reason they took Jesus at age twelve was that cruel King ARCHELAUS was so mean (he had killed 3000 in the temple when Jesus was 11), he was banished to Gaul by Caesar. THEN, it was safe to take Jesus to Jerusalem.

“²² But when Joseph heard that ARCHELAUS was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, ²³ and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth.”

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Surprise of the Day  

Who was Anna the Prophetess?

Fact of the Day

When baby Jesus was presented at the temple by his parents,  Prophetess Anna was AGE 84 or more and had lived at the temple all but 7 of her adult years.  She lived through these attacks on the temple and Jerusalem:

BC 63 – Pompey besieged Jerusalem and entered the temple.

BC 54 – Crassus looted the temple of all its gold.

BC 40 – When Herod was made King, Jerusalem closed its gates, so he had to attack.

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Oops of the Day  

The angel chorus sang about Jesus’ birth to the shepherds.

Luke 3:13  –  Revelation 5:9-12  –  Revelaion14:3  –  Revelation 15:3  –  Revelation 16:5

Fact of the Day

No!  Angels do not sing.  A multitude of the heavenly host (angels)  praised God “saying” glory to God. Later seven angels “said” the song of Moses and the Lamb. The third angel “said “the Lamb was righteous. 

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Oops of the Day  

The shepherds the angels appeared to the night of Jesus’ birth were humble but respected men.

Luke 2:8-20  –  Genesis 46:33-34

Fact of the Day

No!  Shepherds were despised.    The Jewish Talmud forbade shepherds from being witnesses.  They were not allowed in the temple.  Further, no help was to be given to heathens or shepherds.  True, David rose from being a shepherd to a king, but this shows his strength in rising above his circumstances.  And Jesus?  Jesus dared to be the lowest of the low so he could show us how to be the highest of the high.

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Surprise of the Day  

God planned to give Canaan to Abraham’s descendants, but not for another 430 years.  Why? 

Genesis 15:7  –  Deuteronomy 12:29-31 –  I Kings 16:34  –  II Kings 6:28-29  –  II Chronicles 28:3  –  Isaiah 57:5

Fact of the Day

Abram arrived in Canaan at age 75.  At age 85, God said he planned to give all of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants. but not yet.  He and his descendants had to wait another 430 years. Why? Because the sin of the Amorites who were living in Canaan at the time of Abraham had not yet reached its peak. Why wait? God is far more patient than we are.  For the next four centuries, he gave them chance after chance to repent and change. 

 God said the Israelites would go in and kill them all and take over their land.  Kill them?  That’s murder!  No, it is capital punishment.  They worshiped Baal and Asherah.  He was worshipped with child sacrifices – child killing.  She was worshipped with legalized pornography and prostitution (both male and female). God warned the Israelites that the land was “spewing out of its mouth” the child killers, etc.  But, if the Israelites did the same thing, the land would spew them out too. 

 Eventually Israel’s kings were sacrificing their sons to Baal.  Another Israelite rebuilt the walls of Jericho on top of his sons and set the gates on top of his sons!

And later, when Assyria and later Babylon laid siege to their cities, not letting them out, they ATE THEIR OWN CHILDREN!   Jerusalem finally became the most evil city in the world!  And so, they were “executed”  by Assyria and Babylon and spewed out of their land to live in foreign lands.

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Surprise of the Day  

How old was Abraham when he left the idolatrous city of Ur (today’s southern Iraq) and why might God have told him to leave at that time?

Genesis 10:1 & 11:10-26  –  Genesis 11:28 & 31  – Genesis 12:1-4  –  Genesis 15:7  –   I Chronicles 11  –  Nehemiah 9:7  –  Acts 7:1-4

Fact of the Day

Five verses in the Bible say God called Abraham out of his hometown, the city of Ur in Chaldea near the Euphrates River (domain of Hammurabi later) in today’s Iraq. 

Genesis 12:1-4 says Abraham was 75 years old when God told him to leave Haran (in today’s SE Turkey).  If that had been God’s first promise of a son for Abraham, we could say he had to wait 25 years to have his promised son.  But God made the same promise when he told Abraham to leave Ur.  So…

1. …how old was Abraham when he left Ur?
2. …how many years did he have to wait to have that son? 

Start counting.  Genesis 10:1 and 11:10-26 gives the genealogy of Noah down to the time of Terah and his son, Abraham.  You will see that Abraham was 58 years old when Noah died.  Perhaps that is when and why God told him to leave. While Noah was still alive, he could protect Abraham, one of the few who believed in one God.   The Bible does not say how old Abraham was when God called him out of Ur.  But this is one strong possibility.

Also, that would mean he had to wait 42 years to have that promised son, not 25. 

Such faith!  Such amazing faith!

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Oops of the Day  

The Bible says no prophet ever came from the province of Galilee.  So how could Jesus be from Galilee?

John 7:52  –  Bible Book of Jonah  –  Bible Book of Nahum.

Fact of the Day

No!  The people being quoted in the Bible were lying!  They hated Jesus and wanted to get people to stop believing in him.  So, they said this.  

JONAH, a book in the Bible is about a prophet named Jonah.  He lived in Gath-hepher, not far from Nazareth in the province of Galilee.

NAHUM, a book in the Bible, is about the prophecies of Nahum.  The important, walled city in Galilee, Caper-naum means “city of Nahum” and is on the Sea of Galilee.

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Oops of the Day  

The Samaritan woman at the well had lived with five men not her husband and the current one was not.  And she was an outcast since she went to the well at noon (Jewish time) or 5:00 PM (Roman time) and everyone always got their day’s supply of water in the morning.

John 4:15-18 – John 4:39-42

Fact of the Day

No!  This woman had gone through the agony of being widowed five times! True, her sixth was not her husband, but she had been married to the others and lost them probably in tragedies of diseases and accidents and maybe    even war.  Would you like to live through the deaths of five spouses? Jesus never said she was an adulterer.  He never said she had lived with all five men without marrying them. He only said she was doing wrong with the 6th man.  She was respected in the city. When she told people about Jesus, she influenced the WHOLE CITY to go to Jesus and hear him.  Let’s be careful how we judge others, and be careful not to follow the crowd.

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Oops of the Day  

When Christians die, they go to paradise and have to wait for heaven.

Luke 16:19-31  –  John 3:13  –  Luke 23:39-44  –  Ephesians 4:8  –  Revelation 22:2  –  Philippians 1:23  –  Revelation 10:6 (KJV)

Fact of the Day

No! Jesus’ parable of the beggar dying and going to Abraham was before he died and conquered Satan by coming back to life.  The Mosaic Law was still in effect.  The same with Jesus on the cross and telling the other crucified one he would be in paradise.

 Jesus referred to paradise while he was still alive.  But he descended to Paradise to bring captives up in his train, for the tree of life formerly in the paradise of Eden is now in heaven. Now, when the Christian dies, he is immediately with Jesus.  Is Jesus not in heaven?

Since in our next life “time will be no more” it seems the Day of Judgment will be for each of us the day we die.

Remember the times when Paul said he looked forward to dying and being with Jesus?  He didn’t say he was going to be with Abraham.  Oh, happy day!

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Surprise of the Day  

Why did Jesus keep telling people “Yes, yes,” “Truly, truly,” “Verily, verily”?

John 1:51  –  John 3:3 & 5 & 11  –  John 5:19 & 24 & 35  –  John 6:26 & 32 & 47 & 53  –  John 8:34 & 51 & 58  –  John 10:1 & 7  –  John 12:24  –   John 13:16 & 20-21 & 38  –  John 14:12  –  John 16:20 & 23  –  John 21:18

Fact of the Day

Twenty-five times in his life of Christ, the Apostle John quoted Jesus as saying, “Truly, truly.”  The King James Version reads “Verily, verily.”  It seems silly to write it that way.  But remember, Jesus was the Way, the Truth, the Life.  He was saying, “I AM telling you the truth.  OTHERS will not.  You need to hear this.  Don’t believe everything people tell you.  Believe what I am telling you.  You can trust me because I AM TRUTH.”

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